en-uk ?, 30 10 2007 15:37:29 GMT Copyright 2007 Times Newspapers Ltd. custserv@timesonline.co.uk http://www.timesonline.co.uk Sat, 11 Jul 2009 23:23:36 GMT Newspapers 144 21 http://www.timesonline.co.uk http://images.thetimes.co.uk/TGD/picture/0,,116979,00.gif Janice Turner Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-07-10T09:27:38Z I was chatting to a bunch of twentysomethings recently about which women they admired. “I’m a big Judi Dench person,” said one. Another proclaimed a passion for Helen Mirren. There was much warm agreement. But, I protested, these dames could be your grandmas. What about — I dunno — Scarlett Johansson? Well, they liked to see what she wore. But Helen and Judi had presence, dignity, were above the celebrity fray. Janice Turner Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-07-04T12:12:28Z My friend L, for years a magazine editor of sharp tailoring and formidable repute, has been helping out her local hoodies. When introduced to these huge, surly, baseball-capped lunks, her first instinct was to flee. They were Neets — that growing pariah group of kids not in education, employment or training — with barely a GCSE between them. Nonetheless L had volunteered to help them to draw up CVs, so she rolled up her sleeves, as she put it, “to try to make s*** shine”. Janice Turner Sat, 27 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-06-26T09:18:17Z Outside UCLA hospital they gather with their candles and their teddies, spooky lookalikes in full Thriller garb, wan teenagers wearing a single lace glove. They sway and sing I’ll Be There with sad faces to disguise the serotonin buzz from their frenzied collective mourn-in. Fans cry now for Michael Jackson, but they killed him. They always do. Janice Turner Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT 2009-06-19T10:37:19Z Someday soon, lying naked on a glass bed having ultraviolet rays ten times more powerful than our sun bake your epidermis will appear in the Bonkers Book of Beauty along with Elizabethans whitening their faces with lead. Someday soon, I hope, people will no more spend their leisure time being radiated in high street outlets called Tanz In ’Ere or Sun of the Beach than they would take a dip in the cooling pool of a nuclear power plant. Janice Turner Sat, 13 Jun 2009 00:00:27 GMT 2009-06-12T09:59:46Z In New York last week I attended my first catwalk fashion show. I found the bubbling backstage hysteria, unfathomable lateness, social anxiety about who was sitting where, that grave frivolity when frocks meet finance, all pretty much as billed. But the girls! Truly, nothing prepares you for being within touching range of models performing that absurd dressage prance.