Table of contents for 24 - 2016 in Best

Maybe it’s all the laughing, but Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders look better in their 50s than they’ve ever done. At an awards ceremony last week, Dawn, 58, appeared slimmer than she did at Fashion Week 13 years ago (see p6), while Jen – despite a battle with breast cancer in 2009 and an admission that it plunged her into the menopause – looked gorgeous in fashionable black and white. Talking as only BFFs can, Dawn introduced her friend as ‘the absolutely flatulent Jennifer Saunders’, then joked, ‘OK, she’s a comedy icon, got an international Emmy and a Writers’ Guild Award to prove it. Big deal!’ But when Jen, 57, replied touchingly, ‘Dawn discovered me and brought me along on her coat tails,’ you could see the mum-of-one was secretly…

‘I can’t be weeping on the floor saying, “Don’t go!”’ She’s 58, and three of her four children have already left home. But bubbly blonde presenter Fern Britton insists she’s not living in fear of empty nest syndrome when her youngest, Winnie – her 15-year-old daughter with husband Phil Vickery – leaves home. ‘Life’s a blessing now,’ she insists, laughing. ‘It doesn’t take 20 minutes to get out of the house to the car. You don’t have to struggle with car seats and tell people to get their shoes on. In fact, my kids drive me now. It’s bliss!’ The thought of our last child leaving home has most of us reaching for the tissues, but Fern takes a refreshing view as she adds, ‘My job was to turn them…

‘I hold my hands up, I didn’t want to look’ It was anything but business as usual for This Morning presenter Holly Willoughby on the way to the ITV studios last week. For the mum-ofthree was at the scene of a serious crash and found herself jumping in to help. The drama unfolded on London’s busy Brompton Road as Holly, 35, sat in a car, reading her script for Tuesday’s show. She later told co-host Phillip Schofield, ‘There was an almighty bang, and this guy on this scooter/moped thing hit the car next to us, and we just heard this noise.’ Holly admitted, ‘I hold my hands up, I didn’t want to look. I thought, “I don’t know if I need that [image] in my head.”’ While her driver checked…

‘Love is a simple thing,’ declares Eamonn Holmes, settling into a brown leather seat in a private room in north London’s swish Hoxton Hotel. ‘It’s to do with a look, a smell, a piece of music, the touch of somebody, their hair. You don’t decide if you’re in love or not, your body decides it for you. It’s instinctive, subconscious. ‘You know on Star Wars when they say, “Feel the Force”? You feel the force.’ Wow. When Eamonn, 56, speaks from the heart, you do indeed feel it. And no topic inspires more passion or energy than Ruth Langsford – his fellow This Morning presenter, wife of six years and mum to his 14-year-old son Jack. Ruth, also 56, who Eamonn got together with 19 years ago after he split…

Roger & Gallet Fleur D’Osmanthus Eau Fraîche, £17, 30ml A sunny floral fragrance, perfect for summer. Rituals Happy Buddha Sweet Orange & Cedar Foaming Shower Gel, £4.50, 50ml This relaxing foam will last your travels. L’Occitane Pure Shea Butter, £8.50, 10ml A nourishing treat in a tin. L’Oréal Paris Elvive Extraordinary Oil, £2.99, 50ml Miracle perfecter for all hair types. L’Occitane Divine Cream, £6.75, 4ml Firm skin and reduce wrinkles with this miniature hero. Sanctuary Cleansing Burst, £2.50, 75ml Body wash with fragrant essential oils. Tangle Teezer Compact Styler, £12.25 Perfectly petite but powerful brush. Clinique Sun Ready Kit, £25.50, 30ml, 75ml and 100ml The ultimate getaway trio. NUXE Huile Prodigieuse Dry Oil Golden Shimmer, £19, 50ml Shimmer and sparkle with this glowing oil. EcoTools Mini Essentials Set, £5.99 Brush…

