Tuning in to our inner princess

CINDERELLA has a lot to answer for... Ever since that Fairy Godmother scattered stardust from her wand and said "Yes, you shall go to the ball"- the rest of us have wanted to go too.

There is something about the chance to dress up that takes us out of our everyday world for a while. We all know, deep in our hearts, that actually we were meant for a grander life than the one we have. After all, a girl can dream, can't she?

And it's the Cinderella season. Students who spend the rest of the year dressing from Oxfam and living on beans and toast will forget the rent for the chance to wear a posh frock to a May ball, dance till dawn and pretend - for one night at least - that they are living the life of another more leisured and moneyed generation.

Huge stretch limos are manoeuvring down narrow roads and streets collecting gaggles of giggling girls and blushing boys, all dressed up to the nines for sixth form proms. OK it's an American custom, but why not? They look great, feel fabulous and it's a lot more glamorous than the sweaty discos we had to mark the end of school.

And worth it for the shock to any mother of seeing her scruffy lad all rigged out in a DJ with a passable resemblance to James Bond. Who'd have thought it, eh?

There is no logic to dressing up really. I mean, who decided that spiky heels, silk suits and elaborate hats are the proper dress for a muddy racecourse? Mad, but fun.

Even the rich and famous, who presumably have more chances to dress up than the rest of us, are not immune. Just look at the pictures of guests at the Beckhams' party.

Their dressing up box might be more expensive than those the rest of us have access to, but their glee was pretty much the same - and many of them were equally unrecognisable.

Dressing up is possibly pointless, but so what? Sometimes we all need to get in touch with our inner princess. After all, the clock will strike midnight soon enough - and then we'll all be changed back to pumpkins again.

It's time to think of Beatrice

SO, no, she wont still need him when hes 64. It was obvious when he started dyeing his hair that very strange colour that the marriage was doomed.

But as Sir Paul McCartney very publicly goes one way and his Lady has gone another last seen heading for Yugoslavia you cant help wondering where their two-year-old daughter Beatrice is in all this.

I think we should spare a thought for her.

OF course, David Cameron is right. We all need to find a good work/life balance, especially in the week when a new support group has been launched for workaholics, and the first Lottery winner, Ken Southwell of York, died, so young at 46-years-old.

But saying that there is more to life than money possibly comes a little bit more easily to a privileged old Etonian whose parents have just sold a couple of paintings for over a million pounds, than it does to the rest of us wage slaves.

There is only more to life than money when you already have enough of it.

For most of us a decent work/life balance will have to wait at least until weve paid the mortgage.

NEARLY 3,000 innocent people have lost the chance of jobs because the Criminal Records Office has labelled them, quite wrongly, as criminals in so many cases of mistaken identity.

A government spokesman says blithely that the figure represents only a very small percentage.Maybe. But would you trust this lot to introduce ID cards properly?

LAST week I set off from Middleton Tyas, near Richmond, for Cardiff and the launch of the Welsh Woman of the Year (see Tuesdays paper).

At the crowded event in the amazing Millennium Centre, I finally found a table.

Another woman joined me, looked at my name badge and said: "I used to live in The Northern Echo area, near Richmond"

Oh yes.

"Well, outside really"

Oh yes.

"A small village near Scotch Corner." Dont tell me...

"Middleton Tyas."

I dont know how many people from Middleton Tyas were in Cardiff that day, but the chances of two of them meeting at the only spare table in the Millennium Centre, were I guess, pretty remote.

Then it turned out that the person I had gone to interview had lived in the same small Welsh town where I grew up. Her partner worked 50 yards from my house.

So if coincidences are ruling my life, how come they dont rule my lottery numbers?

THERE is nothing new under the sun.Now the government wants to weigh four-year-olds as part of the battle against obesity.

Our generation was weighed regularly in visits from the school nurse only more, I think, to ensure we werent suffering from malnutrition than an excess of Spangles.

Another expert has said that we shouldnt give children choice in their school dinners, but just feed them all the same healthy balanced meal.

Sound familiar?

And if you dont want them to go out of school to buy burgers and chips, well, you just ban them from leaving school premises during the day.

Well, what a breakthrough.

As the experts re-invent everything that was commonplace in schools in the 1950s and 60s, I now look forward to the reintroduction of lots of sport, cross-country running, compulsory Latin and silly little caps for boys even strapping sixth formers.

Give it time.

BACKCHAT

Dear Sharon,

IN 1966 I was an office junior in a solicitors office in Newcastle, earning the princely sum of 7 a week.

I well remember blowing most of my pay packet - about 5.10 I think - on a pair of imitation white Courreges boots, as worn by Twiggy.

Only mine were plastic and made my feet smell.

I thought they were the most beautiful things imaginable and couldn't understand why my mother was angry at the amount of money I spent.

Even the cheap and cheerful fashions we wore in the 1960s took some saving up for.

Luckily, my friends and I were well taught at school and could make many of our own clothes.

A remnant was enough for a mini skirt and we could make one in an evening.

It's great that we can buy clothes so cheaply now but sad that we no longer make so many in this country.

At the moment countries in the East sell us clothes very cheaply. If they decide to put their prices up we will be well and truly caught out as we have almost lost the skills to compete.

Sue Douglas, Durham

Dear Sharon,

THERE is no problem with birds in a house. If it is night time, switch off the light, if daytime draw the curtains. Birds in the dark stay put.

Then put on gloves (defence against pecking) and shine a brilliant torch light on the bird. It will stay with eyes closed.

Then just pick it up and take it outside.

E. Reynolds, Wheatley Hill.

Published: 24/05/2006