"But, then, she didn't NEED to..."

Lady Bracknell has of late been passing such leisure hours as she can spare in the company of a number of novels, penned by Mr Peter Robinson, and detailing the successes of a certain Inspector Banks in the pursuit and eventual capture of a variety of villainous murderers.

Lady Bracknell has remarked in the past upon the fact that, when one reads several works by the same author in a short space of time, one tends to notice various verbal tics and idiosyncracies which might otherwise have passed one by.

For example, in Mr Grisham's courtroom dramas, his characters invariably "sip" their drinks. They never swig them, or gulp them, or drain them down "in one". Were a Grisham character to emerge after forty days in the parched wilderness, there is no doubt in Lady Bracknell's mind that he or she would sip the charitably-proffered glass of cold water in a delicate and refined manner.

Mr Robinson, on the other hand, appears very interested in maquillage. But not merely in the paints and powders themselves. No, Mr Robinson is of the opinion that some women need make-up and others don't. (The sub-text being, Lady Bracknell suspects, that beautiful women can "do without", whereas their plainer sisters would be well-advised to plaster the muck on for all they are worth should they wish to be accepted by their peers.)

Leaving aside the vexed question of whether make-up makes one look more beautiful, or simply more "made-up", Lady Bracknell finds the notion that some women "need it" more than others morally repugnant.

What gives any man, be he a novelist, a senior policeman, or a camp television presenter from the Far East, the right to judge which women are "passable" with naked faces, and which should wear a bag over their heads if they have run out of lipstick? What gives him the right to suggest that any woman of his acquaintance should paint her face to please him? Where is the equivalent demand placed on him by the women he meets? (That question is, of course, rhetorical: a man who would treat women as lovely objects in the first place is hardly likely to take their wishes seriously.)

Lady Bracknell, having never worn a great deal of make-up, and that very rarely, eschewed the whole notion herself some years ago at the point when it became clear that she had a choice between standing at the mirror for fifteen minutes applying the stuff, or having the energy to go out.

Whilst Lady Bracknell considers make-up to be a nonsensical frippery, she would never attempt to persuade another lady out of a decided preference for it, if she used it for her own pleasure. If, on the other hand, the products were being applied merely to placate a man who has been reduced to "making do" with someone he considers to be of sub-standard facial perfection, Lady Bracknell would willingly assist the lady in question to throw the tubes and brushes into the noisome depths of the nearest wheelie bin.