Do you feel Absolutely Fabulous?: JILL TWEEDIE, writer

IT'S the job of those women who are paraded in front of us as perfect specimens to look like that. It's probably 50 per cent of what they do - in Joan Collins's case, 90 per cent. It's like telling us we should all play the piano as well as Mozart. The idea that you too could look like that if you only got up off your fat bum is a big con. Which is not to say that a lot of women aren't looking better for a lot longer. But to look like one of those 'role models' demands a lot of money. And any woman who's got another way of spending her life won't do it.

It's one of the unfairnesses of life that we prefer the way some people look. We'd all like to pretend that it was a great relief to get to a certain age and not have to worry any more - and some will pretend very hard. There is, I suppose, a liberation in that you haven't got men all around fancying you. The sex thing isn't there, or it's very muted. You don't have to play roles in the same way, which is a relief.

(Photographs omitted)