Living the Gwyneth Paltrow way, but I’ve changed most of the rules

I have this awful problem. Like, seriously. I get to Paris, I’m kind of frazzled, I just need to kick off my Miu Miu buckled ballerina slippers and go get something to eat. You know? “And then my concierge sends sends me to some restaurant because they get a kickback, and I’m like ‘No’. Where should I really be? Where is the great bar with the organic wine? Where do I get a bikini wax in Paris?”

Tough at the top, eh? You better believe it!

Oh, wait. Sorry. Hang on a minute. I got mixed up there for a second. God. Sorry about that. For a minute there, I thought I was Gwyneth Paltrow. Crossed wires. The above quote is from the lissom Gwyn. Those plaintive words, that plea for understanding, for recognition, fell out of Gwynnie’s blushed lips, not mine.

Unfortunately, I’m not in Paris, so you won’t find me consulting a concierge on high-end dining recommendations and wandering the cobbled streets in my ballerina slippers, looking for an organic tipple. Me, I’m in bed with a head cold and the mangy cat.

My body is a sagging bicycle shed, graffitied over with years of toxic neglect

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Memory is an unreliable friend, a drunk in a bar

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Disorganised Christmas? Like Keano said, fail to prepare, prepare to fail

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I find Prince Harry marginally less odious than the rest of his royal tribe

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It’s the cough syrup. Imagine, me mixing myself up with Gwyneth Paltrow! Not, mind you, that it’s such a difficult mistake to make. We’re both blond and willowy with a wardrobe full of pastel cashmeres and an awful lot of money in the biscuit tin under the mattress. Oh no, hang on, that’s a damn lie too, isn’t it? Wow, I must be hallucinating. Maybe I have a temperature.

Nice to think I might consult a wise metaphysical guide rather than seek a woman who advocates squatting over a bucket of steaming mugwort to rejuvenate one's fanny

I was thinking about Paltrow in relation to my belated attempts to rustle up a couple of new year resolutions. It would be nice to think that my 2018 resolve would stretch a little further than shedding a couple of kilos and keeping my roots under control. Nice to think I’d be hell-bent on exercising my intellect rather than my abdomen. Nice to think I might consult a wise and cultivated metaphysical guide to see me through the coming days, rather than seek the counsel of a woman who advocates spending great swathes of one’s precious life squatting over a bucket of steaming mugwort to rejuvenate one’s fanny – but, hey, there you go.

Sensible woman

Gwyneth doesn’t actually believe in resolutions. A sensible woman, she knows how easy it is to fail when you set yourself impossible goals, preferring instead small, achievable targets. Here are a few you might consider:

One: start your day by drinking filtered water infused with organic lemons. Good thinking, Gwyn!

Two: install an infrared sauna for daily sessions to clear toxins, decrease inflammation, soothe muscles and increase overall energy. Eh, okay, could be a bit tricky though, like, if I built a sauna in my backyard. Where would I put the bicycles? And the cat?

Three: have a colonic. Colonics are especially beneficial during a detox, when the intestinal villi are busy pulling toxins out of your bloodstream and into your intestines.

Okay, would that be before or after I build the sauna? Or maybe during, while I’m swinging my lump hammer?

Four: have a bath, throwing in a detoxifying bath cube made of essential oils and botanical extracts, such as ginger, orange and thyme. Pas de problème, Gwn. I like this one; any old fool can lob a satsuma into the bath.

Five: exfoliate. Start by dry-brushing all over, followed by an alpha-hydroxy-acid-plus-salicylic-acid detox. Yep, take it from Gwyn: you ain’t going to find a more efficient skin-smoother than that yoke I just wrote down. Fabulous; unpronounceable but fabulous.

Born in 1927

Seriously, I mean, look at the woman. A well-groomed fortysomething, you might think, but Gwyneth was actually born in 1927! Oh no, hang on, that’s a typo; she was born in 1972. The long streak of squeaky-clean loveliness was probably taking her first teetering steps towards a bowl of mushed organic banana at around the same time I was saving up my pocket money to purchase my first packet of 10 Grand Parade. She would have been learning to say “Dada” and “alpha hydroxy acid” around the same time that I was singing along to my Peter Frampton album and chucking back my first bottle of Bulmer’s.

Not that I’m going to let that deter me. First thing in the morning I’ll be bouncing out of my tissue-littered pit to lash into the lemon water. And last thing at night I’ll finish my detox day in a bath awash with wrinkled mandarins (the edible variety).

It’s going to be one hell of a year, baby. I, for one, am taking all the help I can get.