Spiced yoghurt chicken skewers with a fennel, watercress and mint salad I grew up with a dad who worked in restaurants, and he would come home with amazing skewered kebabs that came straight out of a tandoor. They were always moist, spiced beautifully and charred to perfection. But they’re tough to recreate on a domestic hob, where two of the rings don’t work unless you say a prayer, and the other two are hanging on for dear life. These skewers have just the right amount of spice, and if cooked on a hot griddle they achieve a similar charred effect. Together with the salad they make a fresh and healthy lunch. Little kids like to eat the chicken straight off the skewers… as do big ones. I like to make…

Mona Shah, 46, lives in Cambridge with husband Shaz and children Ash, 17, and Mina, 24. THE SWEET TASTE OF SUCCESS I’m passionate about chocolate, and after I did a course to learn how to make my own, friends said they were the best they’d ever had. It might have stayed a hobby, though, if it hadn’t been for my son, Ash, who suffers from autism. Chocolate-making requires you to be very methodical and repetitive – which comes easily to autistic people. I’d worried about what Ash would do when he was older, but now I realised I could start a business suited to him and others like him. It was scary, but I gave up my job in NHS corporate services and got a start-up grant of £4,000 from…

Hi, Calum. Why are you appearing in the new relationship show Famously Single? Well, I’m single, and some would say I’m famous! I feel great with my health and fitness and it’s a good time for me to be introduced to the USA. How does the show work? Eight of us took part. We spent four weeks living together, going on dates with each other and receiving therapy from a relationship expert. Was it very different from being on CBB? There were some real nightmares in Big Brother – Perez Hilton [the American showbiz gossip writer] for instance. But this show was different. It’s very dramatic at times. There are arguments and drinking, but there’s also kissing, cuddling – we all had a great time. There was no particular expectation…

Did you k now? The average time spent cooking dinner has halved from 1 hour to 34 mins since 1980. Getting started • Follow our seven-day meal plan (below and over the page) – breakfast, lunch and dinner, plus two choices a day from the ‘Snacks’ box (p52). • Each day allows for one meal to be taken from the ‘Grab ’n’ Go’ box (p53). • Drink at least eight glasses of fluid daily, including decaffeinated tea and coffee with milk from your allowance (see below), water, herbal tea, diet fizzy drinks and sugar-free squash. • Daily milk allowance: 300ml skimmed milk. • Stick to the plan to lose up to 1st in a month, but no longer. MONDAY BREAKFAST 1 sachet of Oat So Simple, made with ½pt skimmed…

1 NAUGHTY PIERS! PIERS MORGAN WASN’T CONTENT TO EYE UP FERN BRITTON’S LEGS ON GOOD MORNING BRITAIN LAST WEEK, DECIDING HE’D HAVE A QUICK SQUEEZE OF HER THIGHS, TOO! Piers, 51, was interviewing TV presenter Fern about her new novel when he declared, ‘I want to feel your thighs!’ Fern, 58, obliged, standing up to allow him a good feel. ‘You’ve been cycling from John O’Groats to Land’s End,’ he said in explanation for the request, referring to Fern’s recent charity cycle for the Genesis Research Trust. Oh, Piers… 2 HOLDING BACK THE YEARS... …AND THEN SOME! FORMER SUPERMODEL CHRISTIE BRINKLEY LOOKED INCREDIBLE WHEN SHE MADE AN APPEARANCE AT A LAUNCH THIS WEEK. With her long hair and perfectly plump cheeks, the 62-year-old former wife of Billy Joel looks decades…

Over the past 10 years, nearly 10,000 children have been born to devoted dads in their 50s and 60s. Why? Second and even third marriages are said to be one of the main reasons. But as these celebs prove, patience, time and financial stability are just some of the pluses that kids get from an older dad. NAPPY- CHANGING RONNIE! RONNIE WOOD, 69 Being a dad to twins is exhausting at any age, so no one can really blame Ronnie Wood for taking a cheeky morning nap at the hospital after Gracie Jane and Alice Rose were born on 30 May. Since then, Ronnie has been embracing fatherhood, even admitting his insomnia makes him the perfect man for the night-time nappy changes. ‘Of course I’m going to be changing nappies.…

