I used a filter to make my saggy lines disappear and I'll admit I looked good

UNTIL very recently, the only filter I used was for water in my kitchen.

I rarely regulate what comes out of my gob, but then you know that already. But the other day I used a filter on a post of myself for my Instagram.


As I don’t often wear make-up and I was a couple of inches deep in it at the time, I grabbed the opportunity to take some pics to promote something a person had kindly gifted me.

I have to say, it looked good. It was a gentle filter, one that just slightly blurs the lines on your face that inevitably appear when you’re a 54-year-old bird. Unless, of course, you’re a 50-plus bird who’s been filled and Botoxed to the hilt and only look 29.

That’s not me. I have lines. I have sagginess. I have a face that could tell 1,000 stories and my complexion couldn’t be further from dewy if it tried. In fact, I’m sure it never has been.

As soon as I’d posted the pics I got lots of positive comments about me and the product I was showing off. In among them I had a bevy of accusations because I was using a filter — expressions of vitriol for faking it. It was harsh. Initially, it took my breath away — and then I got angry.

Point is, I rarely, if ever, use a filter. Granted, as someone who doesn’t wear make-up day to day while I’m at home fannying about with work, tending to the dog or doing the housework, it would never occur to me to “put a face on”.

Make-up works wonders and can hide a multitude of sins but I just can’t be a**ed. I’m not going to lie, I find it tedious, laborious and somewhat suffocating. So it has happened that I have used a filter on a “story” on Instagram. But these “stories” expire after 24 hours, so for me and my posse of followers, it’s a mere glimpse into a brief moment of my life.

It’s at this point I have to hold my hand up. Despite frowning (a proper, old-fashioned frown that doesn’t emerge from a face frozen by Botox) at all the ladies and some men out there on social media, who use filters constantly, I’ve now found myself getting sucked into using them.

I just can’t deny their genius any more. My justification is always that they are subtle and purely enhancing. I’m not using them to change my shape or turn me into someone I’m not.

I’ve become so conditioned to seeing perfection on Instagram. I’ve become so immersed in the glory of other people’s resplendence, in excellence, youth, engineered purity, splendour and magnificence that lil’ ol’ me, bare-faced, just isn’t cutting it.

I’ve subconsciously been measuring myself against these examples of perfection and clearly some part of my brain has urged me to up my game. I can’t deny that seeing others looking smooth and magnificent has triggered a subliminal need for survival.

And yet, this goes against the grain of all I’ve so far curated on my Instagram feed. I show food and dogs and me looking very basic and everyday. Not much glam and even less glitz. For me, it’s been about reality, in the old sense of the word.

I’ve always reserved admiration for those celebs like my old SAS buddy Vicky Pattison, as well as mere mortals, who are content to show both the splendour of filters and a full face of make-up, but also the grainy, blemished, exhausted images with all their imperfections.

Before you know it, you and everyone around you have forgotten what you look like in real life.

Even Michelle Heaton, who is currently battling against addiction, has admitted succumbing to the pressures of using filters. But she also showed herself without them.

It’s disappointing that I temporarily joined the people who have a daily dependency on digital enhancements. I can well imagine they become addictive.

Before you know it, you and everyone around you have forgotten what you look like in real life. It was for this very reason I posted a picture of myself naked, in aid of men’s mental health charity StrongMen, earlier in the summer.

Not only was I naked but I was bare. I was baring myself and there wasn’t a filter in sight. I don’t see many others making the same nude commitment.

So, me using one on the odd occasion feels paltry in comparison. I have to confess, I can’t escape the feeling that social media feels like it’s very much a young person’s game.

I’m a technophobe and I don’t have youth on my side. But it’s crucial we commit to a greater transparency on these platforms. We have a generation of girls and boys consuming a diet of perfection and, like me, it’s making them feel less worthy — and plain miserable.

Clifton's psychological battle

I WAS shocked to see pictures of ex-Strictly dancer Joanne Clifton struggling out of her car.

This woman used to fly across the dance floor, glided like an angel and was as flexible as a rubber doll.

Now, at 38, she has to use a supportive grip attached to her car to assist her after being diagnosed with osteoarthritis.

It is estimated more than eight million people in the UK suffer from this most common form of arthritis. I’m one of them.

Weird thing is, throughout my life I didn’t realise it wasn’t normal to have pain in your hips. Mine is chronic and I guess I’ve been living with it for most of my life.

It was only when the pain was getting persistently bad a couple of years ago that I went to my GP. I don’t have pain every day but sitting for long periods of time is murder.

Getting up from the floor can be an impossibility. And swinging from the chandelier presents new challenges. Seeing Joanne was a reminder of what lies ahead. I’m not quite due a hip replacement but I suspect I will be in the coming years.

I can’t dance for toffee. For Joanne, it’s her life’s work – and what that does to her psychologically must be half the battle.

CAMILLA, VOICE OF REASON

THE wonderful Duchess of Cornwall – you know, the third woman in Charles and Diana’s relationship – has spoken brilliantly about men’s role in the harassment of women.

We all judged her for years without ever hearing her voice.

Speaking at this week’s launch of the Shameless! Festival, and wearing a Women Of The World badge, she gave an impassioned speech about how we need all men on board to tackle this issue.

Of course, she’s only highlighting what the rest of us have been saying, what all of us feel, what all of us have experienced in one form or another. Those who say that it’s not all men, are wrong.

All males, we know, need to take responsibility for behaviours which have simply been endured by women for centuries. Not all men are violent, not all men are bad. That goes without saying.

But while some act appallingly, many stand by in silence. As Camilla pointed out, rapists aren’t born, they are constructed. The duchess lending her voice to this powerful movement for change is really important. I’ve long admired her.

She may have been silent for years, allowing others to judge her without any knowledge or experience of what she is really like.

But I for one feel enormously grateful that someone of her standing has been allowed to have her voice heard. Because she’s a smart bird. And one with empathy and great understanding.

ALL GO FOR TV DATING

SO the cat’s out of the bag. Yes, it’s true. I’ve signed up to Celebs Go Dating. Madness or genius? I’m still not sure.

I’d never seen the show when I was approached to take part. But with a best friend screaming its virtues in my ear, how could I decline? I am the mum/grandma of our divine group of twentysomething celebs. I may be old but I ain’t dead.

It seems appropriate to join the show as it has emerged that Sue and Alex Tatham, the first couple from Cilla Black’s Blind Date to get married, have just celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary.

The pair met on the show in 1988. So there is hope. I’ve been honest about the fact I’ve had more than a brush with dating apps over the past eight months and they’ve brought mixed rewards.

True, I’ve had some fun – some of it great – but it has also been, in part, soul-destroying. Apps have their place in our social lives and serve the marvellous purpose of helping us to connect with others, especially in the lockdowns we have had to endure over the past 18 months.

But I’m a dinosaur. I cling on to making connections with people I can physically meet. And the disposability of faces on an app which urges you to swipe left or right in a split second creates its own issues with our ability to see past purely the visual.

When your love life is in the hands of algorithms alone, you’re heading down a one-way street. And sometimes that’s a street sorely lacking in reality, substance or even genuine connection.

So, I’m hoping that putting my affairs in the hands of telly’s dating agents might create a little disruption. Because doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome is the definition of insanity. And we all know I’m a bit nuts. But I don’t want to go the whole hog just yet.

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