ALEXANDRA SHULMAN’S NOTEBOOK: Fat jabs do not look so intelligent now they’re mundane

No surprises from the latest fat jab survey: it reveals that the majority of weight-loss drugs are being bought by middle-class women aged between 30-49, many of whom don’t really need to lose weight.

These are the women who can afford the private monthly fee of between £144 to £324 to slim down without the usual effort.

Although I’m in my 60s, my own cohort are very susceptible to this trend. Indeed they were enthusiastic early adopters, while I occupy an increasingly isolated position in standing firm and refusing them.

I remember chatting to a friend in her kitchen when they became available, privately, around three years ago. She told me about this miracle drug she was injecting into her stomach that stopped her feeling hungry. Within months it was as if her face and body had been flattened by a mangle and then sharpened to a point. This new her makes her happy.

And the jabs have delighted many others I know – men and women – who were never remotely fat but who are obsessed with a slimmer idea of themselves.

Like so many jabbers, my friend appears to enjoy ordering food she then doesn’t finish.

When she started using the jabs, there was an element of insider knowledge about the whole GLP-1 thing. Ozempic wasn’t widespread and Mounjaro hadn’t yet come on to the radar. There was a sense that those who knew, knew. Clever them.

But now it’s as bog standard as paracetamol and has lost any of that privileged lustre, just as the practice of curating ear lobes with multiple piercings, once cool, is now just mundane.

But that’s not the reason I’ve resisted them. It’s because I don’t want to expose my body to any unnecessary medications or surgery. After two cancer operations, I take enough pills out of necessity and am not inclined to inject something else into my bloodstream.

Admittedly, there are days when the needle on the scales doesn’t shift despite my attempts to be less indulgent, and I wonder whether I am being stubborn. Then I remind myself I am not in thrall to these drugs, where the long-term side effects are unknown, and feel smugly superior.

Oh Cherie, flowers don’t mean love!

In the first of Channel 4’s three-part documentary The Tony Blair Story, Cherie (to my mind the star of the show) recalls their relationship. She is asked whether her husband was romantic and, after a brief pause, answers no, ‘he never bought me flowers’.

It struck me as a strange comment for an intelligent woman to make about her husband of 45 years. The oddness was not his lack of romance – I think we might have expected.

that – but the reference to flowers. It’s such a hackneyed notion of love. And yet it remains such a popular gesture, as witnessed by the sight of so many men clutching cheap Valentine’s bunches last weekend. My partner has never bought me flowers either, but I’ve been with him for 22 years, unlike his predecessors, many of whom frequently did.

There was one boyfriend who would leave huge lilies on the doorstep of my flat, which made me feel as if he was visiting my grave. And I still remember the bright pink, pale blue and lavender anemones and ranunculus my ex-husband arrived with, a few days into our relationship.

Yes, I did think it was romantic at the time – they mirrored the colours of the walls in my flat – but note the word ‘ex’.

It’s nice to get flowers, but they have nothing to do with love.

Wuthering Heights? More of a low point…

Speaking of romance, I saw director Emerald Fennell’s controversial Wuthering Heights this week. I’m generally a fan of her work, but I came out of the cinema drenched in an emotion I’d not expected – extreme boredom.

More than two hours of foggy windswept moors, a Hollywood blonde Cathy stomping around in whirling skirts and a glowering over-sized Heathcliff (Jacob Elordi struck me as a better Frankenstein). It must be a generational thing, but at no point did I feel the slightest bit sad, or moved by the tragic story. In contrast,

I also saw The Chronology Of Water, by Twilight actress Kristen Stewart. This tale of abuse and addiction will not be to everyone’s taste, but the images and story have stayed with me, whereas Wuthering Heights, in all its noisy, short-attention-span extravagance, provoked only tedium.

I’ll have my pinot and make merry, thanks

A survey of drinking habits has concluded that those who prefer richer wines such as malbec or cabernet sauvignon are likely to be agreeable and open, whereas those, like myself, who veer towards pinot noir and pinot grigio are more susceptible to stress and emotional instability.

A personal survey of those who I regularly share bottles with concludes that this is nonsense. But perhaps, given the researchers were from a Chinese university, the contributors had different tastes. We shall see if there’s a rise in London’s malbec consumption when the Chinese mega embassy is built.

Charles is clearly no flaky fashionista

Congratulations to Laura Weir, now heading up the British Fashion Council, on getting King Charles to open London Fashion Week. She must have had a serious case of the wobblies when news broke about Andrew’s arrest hours before he arrived. Would he suddenly cancel? True to form, the King turned up, even managing to look pleased to be there.

Sunset snaps that leave me seeing red

It’s easy to feel peeved at photos of beautiful sunsets pinging on to your phone from other people’s half-term trips – a ruby Red Sea, a tangerine-coloured Indian ocean, a striated pink over the Atlantic.

Here there is no sun to set.

Photos of waterlogged tulip pots just don’t strike the same note.