Alright, alright, I know it's shallow, but here we go. The truth is, in an age where thinness is valued, many of us do want to look thinner in our clothes.

Anyone who's as skinny as she wants to be can stop reading here, but for everyone else (like me, after a winter of lard butties) here are some tips. 

* Aim for a long, lean, sleek line in everything you buy - don't buy clothes with volume. 

* Dress in one colour from top to toe, including tights and shoes. It's an age-old tip, but it really does work. If you tend to wear dark clothes and it seems too gloomy, make sure that your top half matches your bottom half (say, a jacket and skirt) but wear a contrasting blouse. Or wear dark brown, navy or charcoal instead of black. However, this trick also works in paler colours, including white.

* Matt dark fabrics with stretch are your best friend: think microfibre stretch tees, merino knit pencil skirts, suedette pull-on boots, poloneck sweaters. 

* Avoid texture, which adds bulk - mohair, boucle knits, guipure lace etc. If you like this sort of thing, save it for cushion covers and sofa throws, not your body.

* Stick to fluid, feminine fabrics such as wool or silk crepe, chiffon and knits. Avoid stiff, men's-type suiting fabrics or anything hard-edged such as patent leather or vinyl.

* 2-5 per cent stretch in any garment is usually a good idea.

* Don't wear your clothes too large. Jackets, coats and blouses should fit to the shoulder. Everything else should skim your figure, not envelope it.

* Don't wear shirts with a dropped shoulderline - these are men's garments, designed to make chests look broader (not something women generally want).

* Flip up your blouse collar at the back - it makes your neck look thinner. 

* Wear a long necklace or long thin scarf. If your necklaces have a tendency to drape themselves over one boob, try a heavy, flat pendant instead. 

* If your blouses gape, sew snappers inbetween the buttons for a better fit. 

* Wear your v-necks cut to the top of your bra or slightly higher. V-necks longer or higher than this, and crewnecks, tend to make your chest look vast. 

* Consider Henley necklines (round with a button-down front) or Moroccan necklines (round with a slit down the front), which bring emphasis back to your centre front. 

* Keep sleeves to elbow length or longer to hide bingo wings.

* Avoid short-sleeved garments - they're never the right length and it's usually more flattering to roll up the sleeves on a long-sleeved garment, which makes your forearm look daintier.

* Don't hide your ribcage area. This is the thinnest part of your torso, so it should always be visible. 

* Check that your bra is giving you enough uplift. Look for a 3-4 section cup, with or without an underwire, and thick straps that hoick your boobs up so your nipples are midway between your shoulder and elbow (or preferably higher). Lower than this, and your boobs will be hiding your ribcage, which will give a matronly look.

* If you have rolls of fat between bra band and waistband, wear high-rise knickers or an all-in-one control girdle. They're a lot more comfy than they used to be. 

* Make sure your clothes have vertical, not horizontal detailing. Vertical seams of the princess type are very slimming in jackets and blouses, giving a visual effect similar to boning.

* Diagonal shaping is also slimming - look for wrap tops, surplice tees, diagonal stripes etc. 

* Avoid bustline pockets and patch pockets on hips - these add bulk. Look instead for vertical pockets, or those that are inline with the side seam so they are invisible.

* Wear your jackets cut to the hip or high hip - NOT longer. A longer cut may comfort you with the idea that it covers your bum, but it also makes your legs look shorter. If you want to cover your backside, choose something with a more fluid structure than a jacket, such as a long tunic top. 

* Avoid dirndle skirts and pleated skirts that flare from the waist - they add bulk. If you like fullness in skirts, choose circle skirts, eight-gore flares or stitched-down pleats, which are flat at the waistline but flare out from about knee level. 

* Alter skirts so that they hit at the slimmest part of your knee - usually it's just above where it widens out into your calf. If you like narrow pencil skirts, have this done by a tailor because the side seams will also need taking in a bit. If you prefer longer skirts, have them about 4 inches above the ankle, in fluid fabrics, never at mid-calf length, which makes your legs look fatter.

* Do your utmost to find a good pair of jeans - then buy three of them. Look for dark indigo, bootcut, slight stretch, a proper v-shaped back yoke and the stitching on the side seams visible from the front to give a long line down your outside leg.

