Social media ruins young girls’ lives SAYS VANESSA FELTZ

When we were on the cusp of teenage we had a limited number of people to compare ourselves with.

Our older sisters, cousins, next-door-neighbours and classmates were our barometer We looked to them to work out how to dress, which music to listen to and how to fit in socially. It was right and fitting that we did so. We knew them. 

They were natural role models and it made perfect sense to aspire to their achievements and emulate them whenever we could.

Today’s 11 year olds are exposed to a barrage of information and influences on social media, ushering into their lives pressures and examples they can’t possibly dream of aspiring to. 

They can tap into the impossibly glamorous antics of the girls on “TOWIE”, the ostentatious excesses of the Kardashian clan, and check out what someone they’ve never met’s cousin wore to someone they don’t know’s wedding. 

Instead of experiencing peer pressure from a contained coterie of like-minded folk in their own circle, they’re made to feel inadequate in a vast variety of ways by celebrities, oligarchs, royals and total strangers.

We used to detest boasters. Bragging about your purchases, accomplishments and holidays was considered bad form. On Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, however, showing off is almost obligatory. 

There’s no place for understatement or modesty. Instead, there’s unbearable competition to flaunt your purchases, crow about your love-life, flag-up the gorgeous greatness of your existence and, most importantly, fling your general fabulousness in everyone’s faces. 

You try explaining to an impressionable 11 year old that no-one’s life is perfect, even celebrities suffer from constipation, zits and broken hearts and that it’s vital to take Facebook with a pinch of salt and you’ll be met with utter incomprehension. 

Far from linking young people and making them feel connected and included, social media does a cruel job of bludgeoning into their brains the idea that they are failing to measure up.

Adults cannot leave pre-teens to walk this minefield alone. We must wake-up to the potential damage caused and do our level best to ameliorate as much distress as we can.  

Mrs Clooney’s globe trotting quick-change routine delights me

Amal Clooney fascinates me. She’s reed slim, immaculately coiffed and designer clad in outfits that change on an almost hourly basis. 

Amal globe-trots so mercurially we never know if she’ll pitch up with a snakeskin briefcase in Athens pacing the former site of the Elgin marbles, at a New York book launch or in an English country pub. 

She simultaneously lectures American students in the arcane points of international law, practises law herself, whizzes round awards ceremonies in LA with George and pops up on his film set in the Big Apple. 

Here’s what obsesses me: each fresh ensemble is intricately detailed and every single element is brand spanking new. Not for Amal an old favourite handbag or worn-in boots.

Every time she appears each item from hat to sunglasses, bracelet to belt has never before been seen. Think of the time it would take to compile a top-to-toe outfit every time you left home. Even with a stylist transporting the haul to your numerous mansions worldwide, the process must be exhausting. 

What a woman! She has brains, beauty and enough energy to match her earrings to her nail varnish and change the whole lot for lunch and again for dinner.  

Clarkson, stop feeling so sorry for yourself. 

Poor diddums. Goodness gracious what a pity party Jeremy Clarkson threw himself in his relentlessly self-justificatory newspaper column. 

The fans who have long admired his breezy blokeishness and unsentimental brusque line of so-called humour must have choked on their Sunday Frosties as Clarkson spun a variety of lines blaming his punching a producer in the face because he hadn’t procured him a hot dinner on feeling “sick because I’d lost my mother and my home”, being told “the lump on my tongue was probably cancer” and Top Gear being “a black hole at the centre of my heart”. 

Clarkson, who took home £14million in 2014 alone is so immersed in compassion for himself, he even compares his situation with people who live on benefits. Being fired from his show, he claims, “you just get stuck in an eddy till you rot”. 

Whatever happened to true grit, taking responsibility for your own brutish idiocy and making a good fist of things? 

Jeremy Clarkson should be ashamed of himself: his uncontrollable temper, his uncharitable attitude towards people he doesn’t consider part of his exclusive club, his squandering of a career he obviously held dear, but most urgently for allowing himself to write a cringe-worthy bleeding heart column with a schmaltzy violin backing track extravagantly exonerating himself.  

Women at the top love pink   

Why are fashionistas shocked that the world’s most prominent women – Angela Merkel, Hilary Clinton, Christine Lagarde, chief of the IMF – favour frocks and suits in rose/lipstick/shocking/ baby pink? Any fool could explain: black is draining, boring and predictable, navy’s been done to death, beige makes anyone without a tan instantly anaemic, red is too attention-seeking and don’t even get me started on yellow. 

Only cheerful, gentle pink gives the palest skin a rosy glow, flatters all complexions, lifts the spirits and is balm to the soul as all smart women know.  

Why Sir Brucie felt so lonely   

Sir Bruce Forsyth says he doesn’t miss Strictly as much as people think he must because, he found the programme lonely. I can vouch for his isolation. 

I witnessed it as a proud member of the class of Strictly 2013. What he doesn’t say, though, is that the protective blanket around him was for his benefit. 

It was felt that Brucie would want to be left alone to recuperate whenever he was off camera. None of us would have dreamed of bothering him with lighthearted chit-chat. We thought he was focused on his script and wouldn’t want to be interrupted. 

Sir Brucie was held in such esteem, it just didn’t seem right to treat him as part of the gang. Endless joshing went on between the professional dancers and the judges. 

But somehow, Brucie was outside the throng, separated by his fame and, if truth be told, just a little by his age. Strictly is a gruelling show to be part of and we knew Brucie must be feeling the strain too. So, out of respect for his seniority, everyone left him to his own devices. 

Sorry, Brucie. We’d have loved to be your pals. We mistakenly thought we were being considerate.  

Car cleaning   

Growing up in Totteridge, the Beverley Hills of North London, Sunday morning was for car cleaning. Mummies grappled with the roast and Daddies wielded the chamois leather. 

A new survey says we’ve given up on car cleaning. Rather than tackle the grime with bucket, wax and elbow grease, we use a machine or pay a chap to do it. 

I can’t eulogise dripping with icy water on a freezing winter’s day, but there’s something satisfying about tackling the job in bright sunshine. 

Call me a penny pincher, but I’d rather spend the tenner on fun and fripperies and buff up my mean machine myself.