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Clinique is joining forces with Great Ormond Street Hospital for the Kiss it Better appeal, which raises money to fund research into the causes and treatment of childhood cancer.

Kiss it better is the brainchild of Carmel Allen, a beauty editor whose daughter Josephine was treated at Great Ormond Street for Neuroblastoma – a type of cancer.

“Kiss it Better is something every parent says and does when their child is sick or injured,” says Carmel. “I wanted to turn Josephine’s experience into something positive and to help make a difference to the lives of children with cancer everywhere.”

Great Ormond Street first opened its doors on Valentine’s Day, back in 1852. So to help celebrate the hospital’s birthday and raise funds for the Kiss It Better appeal, Clinique is donating £2 of every lipstick or lipgloss sold from House of Fraser stores throughout the month of February.

Lipsticks and glosses are £10-12.

To find out more, visit www.gosh.org/kissitbetter.

To celebrate its 150th anniversary, Neuhaus Chocolatier has launched its Rain of Stars collection, created by nine of the world’s top chefs.

Raymond Blanc, Marc Veyrat and more have devised unique pralines for the selection, deriving inspiration from their childhood and their home-countries.  Beautifully presented with information about the chefs and a description of their creations, this box of loveliness is sure to whip up a warm feeling on a cold January evening. To find out more visit www.neuhaus.co.uk. Chocs cost £30. 

The chefs and their chocs:

Raymond Blanc (Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons – UK): Earl Grey and lemon ganache
Daniel Boulud (Daniel - USA): cranberry, vodka and lemon ganache
Jean Claude Bourgeuil (Im Schiffchen – Germany): caramel sauce and Acacia honey ganache
Peter Goossens (Hof van Cleve – Belgium): gingerbread, coffee and Morello cherry ganache
Guy Savoy (Guy Savoy - Paris): ‘green’ walnut ganache
Pedro Subijana (Akelare – Spain): banana and rum ganache
Marc Veyrat (La Maison de Marc Veyrat – France): Genepy ganache
Pierre Wynants (Comme chez soi – Brussels): Schaerbeek Morello cherry ganache
Tateru Yoshino (Park Hotel Tokyo): Matcha tea ganache

I had a bloody brilliant drive into work this morning. Safely warm and dry in my car I put my favourite tune on, sat back and relaxed as it was absolutely bucketing down outside. ‘Those poor people having to walk in this,’ I thought to myself as I turned up the volume.

Then, like a flash of inspiration, it occurred to me that I could make my journey twice as interesting to pass the time. You get some pretty deep puddles building up at the roadsides when it pours down like this. Some of them about a foot deep and ten foot long. Well, what’s really funny is if you speed through these at about 30mph, you can get an almighty spray over the pavement – and (snigger) hit up to two or three pedestrians in one go. Brilliant! It’s so funny watching their angry faces as you whizz on past, hilarious! Ah, if only it rained more often.

At least that’s what some tw*ts were thinking on the way in today. Thanks to all those drivers who sprayed me.

It’s only the second week of January and already my “We’re definitely not drinking until the end of the month” workmate has told me he fears he might succumb this weekend because our work lot are going down the pub. And he did have a dinner party last night and not drink while everyone else did.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that. God knows we need something to cheer us up in January. Unless, that is, just a few days ago, you decided that you definitely didn’t want to consume one alcohol unit for the entire month.

And that’s the thing about New Year’s Resolutions. When we’re all partied-out from too much food and drink over Christmas and New Year’s Eve, we genuinely feel like eating more healthily and drinking less. And we convince ourselves the whole of 2008 is going to be a brand new year for us. We’re going to be better, livelier, sparklier, more intelligent people who feel alive and alert. And we mean it from the bottom of our hearts.

But the point is, New Year’s Resolutions are a total waste of time if we try to take on too much all at once in what is officially the worst month of the year. If you kid yourself that you’re going to become a size eight, teetotal, non-smoker, who’s going to learn Russian, French cooking and simultaneously become a karate black belt, well, the likelihood is that you’re not going to achieve everything. But what’s worse is that you’ll probably berate yourself for it, then feel fed-up, and before you know it the domino effect has kicked in and everything’s gone to pot.

