Ou sont les eyebrows d'autan?

"It's happened again," moans Vicky, on the phone. "You've got to help me."

I know where my priorities lie so, pausing only to advise the children on ad hoc chemical castration techniques should any Big, Bad Paedophiles knock on the door while I'm out, I head for her house.

When I arrive, she's staring into her mirror with a look of bitter resentment.

"What's happened?" I ask. "Did it tell you you're no longer the fairest of them all and, if so, can I go halves on the evil woodcutter after he's polished off Snow White in the forest?"

"The mirror's beyond speech," says Vicky. "And no wonder."

She gestures to her face.

"I just don't know what's happening. One moment I'm gorgeous, vibrant and sexy. The next, something has stolen all my body parts away and replaced them with someone else's. It's like Frankenstein in installments. Take my eyebrows. They're straight off Dennis Healey. There's one, right in the middle that's growing so fast I've had to repot it twice this week. I tried to use tweezers on it and it was like a thrush wrestling with a worm on steroids. I haven't seen them since. I think it ate them.

"And there's my lips. They're so thin that they're losing the power of expression. I'm having to hold up a card to show when I'm smiling. And as for pouting....."

She turns an anguished face towards me. At least, I think it's anguished. After what she's just said, I'm afraid to ask.