THIS WEEK... Dr Eva Carneiro, a former doctor at Chelsea Football Club, has walked away from her clash with the club with a settlement reported to run to £5 million. Yes, you read that right – five million smackers for a dispute that kicked off when former manager José Mourinho was said to call her ‘daughter of a wh*re’ in Portuguese. What had she done to enrage her boss to that level? It seems Dr Eva, 42, had rushed on to the pitch to attend to injured player Eden Hazard, but her intervention meant he was suspended from play, which enraged José. He is reported to have said she did not understand football, and this led to his alleged foul outburst. In the resulting fallout, Dr Eva was relieved of…

‘I’m not retiring whatever happens’ James Martin created shock waves when he left BBC One cookery chat show Saturday Kitchen in April. But the lovely chef isn’t disappearing on us altogether – he has a series of projects bubbling away, including some summer recipes for Asda and teaching guests to cook on P&O Cruises later in the year. And we doubt the handsome Yorkshire man will be vanishing from our TV screens completely – we hear his recent stint hosting This Morning went down a storm… Hi James, so will we still see more of you on TV? I hope so. I’ve lots of ideas – we just need to see where they go. One of them is tied in with my gorgeous car – I recently bought Keith Floyd’s…

FEARS FOR SON ‘If I got to 15st, I’d be over the moon’ Known for her infectious belly laughs, Alison Hammond was deadly serious for once last week. ‘My poor body might not be able to cope for much longer. I have to help it out by taking weight off,’ she admits, adding that she was ‘embarrassed’ about her stuggle to get into shape. A healthy weight for her 5ft 9in height would be 12st. At more than 20st, Alison is now classed as morbidly obese. ‘If I got to 15st and around a size 14 to 16, I’d be over the moon,’ she adds. In April, she said she was determined to lose weight by going on a strict sugar-free diet. But it hasn’t worked. The bubbly Brummie is…

UNBREAKABLE BOND With just 14 months between us, me and Iona had always been inseparable, more like twins than just sisters. We both loved dancing, playing the piano and Disney movies. But there was something else that made us even closer. As babies, we were both diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, a chronic and life-limiting lung condition. We’d had similar symptoms as newborns – coughing and wheezing, jaundice, and failure to gain weight – but I wasn’t diagnosed until after Iona was born. Our mum, Julie, had taken me back and forth to the doctors, but they believed she was a neurotic new parent. But by the time she had Iona, newborns were routinely tested for cystic fibrosis, and when her results were positive, they tested me, too. My condition had…

HORRIFIC It is one of the most shocking and heartbreaking stories of child abuse ever recorded. Little Liam Fee was just two when he was found dead at his home in Glenrothes, Fife, in March 2014. The toddler had been killed by a blow to his stomach so severe that it ruptured his heart, but his tiny frame was battered beyond belief – both arms and legs broken and he had 30 injuries in total. Liam had been in the care of his mother, Rachel Fee, 31, and her civil partner, Nyomi Fee, 29, who not only denied killing the boy, but also tried to blame his death on another child in their care. The two older boys who were living with them were also subjected to abuse – made…

MAJA TISMA is the co-founder and editor of ShampooTruth.com and in-house blogger for online hair and beauty retailer hairtrade.com. ‘Caring for your hair could be doing it more harm than good but simple changes could give it a new lease of life,’ she says. Heal your hair healthy with Maja • Over-washing, styling, and brushing your hair too often all contribute to damage. If you notice any brittle texture, extreme breakage or dulled shine, you need to take immediate action before it goes any further. • Your locks produce oil as a natural defence mechanism to keep moisture inside, so a daily hair wash will strip this away, leaving it dull and dry. Try to go at least two or three days between lathering up, and top up with dry…