* For evening, think of fluid matt black trousers with black ribbon, braid or lace down the outer seam - this works on the same principle. 

* Look for shoes with a low vamp and no straps, to visually slim the foot. 

* Avoid ankle-strap shoes, and don't wear ankle boots with skirts. 

* Wear heels - if you look taller, you look thinner. If you're not comfy in heels, keep your flat shoes feminine and interesting but beware of ballerina pumps which can foreshorten the foot if the toes are very rounded.

* Consider knee-length boots instead of shoes, in the same colour as your skirt, for a long, unbroken line.

I found another article here on decluttering.

These are always worth a read, especially at this time of year when you suddenly get the urge to throw everything out. 

I'm not sure that it really has anything dramatically new to say, butit has some advice that is worth repeating, such as: "You don't have to be ruthless, but you do need to be dispassionate. Don't feel guilty about getting rid of something just because somebody gave it to you, or you spent a lot of money on it."

Harder said than done when you're a tightwad, of course. And the DH just a couple of weeks ago found a use for some things I sold two years ago - oops. 

More important perhaps is the link to Terence Conran's page on decluttering (I like the pictures here - it's how I fondly imagine I would live if I actually had some organisation and no cats). Although, again, the advice is familiar, one phrase did strike me:

"Anything that you are keeping on the off chance that it might either come in useful or become valuable one day. What is more useful and more valuable is the space that it is occupying"

Aha. Space is indeed useful and valuable, especially in Britain, where people live in the smallest houses in Europe, on the smallest plots of land. For instance, few people can really afford luxuries like a spare bedroom any more - far better to put a clic-clack in the dining room and turn the spare room into an ensuite - at least that way you get to actually use it. 

Maybe what we all need is gigantic lockups to put all our junk in, then when we're dead, all our rellies can come round and exclaim at the crap - or, as I did last night - cry out in wonder at the rackds of vintage clothing batty-as-a-fruitcake Cornelia Bailey had managed to amass in her Jacobean pile in Country House Rescue. I would have given my eye teeth to trawl through those two rooms, I tell you what...

Following an earlier article I wrote on the subject, I was pointed at this article by a Second Cherry reader, about a campaign to have digitally altered images labelled as such.

It is only a shame that, as usual, the moves to force the use of more realistic imagery of women in advertising are so heavily blocked by corporate interests. 

It is principally by making women feel dissatisfied with themselves, after all, that the fashion and beauty industry can continue to sell us products we don't actually need, and they have billions of dollars invested in making us feel crap. 

Mentioned in the article is the incident last October when Ralph Lauren attempted to take down bloggers who reproduced the ghastly ad shown at top left (in which the model's pelvis had been photoshopped to be smaller than her head). Ralph Luaren claimed copyright infringement, but BoingBoing claimed fair comment, and won. 

So, folks, here it is again, just to annoy Ralph Lauren.

I'm sure we are all well aware that ALL images are now retouched, but few people realise by quite how much. It t'olden days, every bit of retouching took a deal of time and could only be done once, so freckles, etc, were removed and eyes brightened, but there was no time to go around lenthening legs and bodies and arms and necks in the way it is almost universally done today.

The average model today has been Photoshopped to look like 'an anorexic with a  boob job' says one commentator, and that is about right, but so bad is the retouching on the Ralph Lauren image above that some people believe it MUST have been a publicity stunt. 

Why then did the same company use this image (near right) just a week later in another campaign? Note the hips, which are about half the width of the poor girl's shoulders - you can see her correct proportions in the right-hand image. 

And why did Filippa Hamilton, the model in the jeans ad, later say she had been fired for 'being too fat'? If you want to see just how fat her size 8 figure is, click here.

The thing is, Ralph Lauren has a track record where this is concerned. Anyone much younger than me is probably too young to remember the controversy they caused in the early 1980s when they were among the first companies to use really spectacularly thin models. Their girl of choice back then was Saffron Aldridge, who was considerably thinner and bonier than the usual models of the day such as Cindy Crawford and Naomi Campbell. Not since the late 1940s when many of the most famous models were suffering from malnutrition had we seen such angular cheekbones. But little by little we all got used to the bony look until it somehow became the norm. 

