Express & Star

Kay puts on brave face after procedure

Sarah Cowen-Strong discusses the merits of having the odd nip and tuck and asks if you're cracking up over your mobile phone.

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Kay Burley

Love her or hate here Sky’ Television’s Kay Burley is certainly a character. I rather went off her over the misjudged dog photo tweeted at the time of the Bataclan terror attack….’(Sadness in his eyes, I ask you!)....but if you admire honesty, Ms Burley’s your woman.

Although she hasn’t confirmed the cost, she had verified that, yes, she did have a major facelift for her 50th birthday. (Her bank balance was, reportedly, £10,000 lighter afterwards).

Unlike other leading ladies who put their sudden acquisition of the flawless face of a teenager down to yoga and drinking goat’s urine, she talks about it quite openly. She tells the story of how, on returning to work from her procedure, she emailed all her newsroom colleagues to put them straight along with the challenge ‘If you want more details just come and talk to me.’

I can’t imagine anyone approaching her at the water cooler with ‘Ooh Kay, let’s see your stitches, now lift your hair up and let’s have a proper look.’

She said she was open because she didn’t want people whispering behind her back. Hmmm, I don’t know if that worked, but I do know that she missed a trick. To look young these days, all you have to do is sculpt some dramatic eyebrows and smash the front of your phone in.

Owning a phone with a screen not shattered into a million pieces has become the technological equivalent of doing up your top button, wearing a mac on a rainy night out or wearing driving gloves.

It appears only the very old and very uncool use the clever and I think pretty nifty phone cases available. Why you would not want to protect one of the most valuable items, that are such a feature of the rough and tumble of daily life I don’t know.

To me it defies logic - a bit like sporting ripped jeans and uncombed hair. No, it seems that carrying a vandalised item around with you keeps the years off.

Popping a pristine phone down on the pub table will see you marked as ancient or a nerd.. But I don’t care. Perhaps Kay has got it right. Maybe it’s just a lot neater to have a nip and tuck.

Talking of procedures, I’ve inadvertently had one. I leapt at the chance of having some cryotherapy to get rid of a mole-like ugliness on the end of my nose. Believing myself to be out of action for a few weeks down to a small, straight-forward shoulder op I rejoiced in the fact that I would be recovering at home anyway and few people would see the after-effects The doctor’s 20-second onslaught with a dose of liquid nitrogen brought tears to my eyes and the frozen face I was left with afterwards I found a little unnerving.

But not nearly as unnerving as learning that my original op was postponed - leaving me having to go to work with a large unsightly scab forming in the middle of my nose over the next few days.

More unnerving still was the number of people who didn’t even notice and said they couldn’t see any difference.

Maybe I should have sent round an office email…