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The “frivolous tyranny of beauty”
🤦 $81trn | 🖼️ Stealing Mona | 🏆 Oscars loser
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The “frivolous tyranny of beauty”
A headteacher in Lincolnshire has removed the mirrors from his school’s bathrooms, says Jemima Lewis in The Daily Telegraph. Pupils were spending so much time “preening and primping” that they kept rocking up late to lessons, and those genuinely needing the loo had to elbow through crowds of “mirror-struck Narcissi”. I sympathise with Mr Edgar. My own children rarely walk past a mirror without stopping to “gaze seductively at themselves” or apply yet another “sedimentary” layer of beauty serum. Sure, teenagers have always been preoccupied with their appearance. The difference with today’s lot is that they’re entirely unembarrassed about it.
When I was a teenager in the 1980s, there was nothing more embarrassing than being caught in flagrante during the “shameful, ludicrous act” of looking at yourself in the mirror. Some of this was the baked-in Christian belief that vanity was a sin. Unusually, our second-wave feminist mothers were in agreement with the Lord, urging us to be women of substance and free of the “frivolous tyranny of beauty”. It worked. I almost never looked at the mirror and largely assumed the best when it came to my appearance – when my mother had family photos developed I was bemused that my place had been taken by a “fat girl with acne and braces”. But then came the forward-facing camera phone. Today’s teens will each take around 30,000 selfies in their lifetime, spending hours poring over their imperfections in minute detail. Sorry to be old-fashioned, but Mr Edgar – like our mothers, and like God – is right to crack down on this stuff. Every hour wasted in front of the mirror, “applying retinol cream with a special jade roller”, is an hour not spent reading a book.
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Heroes and villains
Harrison giving a donation in 1992. Simon Alekna/Fairfax Media/Getty
Hero
James Harrison, an Australian blood donor known as “The Man with the Golden Arm”, who died this week aged 88. Harrison’s plasma contained a rare and precious antibody called anti-D, which is used to prevent a potentially fatal condition in newborns called rhesus disease. He began giving blood as soon as he turned 18 and didn’t miss a single fortnightly session until he hit the maximum donation age of 81. Doctors say he likely saved the lives of 2.4 million babies.
Villains
Citigroup, which mistakenly credited a customer’s account with $81trn. Two employees missed the error before a third finally spotted something was amiss, 90 minutes after the internal transfer had been posted. The customer is probably entitled to some interest for the time the money sat in his account, says Charles Arthur in The Overspill. At a 2% rate, that would amount to around £9bn.
Villains
The chefs at the House of Lords, who have been accused of serving food worse than you’d find “in any garden centre”. The parliamentary authorities have also received complaints about a mouse which “made an appearance” during a catered event, and scones that “crumbled very easily”.
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