If I could turn back time

This is Diane Sawyer. For those of you who don't know your Sean Hannitys from your Anderson Coopers, Diane is one of the most recognisable news anchors in the US. As well as being amongst the thirty most powerful women in America (according to the Ladies' Home Journal), she's also 63. That's not a typo. She'll be 64 on the 22nd December.

I don't know what Diane's secret is. Maybe she eats her 'five a day', or perhaps she bought some glowing purple potion from Isabella Rossellini. Either way, she does not look her age. Or any age for that matter.

She's one of an alarming new generation of older women who have managed to unwrite all the rules of nature, with their lineless faces, feathered hair and aerobicised bodies. Whether they're forty or sixty-five, there's no way to tell how old they're supposed to be. And it's creepy.

Even more creepy is a story that ran in the Guardian today, that suggests the gruesome lengths that some people will go to in order to halt the passage of time. It's been alleged that a gang in Peru has been killing villagers and draining the fat from the corpses for use in cosmetics. The story broke when two suspects were arrested in Lima carrying bottles of liquid human fat which, they claimed, were worth around £36,000 a gallon.

Police were acting on a tip-off about a thriving trade in fat that was being shipped to Europe and sold as an anti-wrinkle cream. Suddenly, the scene in Fight Club where Brad Pitt steals from the bins outside a liposuction clinic to make his own brand of designer soap, doesn't seem quite so preposterous

Although medical experts agree that human fat can help keen skin supple, they're dubious about the idea of a black market in something that is so readily available. However, the implications are astounding - think how cost-effective it would be to have the fat sucked out of one end and pumped into the other.

It's like the BOGOF of plastic surgery, with patients emerging thinner and younger-looking from a single visit. Surely it's only a matter of time before canny Channel 4 producers get Gillian McKeith and Myleene Klass together to host a mash-up of 'You Are What You Eat' and '10 Years Younger'.