DIY cosmetic surgery seems worthwhile, if only to lift the corners

Sunday Herald, The, Jul 15, 2007 by Tom Shields

YOU have to admire man's ability to triumph over common sense. The most extreme indicator of irrational behaviour was last week's headline that "DIY cosmetic surgery is on the upsurge". Psychologist Dr David Veale revealed that people with a desperate desire for a bodily makeover (as seen on the telly) but without the money to achieve this are doing it for themselves.

Examples. A man who didn't like his nose pushed a chisel up a nostril, did a bit of excavation, and then replaced the cartilage with a chicken bone. Wish-bone fulfilment you might call it. Another chap, dissatisfied with his chin, deliberately cycled into the back of a lorry in an attempt to fracture his jaw so that it could be reset more to his liking. Sadly, the result was an undamaged chin but a fractured skull. Other cases of home surgery included the man who used a staple gun to fix loose facial skin and a woman who could not afford liposuction so she simply cut into the offending lumpy bits and squeezed out the fat. A less painful procedure, but still not recommended, is glueing back those sticky-oot ears.

These sad people suffer from body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), an obsessive and usually unfounded dislike of their features. BDD is increasingly fuelled, says Dr Veale, by our celebrity culture. Despite the depredations of age, I am thankfully free of BDD. Having grown up in a city where there are plenty of people who will readily alter your face for you, I am happy to stick with what I've got.

PET WITH A CRUSH ON KIDS

ALSO high up in the illogicality stakes is the bloke from Bathgate who bought a python on the internet. The man, who confessed to being no expert on matters herpetological, thought he had purchased a common or living-room royal python which grows to only five feet and feeds on rodents. He was perturbed to discover that he had been sent a reticulated python which would reach 30ft and was so fond of children it could eat a whole one.

He said: "When I was told by a man on an internet forum that I actually had a python which can eat a man I was really worried and feared for my daughter's safety as it was in a tank in the living room. It makes me really annoyed to think that all I did was give my name, address and GBP250 and I had a really dangerous animal a few days later in my home." I have some advice here. Don't buy pythons on the internet. In fact, don't have any snakes whatsoever in the house. For a start, the python is definitely going to hog the sofa. Then it will escape. But you will know it is somewhere in the house because children keep going missing.Your python will turn up. Probably when you sit down on the WC and Monty emerges from the U- bend, peckish and mistaking your dangly bits for a tasty rodent. It's really all too Pythonesque for words.

Big man, just buy the weans a puppy.

THEY FLEW FROM GLASGOW

REASONABLY high on the let's-do-somethingdifferent scale was the decision by the Egan family of Plymouth to take their eight-year- old son Jack on holiday to Afghanistan. It was a chance for Egan junior to see where his dad works as a landmine clearance specialist for the United Nations. Previous family holidays were to Bosnia and Beirut when faither was based in those holiday havens.

Fear not, it wasn't all that dangerous for wee Jack in Afghanistan. The family travelled in a convoy of three 4x4 vehicles with armed guards in front and behind. Jack visited various minefields and got to wear body armour just like Princess Diana, but didn't get to detonate any mines. And when he was photographed with an AK-47, it wasn't loaded.

He did get to meet a lot of friendly Afghans. His mum said: "They welcomed Jack with open arms and wouldn't stop kissing him and shaking his hand." Which must have been quite traumatic for an eight- year-old lad. Jack didn't get to Helmand or Kandahar where the Taliban action is. His mum added: "I reckon we were safer over there than in many other holiday destinations like Spain or Bali, or even at Glasgow Airport." Never mind, Jack, maybe you'll get to Glasgow next year.

IN HAREM'S WAY

WORTHY of a gong for eccentric, if not irrational, behaviour is Jane Felix-Browne, the English granny who married Osama bin Laden's son Omar. Mrs Felix-Browne, who cuts a dash in the Cheshire village of Moulton in her Jaguar with Egyptian number plates, met Omar, 26, while on holiday. They married in April in Cairo. She is unperturbed by the age difference (she is 51) and by the fact that Omar already has a wife he lives with. She will not be adopting the bin Laden family name. As she says: "I don't think it would go down well at the airport." The bin Ladens are a vast and wealthy Saudi Arabian dynasty who made their money out of construction. They renovated Mecca (the shrine, not the chain of bingo halls). It's just that her father-in-law is a bit of black sheep, preferring to destroy buildings rather than construct them.

Mrs Felix-Browne is keeping an open mind. She said it would be "nice" to meet the al-Qaeda leader and chat about the 9/11 attack. She said: "I think it would be very interesting to find out if he really did it or not." The CIA and MI6 and a few others would probably like to have a similar chat if Osama ever turns up for tea at her home in Moulton. Meanwhile, the neighbours can look forward to a whole new dimension to Mrs Felix-Browne-bin-Laden's holiday snaps: "This is me at dad-in-law's cave in Pakistan. And this is me with a nice family from Plymouth I met in Afghanistan."