IT'S always discombobulating when celebrities pull back the curtain Wizard of Oz-style and allow us mere mortals to have a glimpse into the inner workings of their glamorous lives.
Take supermodel Naomi Campbell who posted a video on YouTube laying bare her globe-hopping adventures and favoured airport routine. "I love travelling," she says. "I was born travelling. I love being in the air. I love being everywhere yet nowhere at the same time."
We see her pottering in duty free, buying a bag of mini Twix and trying on lip gloss, perusing fashion magazines and Haribo in the newsagents, and approvingly appraising other women's legs as she glides through the terminal ("great calves" is one such verdict).
Stepping on board the plane, things suddenly crank up a notch or 12. First, the latex gloves go on, then out come the antibacterial wipes as Campbell sets to work. "Clean everything you touch," she says, vigorously scrubbing at the armrests, tray table and seat cushions.
Nor does she stop there. The surrounding walls, windows, air-con vents, TV remote control and every reachable crevice are given the once over. It is as if Campbell has been possessed by Kim and Aggie from How Clean Is Your House?
The finishing touch is donning a mask that covers her nose and mouth for the entire flight. Overkill? Perhaps. But there's a teeny tiny part of me that can't help but admire this next-level commitment.
Eyes peeled
MIND you, Naomi Campbell's skit seems positively pedestrian next to the musician Grimes who, as part of a collaboration with Adidas by Stella McCartney, has revealed her "training" regime.
Sensory deprivation tanks, sword fights, screaming sessions and – brace yourself – peeled eyeballs are all part of what Grimes (real name Claire Boucher) describes as a "360 approach" to feeling good.
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Blimey. Remember when we all thought Madonna was a tad intense with her strict macrobiotic diet and five-hour workouts? Buckle up …
After consuming some NAD+ and Acetyl L-Carnitine – nope, me neither – Grimes heads to her isolation tank where she spends up to four hours. "This allows me to 'astro-glide' to other dimensions – past, present and future," she says. Or as the rest of us call it: a cheeky nap.
Next up is a sword fighting session with her personal trainer, lasting between one and two hours, followed by around 30 to 45 minutes of brisk hiking to "wind down" afterwards.
With mind and body now functioning at "peak level", Grimes heads into the studio where she and her friend Hana – a fellow songwriter – enjoy a screaming session for the best part of half an hour while they "slow boil the honey tea that maximises vocal proficiency".
How all of this is meant to convince us to purchase high-end sports apparel remains vexingly unclear. But there's more. The studio, she adds, has the "highest grade of red light". Wait, back up for a second? Ah, yes, it transpires Grimes is something of an expert on light frequencies.
Or, as she explains: "I have also eliminated all blue light from my vision through an experimental surgery that removes the top film of my eyeball and replaces it with an orange ultra-flex polymer that my friend and I made in the lab this past winter as a means to cure seasonal depression."
I don't know what to do with this revelation either. Anyway, thankfully the next thing is bedtime. Which is little wonder after all the screaming and the swords and the hiking and the eyeball peeling and the gliding between different dimensions – I'd be whacked too.
Bed? Ah, yes. Grimes teleports to Saturn and drifts off to sleep while listening to a soothing soundtrack of Patrick Moore playing the xylophone. She then slumbers beneath a hand-made cashmere/aluminised mylar blend duvet washed in organic, free-range unicorn tears.
I made that last paragraph up. She has a humidifier.
A bevvy of names
CATALOGUING the curious names that people give their children is among my favourite pastimes. Standouts in recent years have been Abcde (pronounced "ab-city"), an ill-advised homage to the mass-murdering Game of Thrones character Daenerys and a clutch of poor mites called Kale.
Yet, even my jaw dropped when I heard about siblings called Tiamarie and Jackdaniel. The unconventional names came to light after a family in Hull featured in a newspaper article about the price of school uniforms.
Unsurprisingly, it sparked much guffawing and a few jibes on social media before parents Sarah and Steve Mennell spoke out to claim that, as teetotallers, they honestly didn't realise two of their children were named after famous alcoholic drinks.
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Rather, the couple insist, inspiration was drawn from a waitress called Tiamarie they met while holidaying in Spain and their admiration for the US running coach Jack Daniels.
According to Steve: "We didn't drink until around five months ago when we decided to start having one night out as a married couple a month, so we are definitely not alcoholics." Yup, seems legit.
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