So You Think You Want Bigger Boobs (C4)

IT'S not the sort of thing that Jim would have fixed, but the makers of this programme did make Liverpool hairdresser Charlie's dream come true.

They equipped her with a pair of bigger breasts, specially designed falsies made by the company that produced models for Gladiator and The English Patient.

She'd always wanted to change her "little nippers" although the price tag of £3,000 for cosmetic surgery to change them wasn't one she was prepared to pay. A silicone body cast, worn night and day for ten days, gave her the chance to see and feel what it was like carrying around a pair of double Ds.

Her own efforts to enhance her natural endowments - tissues stuffed down her bra, a pump-up bra and make-up - had not been successful.

When D-day came, Charlie found bigger boobs meant bigger problems from the word go. "When I first put them on, I couldn't see my feet," she said.

The bits she could see required more work. "My nipples need a bit of filing down," she said, embarrassed by these outstanding false features.

The psychological uplift of feeling better about her body was offset by the physical difficulties of carrying around seven pounds of extra baggage on her chest.

She walked into doors with them and could no longer sleep on her front. Doing yoga classes proved impossible as her new boobs limited her manoeuvrability and dancing was hard because "they swing one way and your body swings the other".

By the end of this endlessly fascinating (well, I'm a man, I would say that, wouldn't I?) experiment, she was thoroughly disillusioned with increasing her bra size.

Charlie vowed never to moan about her real breasts again. "I didn't realise how hard it was for people with big boobs," she admitted. She had something else she wanted to get off her chest - those fake breasts.