RANVIR SINGH CLUTCH A contrast colour clutch gives Ranvir’s evening look more of a modern feel. SHOES Round-toe courts help lengthen her legs. DRESS This show-stopping dress is from Monsoon. The feminine design nips in at the waist to emphasise her hour-glass figure beautifully. BRACELET Keep your accessories simple! A statement bracelet adds a touch of sparkle without looking OTT. WEDDING GUEST If you are looking for that stand-out frock for a special occasion, you can’t beat lace this summer. Shop for a style with half-length sleeves that are flattering yet cool to wear on a hot day. EVENING GUEST A touch of lace looks super-chic teamed with a pair of smart white trousers. You can then combine the top with a skirt or jeans, so it doesn’t end up…

THIS WEEK... MEAL OUT Someone else’s nightmare cancellation for a restaurant could be your dream ticket to a top table, so sign up for exclusive offers and news from opentable.co.uk (formerly toptable) or tablepouncer.com, a newer site that covers Bath, Bournemouth, Brighton, Bristol, London and Southampton. In Scotland, there is a great site called 5pm.co.uk. And if you’re looking for a dinner-and-theatre package, especially in London, try lastminute.com. HAIR OR BEAUTY TREAT To book ever ything from hair removal to a massage, or a manicure to a full spa break, treatwell.co.uk is a one-stop shop. It is a 24/7 booking platform for all things beauty, which means you can log on and book at any time of the day. The site lists current deals and discounts and filters by location,…

LOV E IN THE AIR? What made you agree to do Celebrity MasterChef? Are you a good cook? I think I am, but everyone thinks they are a good cook in the comfort of their own kitchen! The MasterChef kitchen is not a comfy place to be – it’s a scary place – but I love food, I love the show and I wanted to learn a few new tricks. Were you a fan of the show before now? Oh, absolutely – I always watch it. My daughter [Freya, 12, by businessman Damian Aspinall] watches it, too. What do you think is key to the huge success of MasterChef? I think it has a lot to do with [hosts] John [Torode] and Gregg [Wallace]. They’re a great double act –…

Eden Taylor-Draper first stepped into the role of Belle Dingle at the tender age of 11, going on to bag an impressive five soap awards for her performance in the soap. In the latest storyline, 17-yearold Belle starts a steamy affair with married Dr Jermaine Bailey (played by Micah Balfour, 37). Despite Jermaine being more than twice Belle’s age and a married man, she still believes in their relationship, doesn’t she? Yes. She believes that what they have is true love. They’ve clearly got ups and downs but she thinks they’ll work through them. What is it that she sees in him? It started as an attraction thing, plus his status as a doctor, but I think it did develop into love. He’s wealthy, but he comes from a similar…

SEE A MUSICAL ... JACK IE ‘As an avid Jackie reader (one of a million), who went on to work for the magazine and appear on the front cover, I couldn’t wait to see my teenage years brought to life on stage,’ says Best reviewer Wendy Rigg. ‘The central character, Jackie (Janet Dibley), is a divorced mum of a teenage son. Moving house, she finds a boxful of her old Jackie mags and begins to read. That’s when Jackie’s younger self (Daisy Steere) pops up to offer advice on internet dating. ‘Speech bubbles, choreography by Arlene Phillips and retro styling will whisk you back to your teens. I sang along to T.Rex, David Cassidy and David Essex, and by the end the entire audience was dancing to Mud’s Tiger Feet.…

Both sets of clues lead to the same answers, the shaded squares revealing a TV series starring Ashley Jensen (6,6) WIN £550 STRAIGHT CLUES ACROSS 1 Don’t act instantly (8) 5 A small group of words (6) 10 Group of mountains, chain (5) 11 Rearing children (9) 12 Twins impossible to tell apart (9) 13 Correct (5) 14 Opposite of alkali (4) 15 Tango or waltz, e.g. (5) 18 Cause distress (5) 20 Group of cattle (4) 22 Reserved, coy (5) 24 Washing-up liquid, e.g. (9) 26 Oil-based fuel or jelly (9) 27 Have life (5) 28 Shouted (6) 29 Mixed-up (8) DOWN 1 Courageous (6) 2 Hands out punishment (9) 3 Given medicine, etc. (7) 4 Theme (5) 6 Century (7) 7 Imitating (5) 8 Four squared plus two (8)…