Editor-At-Large: Death row meals; dogged by barking

I see that Anthony Bourdain, celebrity chef and author, has pinched one of my favourite games – Death Row Meals. Many a dreary evening has been enlivened by grilling fellow diners as to what their final repast would consist of. I believe Mr Bourdain has selected bone marrow and a lot of offal – just what you'd expect from someone who's travelled the world eating slugs and dogs and turned it into a best selling book, A Cook's Tour.

So let's move on to another tried and tested party game: list the job you'd be most useless at and why. An obvious choice for me is beauty therapist, or any kind of work that takes place in one of those New Age spas. Is there anyone more humourless? From that dreadful plinky-plunky music they play (obviously it contains chord progressions that rot your brain) to the utter twaddle they talk, beauticians are in a class of their own – more brainwashed than a Moonie, any follower of L Ron Hubbard, or any former member of Steps.

As you read this I will be in the final preparations for my appearance at one of those super-swanky Academy Award parties in Los Angeles – thrown by Elton John. I don't expect anyone to recognise me or even take one snap as I disembark from my limo, but you never know. Perhaps Hollywood is looking for a size 14, six-foot, 55-year-old woman to star in a new television series about something or other. I can't pass the opportunity up. Someone may even need your Editor-at-Large to provide an acerbic bit of commentary on Cher's dress or Liv Tyler's lipstick. So, a bit like reconstructing Crystal Palace, or stopping the Millennium Bridge from wobbling (actually a lot like that), a massive refurbishment is under way.

This means I've spent a lot of time in beauty salons having building work done to various bits of me. First up, the hair is electric red and can barely be washed in case the full dazzling effect goes down the plughole. The dye has already run over the pillows in five hotels en route. Luckily I've been permanently on the move, so the various chambermaids probably think I'm a serial murderer or indulge in kinky sex involving kitchen knives.

Secondly (I hope you're not squeamish), my toe nails are all loose after descending Mount Kilimanjaro, and have had to be glued back on. One big gorgeously red toe nail is entirely false – a brilliant bit of illusionism perfectly constructed from little sheets of glass fibre.

Finally, I've been having heavy-duty massages in the hope of firming up unsightly bits of flab. At an Aveda spa the other day I had to fill in three questionnaires before I could "start my sensory journey". Like the menopause, a sensory journey is one that hasn't stopped at my bus stop yet; and if it does, I don't plan to embark.

Still, I dutifully took off all my clothes and sat in a towelling robe with my feet in a large bowl of sudsy water (praying the fake toe nail didn't lift off or melt) and spent 15 minutes answering questions to determine my Ayuvedic type – whatever that is: questions such as "are you ready to let others speak?" (obviously not) and "do you feel you have strong opinions and can hold your ground in debates?" (well, yes). In short, I scored a massive 49 points and emerged as a "fire" person.

They should have asked "are you stressed" – answer yes, in case I can't get into that wonderful red chiffon Jacques Azagury dress that fitted beautifully, before I spent five days drinking rum punches and eating ackee and salt fish for breakfast in Jamaica. What these questionnaires have to do with being smeared in warm oil and pushed around on a slab, I don't know. The "fire" massage oil smelt like rotting vegetables, so I selected almond instead. An extremely thin pasty-faced boy with dreadlocks spent an hour turning me into a human pilchard. He was good at some bits and lacklustre at others.

While my sensory journey was relatively painless, my friend Glen opted for a far more challenging experience. After he completed his set of forms, the therapist announced, "I'm just off to put my wet suit on". Dressed in a black rubber number, she forced him to lie face down naked in a tank, with a little towel over his backside, after she'd scrubbed him with salt. That bit of exfoliation removed his burgeoning sun tan, something these therapists disapprove of anyway. Then, warm, hot and cold jets of water were directed all over his torso while he spent an anxious 45 minutes hoping his towel didn't wash off (also that the really strong jets would avoid his sensitive areas).

When I met him later, he was bright pink and incapable of speech, feeling "very chilled out". He also smelt like one of those really cheap air fresheners called things like Country Breeze.

The fact is, I'm a sucker for all this garbage. I've had electric currents through my face, hot mud on my thighs and freezing green gel on my stomach. I signed up for six of those in Selfridges' spa last year, after a rather large lunch at which I'd obviously drunk too much.

Am I any thinner, more relaxed or wrinkle free than I was? Who knows? Who's measuring? To return to my party game, I know I probably haven't "balanced my chakras" or "discovered inner tranquillity". And I have got a hearty loathing of South American flute music and cubicles with thin walls.

I was having some facial firming recently when Miriam Stoppard had a tantrum on her mobile phone next door – as a result I now remain resolutely silent, just nodding and winking as my therapist waffles on about pores, cleansing and rejuvenation.

Fact is, when I get out of my limo tonight I will be surrounded by the most botoxed, tweaked, snipped and inflated group of women I'll ever spend an evening with. All the massage and hot mud in the world won't be able to compete with the guaranteed uplift you get from the cosmetic surgeon's knife. Chakras have very little to do with the pursuit of youth in Hollywood.

Dogged by barking

Sounds that irritate you in one environment come over as totally pleasurable background noise in another. Take barking dogs – my number one hate. In Clerkenwell, central London, I am regularly awakened by the sound of hysterical yapping dogs at 7am, as their owners exercise them in the churchyard by my house. I have watched these sad saps encourage their pets to make maximum noise – obviously it validates their (the owners') existence. It's a good job the Street-Porter air rifle is safely under lock and key in North Yorkshire otherwise pet carnage would be imminent.

In the Himalayas, I hiked up a remote valley to find that at 15,000 feet a barking dog could be heard from miles away. On Crete, a dog chained up all night drove us to swap houses – till the same thing happened again at the next one and the one after that. So I won't be going back there ever.

I've been in Jamaica, staying high up in the Blue Mountains, with a breathtaking view of ridges and forests from my verandah. Here the throb of a bass line eases you out of sleep, followed by reggae on a radio on a distant hill. Even the dogs seem just part of the general mellow cacophony that starts the day, with birds competing to be heard.

Squeal Massive

I was reading a book, thoroughly chilled out (no thanks to the beauty treatment; more the blissfulness of being here on my favourite Caribbean island) when a sound like a pig being poked erupted. The two gardeners nearby stopped dissing each other and fell silent. It came from the next cottage, belting out a phrase, hopelessly out of tune. It was Shaggy, writing his new album. Ali G had paid him a visit a few days before (such a nice polite man according to the barman). You have been warned.