Latest news with #AnthonyPowell
Sydney Morning Herald
09-05-2025
- Health
- Sydney Morning Herald
At 66, I've finally declared war on my wrinkles
At age 66, I've finally succumbed to face cream. I bought it at the chemist at the ridiculous price of $27.95 for a tiny jar. It's imported from Switzerland and promises to 'remove wrinkles'. Inspired by time-honoured male wisdom, I quickly decided that since a tiny amount is said to benefit the skin, giant handfuls of the stuff will be even more advantageous. Which is why I now start every morning looking like Marcel Marceau. Why has vanity suddenly overtaken me? I have never previously taken any trouble over my appearance. Up to now, I've been influenced by that lovely chunk of wisdom from Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time, warning against 'the awful fate of the man who always knows the right clothes to wear and the right shop to buy them at'. I've worn torn jeans, rock T-shirts from before Midnight Oil was famous, and assorted shirts from that well-known businessman's accoutre-rer, Harris Scarfe Ulladulla. I have jumpers with 'built-in air-conditioning', my name for the holes that decorate both front and back, and shorts that could easily lead to a charge of public indecency. And yet, here I am, slathering my cracked skin with face cream, offering particularly copious offerings to a section, just below my right eye, which has developed a large vertical gully, much like you'd see in a poorly farmed Western Australian wheat field. In my anxiety, I'm reminded of a famous quote from George Orwell. 'At 50,' he wrote, 'everyone has the face he deserves.' I first read this when I was 15 and happily imagined the face I'd have 35 years later – one marked by a lifetime of laughter, with a sunburst of lines radiating from my mouth, and some crinkled kindness around the eyes. Not a bit of it. At 66, it's just cruel thin lips, a forehead that's had a plough through it, and this unexpected outbreak of cheek-based erosion. And so I slather on the expensive cream, a tightwad appalled by his own extravagance, as well as by his own tiresome vanity. 'You are a terrible person,' I say to my mirrored image, as I scoop out another over-priced handful.
The Age
09-05-2025
- Health
- The Age
At 66, I've finally declared war on my wrinkles
At age 66, I've finally succumbed to face cream. I bought it at the chemist at the ridiculous price of $27.95 for a tiny jar. It's imported from Switzerland and promises to 'remove wrinkles'. Inspired by time-honoured male wisdom, I quickly decided that since a tiny amount is said to benefit the skin, giant handfuls of the stuff will be even more advantageous. Which is why I now start every morning looking like Marcel Marceau. Why has vanity suddenly overtaken me? I have never previously taken any trouble over my appearance. Up to now, I've been influenced by that lovely chunk of wisdom from Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time, warning against 'the awful fate of the man who always knows the right clothes to wear and the right shop to buy them at'. I've worn torn jeans, rock T-shirts from before Midnight Oil was famous, and assorted shirts from that well-known businessman's accoutre-rer, Harris Scarfe Ulladulla. I have jumpers with 'built-in air-conditioning', my name for the holes that decorate both front and back, and shorts that could easily lead to a charge of public indecency. And yet, here I am, slathering my cracked skin with face cream, offering particularly copious offerings to a section, just below my right eye, which has developed a large vertical gully, much like you'd see in a poorly farmed Western Australian wheat field. In my anxiety, I'm reminded of a famous quote from George Orwell. 'At 50,' he wrote, 'everyone has the face he deserves.' I first read this when I was 15 and happily imagined the face I'd have 35 years later – one marked by a lifetime of laughter, with a sunburst of lines radiating from my mouth, and some crinkled kindness around the eyes. Not a bit of it. At 66, it's just cruel thin lips, a forehead that's had a plough through it, and this unexpected outbreak of cheek-based erosion. And so I slather on the expensive cream, a tightwad appalled by his own extravagance, as well as by his own tiresome vanity. 'You are a terrible person,' I say to my mirrored image, as I scoop out another over-priced handful.
Daily Mail
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Which 3 books leave Reeta Chakrabarti cold?
What Book ... ... are you reading now? I HAVE just finished I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, which is one of the most extraordinary novels I've ever read. It was published in the mid-1990s, but is now being rediscovered – my daughter and her friend read it, and passed it on to me. Thirty-nine women and one female child live in a cage for as long as the child can remember, kept imprisoned by male guards. One day there is a sudden commotion and the men flee, leaving the cage open. What ensues is devastating and impenetrable. I hope someone explains it to me one day. ...would you take to a desert island? Impossible to imagine having only one book, but given that I would at last have the luxury of many hours with nothing to do, let me cheat and take a series. Anthony Powell's A Dance To The Music Of Time is a 12-parter – I got halfway through it some years back. When I was much younger and more energetic I also got halfway through Marcel Proust's In Search Of Lost Time. I can see a theme emerging here, to do with time and halfway through. ...first gave you the reading bug? Like all children of my vintage, I read a lot of Enid Blyton and Louisa May Alcott. But the first 'proper' book was Jane Eyre, which fell into my hands when I was eight, probably because Bronte was next to Blyton in the library. I don't know what I made of the romance or of the mad woman in the attic, but I was gripped by the cruelty meted out to young Jane by her cold-hearted aunt, and the deprivations she suffers at Lowood school. I have been a reader ever since. ... left you cold? I HAVE never got beyond the first page of Moby Dick. I am assured that a treat awaits me if I persevere, so one day perhaps I will. I struggle with Virginia Woolf and feel guilty, as she's the sort of author I ought to like in principle. I am a huge fan of Kazuo Ishiguro but had to plod my way through The Buried Giant. And while I read Ulysses once for my literature degree, I am very unlikely ever to pick it up again. (I hope my husband doesn't see this, he loves it…)
