Here comes the No 1 gruesome invention of the century: the bra you wear 1cm under your skin, called Cup&Up. Dr Eyal Gur, head of microsurgery at the Sourasky medical centre in Tel Aviv, has thought up this ghastly procedure, and claims that droves of women are clamouring to have it done for a few thousand pounds.
They must be raving mad because this is what it entails: two sling-shaped silicone cups are inserted through slits beneath each breast. Then, to hold them up, threads are stitched on and attached to your upper ribs with titanium screws. Ouch. What's more - and this is meant to be a bonus - you can have it done under local anaesthetic. You can be aware of the process, and be home in time for tea.
I tell everyone about this grisly plan; their jaws drop open and they all ask the same question. "Why?" Why indeed. What is wrong with droopy bosoms? If you really, truly love them, then you should surely love them throughout their gentle decline, but throughout history there seems to have been an ongoing quest to have them hauled up around your neck, overflowing in some way or other and divided by a Grand Canyon cleavage.
Howard Hughes - in desperate straits in 1943 with his film project The Outlaw about to collapse before filming had even begun and an unknown starlet, Jane Russell, as main protagonist - knew that he needed the Grand Canyon effect to save his bacon. He called in aeronautical engineers to design an appropriate brassiere, and bingo - La Russell became an overnight star and the film a winner. With just your common, external brassiere.
We don't need Dr Gur. He is going too far. His plan doesn't even seem to be just for huge, or particularly pendulous bosoms. It's for anyone who desires an "enhanced cleavage", and does not wish to wear a bra - except when doing sports.
Can it be worth it, just so that persons can stare in a glazed way at your chest? Notice that a man invented Cup&Up. Perhaps men should keep out of the world of breasts and brassieres. It is a female world and we should be in charge of it. My friend Clayden entered it recently. He was obliged to help a friend by collecting her giant bra from a specialist shop. Down he went into the warm basement to join the queue - the only chap among dozens of women with tremendously large bosoms, some confidently popping in and out of their cubicles wearing the brassieres.
"There was an atmosphere of worship of the breast - a sort of pride, no embarrassment," says Clayden. He felt rather intimidated, in a heavenly sort of way, but tried his best not to show it or stare. "It was a strange situation," he said, "unique rather than thrilling. I was seeing another world. Like being a plumber in the harem."
This world is no place for Dr Gur. But women determined to go ahead with his grisly "Minimally Invasive Mastopexy" (the first one is planned for this autumn in Belgium) may like to know that the implants have been tried inside a pig's chest wall. "Pigs' skin most closely resembles human skin, and the Cup&Up held in place nicely," says Adi Cohen, the head of the company promoting the procedure. Not really kosher for Tel Aviv. Not really kosher for anywhere.
Parents who smoke spliffs in front of children can now be arrested, taken to the police station, given a formal warning and allowed home again. That's all. Shadow home secretary David Davies and his followers are outraged. They presumably want a harsher punishment. But what? Flogging? Prison? That's too brutal. And why even tick them off? It won't make the weeniest difference. I know because I have tried.
Once upon a time, I had a partner who insisted on smoking dope, binge style, for days on end. It made him babble rubbish ceaselessly, day and night, gobble up my mother's cakes and offer my child, struggling with GCSEs at the time, the odd spliff. Or he might ponce spliffs from her chums, while using what he thought to be hip language that he felt would endear him to the young and make him seem cool. The young were not impressed. And it all brought great shame upon me, for having such a clot of a partner.
How many times did I tick him off, reprimand, break down, ban him from the house, scream and shout, extract promises of abstinence which were never kept, explain that my daughter was at a vital stage of her life in which drugs were to be avoided, insist that he not undermine me? Hundreds of times. And did it make a difference? Not the slightest. I feel fairly bitter about all this, and guilty for not sacking him at once. I longed at the time for the harshest of punishments - the rack, the stocks, the wheel or a fetid dungeon. But it wasn't allowed, and our relationship mouldered on and eventually died, poisoned mainly by dope.
I was never all that keen on the stuff, and naturally I now can't bear it, but this is a difficult problem because there are different ways of smoking dope in front of children. There's the rather poncy "aren't we liberal and laid back - we let our children share a joint at dinner" sort, and there are street druggies hoping to recruit disciples and runners and wreck a few more lives. Formal cautions will stop none of them. Perhaps our best hope is the young themselves. They always try their very best to distance themselves from grown-ups. In these cases, they must try harder.
This week Michele read Clean: a History of Hygiene and Personal Purity by Virginia Smith: "Colourful, impeccably researched, riveting, accessible and full of surprises, like partying and feasting in the baths." Michele watched Young Elvis in Colour on ITV1: "At last, a film about the Elvis we knew and loved - beautiful, talented and smouldering. Before the ghastly white jumpsuit."
