Dear Mary | 17 July 2010

Q. I have had very discreet surgery to improve a jowly effect I was developing. I did not tell anyone I was having it done as my parents would be horrified if they found out. I believe I look much better but no one has complimented me and I am worried that this is because I have overdone it, and people are embarrassed. In the absence of a confidante (no one I know can keep a secret) how can I find out if people suspect I have had something done and if they think it a mistake?

Name withheld, Kent

A. Say to a sequence of friends that you are thinking of having ‘corrective surgery’ round your jowls. Stress the word ‘corrective’. They will either say, ‘But you don’t need anything done’, or, if the dreaded Bride of Wildenstein effect is thought to have come into play, they will respond, ‘Oh, can you correct surgery like that? Well, that might be a good idea.’