Deborah Ross: At long last! A new body part to hate

If you ask me...

If you ask me, and as a treat for all women who feel there are moments in the day when they are just not hating their bodies enough – I know someone who sat through an entire film the other week without fretting about her body once, can you believe – I would like to introduce you to the "ninkle", as identified by Emily Sheffield, Deputy Editor of British Vogue.

"Ninkles are not to be confused with cankles (fat ankles where calf and ankle become one)," she writes. "Ninkles are wrinkles on our knees and they are the beginning of the end of the short skirt." This is exciting news particularly if, like me, you feared you might one day run out of new body parts to police and also feared that, one day, people would stop instructing you as to what you should and should not wear. Thank you, Emily!

As it happens, I do not know Ms Sheffield personally but, if I did, I would shake her by the hand or, if her wrists and hands had fattened and merged in a way that was deemed unsightly, by the "wrand". I certainly hope I would be polite enough not to add "it's knees, love, not nees" and: "Where did you get your education?" (Marlborough, apparently, but I think they are only taught not to faint at the prices in the Brora catalogue, and order one in every colour before giving them to the dog to sleep on.)

So, having feared I might have to like myself for a while (imagine!), and could actually get on with other things (fancy!), I am glad for the ninkle and the cankle and even the wrankle which isn't, in fact, slated to be named and shamed until the summer of 2013 but is, I can exclusively reveal, the wrinkled cankle, and with such a devastating combo you may have to sign a form saying you will never leave your house again. (FYI: the fat ninkle – the finkle – is due to come out around Christmas, if you want to clear space in your diary.) And I can now, of course, also look forward to the advent of a specialised "ninkle cream" which is handy, as some days I fear running out of useless nonsense to waste my hard-earned money on.

So thanks, Emily, for giving us a new body part to hate, and the new expensive lotions to purchase, and to all those who find they have cankles and ninkles and wrankles and finkles? Your best bet is to jump off a cliff, preferably while wearing trousers. There was no easy way of saying it.