It’s much better to attempt one thing at a time and stick to it. And better still, not to feel like you’re a total failure if you break your plan. Just simply pick up from where you left off. Like if you eat a whole packet of chocolate biscuits after a bad day at work, don’t think the diet is over. Consider it a bad day, and carry on. Similarly, if you have one cigarette in a moment of madness after quitting for three weeks. Don’t go back to a ten-a-day habit. Think to yourself, ‘I did it for three weeks, now I’ll try four.’

A wise beautician once told me that the best time to try and diet to lose those extra pounds isn’t January. It’s actually springtime because this is when we naturally feel like having a big clear-out at home, eating lighter foods as the weather warms up and becoming more active as the days get longer. During the winter months, our bodies need warmth and this comes from hot, filling foods that give us the calories and energy to get through the cold spell. Come March/April, we no longer need so much because we don’t need to generate as much heat.

Well, if that’s the case, I guess we could all try again with our New Year resolutions in March. It would be a hell of a lot easier than attempting them in miserable old January. But if you’re still sticking to yours – good luck and may the force be with you.

In December the message boards were filled with the festive spirit and some brilliant jokes from everyone. We particularly loved BBC Smile’s Diet Rules – and since many of us are probably thinking about trying to lose some of those Christmas pounds, we felt compelled to share them with you here. Thanks BBC Smile!

1. If no-one sees you eat something, it has no calories
2. When drinking a diet-coke with a chocolate bar, the fat in the chocolate bar is cancelled out by the diet-coke.
3. When you eat with someone else, calories don't count if you do not eat more than they do.
4. Food used for medicinal purposes does NOT count (example:chocolate, toast, cheesecake and vodka)
5. If you fatten up the people around you, you will look thinner.
6. Cinema-related foods have a zero calorie count as they are part of the entertainment package and not counted as food intake. (this includes: popcorn, maltesers, jaffas and frozen cokes)
7. Biscuit pieces have no calories because breaking the biscuits up causes calorie leakage.
8. Food licked from knives and spoons has no fat if you are in the process of cooking something.
9. Foods that are the same colour have the same amount of fat.
Examples are: spinach and peppermint ice-cream; apples and red jelly snakes. Chocolate is a food-colour wildcard and may be substituted for any other colour.
10.Anything eaten while standing has no calories due to gravity and the density of calorie mass.
11.Food consumed from someone else's plate has no fat as it rightfully belongs to the other person and the fat will cling to his/her plate.
12. And remember:   STRESSED SPELT BACKWARDS IS DESSERTS

Mags UK also some brilliant observations on what it means to be British – as well as how accident-prone us Brits can be. Maybe one resolution for 2008 could be to be more careful! A big thanks Mags UK.

Being British

Being British is about driving in a German car to an Irish pub for a Belgian beer, then travelling home, grabbing an Indian curry or a Turkish kebab on the way, to sit on Swedish furniture and watch American shows on a Japanese TV.
And the most British thing of all? Suspicion of all things foreign!

Only in Britain can a pizza get to your house faster than an ambulance.

Only in Britain do supermarkets make sick people walk all the way to the back of the shop to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

Only in Britain do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries and a DIET coke.

Only in Britain do banks leave both doors open and chain the pens to the counters.

Only in Britain do we leave cars worth thousands of pounds on the drive and lock our junk and cheap lawn mower in the garage.

Only in Britain do we use answering machines to screen calls and then have call waiting so we won't miss a call from someone we didn't want  to talk to in the first place. Only in Britain are there disabled parking places in front of a skating rink.

Not to mention...

3 Brits die each year testing if a 9v battery works on their tongue.
 
142 Brits were injured in 1999 by not removing all pins from new shirts.
 
58 Brits are injured each year by using sharp knives instead of screwdrivers.

31 Brits have died since 1996 by watering their Christmas tree while the fairy lights were plugged in.

19 Brits have died in the last 3 years believing that Christmas decorations were chocolate.

British Hospitals reported 4 broken arms last year after Xmas cracker-pulling accidents.

18 Brits had serious burns in 2000 trying on a new jumper with a lit cigarette in their mouth.

A massive 543 Brits were admitted to A&E in the last two years after trying to open bottles of beer with their teeth.
5 Brits were injured last year in accidents involving out-of-control Scalextric cars.

and finally...

In 2000 eight Brits were admitted to hospital with  fractured skulls incurred whilst throwing up into the toilet.