Now, though, it's all gone way too far, when the 'desireable' image thrust at women is not only to be underweight and follow a body shape (wide shoulders, big boobs, very tall) that falls only to very few, but be thin to a degree that is actually anatomically impossible. 

The UN has warned that AIDS is now the biggest killer worldwide of women of reproductive age.

One reason is that the majority of women worldwide - some 70 per cent - have at some point been forced to have unprotected sex. Fundamentally, new research shows, it is men's violence against women that is leading to the rise in AIDS. 

A bigger argument for the empowerment of women could scarcely be thought of. Women throughout history have been subject to violence and rape at the hands of men, and now that can lead not only to injury, unwanted pregnancy and psychological trauma, but also to death at an early age.

It is sometimes easy for us to forget this in the West, where we kid ourselves that we're 'equal', but in much of the world, women cannot even control the most basic matters about their own lives such as their reproductive rights, who they have sex with, whom they marry, how they work or whether they can own property.  

In South Africa - one of the most 'macho' nations in the world - HIV infection is three times more common in young women than in young men, partly due to the prevalence of rape in that society. And in sub-Saharan Africa, the biggest risk factors for AIDS are not to be gay, promiscuous or an intravenous drug user but to be a young married woman. Marriage effectively makes a woman a chattel of her husband in many societies, and their subordinate position makes it impossible for women to insist on safe sex.

In the light of this new research, the UN says it will now incorporate action against violence against women into its worldwide programme to conquer HIV.

I found some tips online the other day about selling your property in the current market. 

The piece was written for sellers abroad - particularly Spain - but there's some good general advice for anyone who's trying to move house but can't shift their property at present. 

Space
Few matters are more important to buyers than a ‘feeling’ of space, says the author. This is as important to someone seeking a studio flat as a person wanting a luxury villa.

He advises that you look at photographs in interiors magazines and notice that what they all have in common is a lack of clutter. Surfaces are generally clear and furniture is minimal.

To duplicate this look, remove everything that in any way reduces the ‘sensation’ of space, he says, including possessions that are dear to you. "Few people will ever buy your property because of your belongings," he points out, so be ruthless - put your stuff in storage if you have to.

Light

"Make sure your property is filled with as much natural light as possible. A lack of plentiful natural light strikes deeply into the subconscious, always producing a negative sensation.

"Get rid of any heavy velvet or net curtains, however inconvenient this may be in the short term. Make sure that windows are clean, heavy curtains are pulled well back and that any nearby vegetation or trees do not darken your house."

In this house, because of our 2ft thick walls and tiny windows, we use extra-long curtain poles, cream curtains, and tie them well back from the windows. As we are not overlooked, we also only use curtains for warmth, only winter and only in the living room, and even here, in summer, they come down altogether. In London, where we lived almost on the street, we used stick-on film on the windows to blank out vision in the lower half, and cream Roman blinds - no clutter, and infinitely variable light.

Deliver the dream

"A few well placed bottles of champagne, a full wine rack and some yachting/golfing magazines can provide a high life ‘feel’ to a room," says the author. "Fresh fruit and flowers always add colour and the smell of freshly ground coffee can be effective."

The magazine and wine idea is a good one - its something we use when we're 'staging' interiors for photography but I wouldn't have thought of it for selling a house.

Cleanliness

"Few things are more off-putting than properties that are unclean, messy, greasy or smell of cigarette smoke, damp or pungent incense sticks," the author advises. "Keep your house well aired and centralise all extraneous mess in one discreet area preferably away from the main body of the accommodation."

Oh Lord, why don't more people do this? It is so basic, and yet I think people can't see their own filth when they're living in it. Smokers are particularly guilty, as they simply can't smell their own smoke, nor realise what a brown, hideous tinge everything they own has about it. I vividly remember moving into a flat in Kilburn and the brown water that ran down the walls as I washed the previous owner's nicotine off everything.

Low maintenance

"Prune trees and shrubs, clear your garden of weeds and undergrowth, power wash terraced areas and paths and make sure that your garden looks easy to maintain. Also mend broken gates, fix dripping taps and ‘sticking’ doors or windows.

"Repaint scuffed areas of paintwork to provide an impression of care – if a buyer sees small areas of neglect he will suspect that your house has more profound problems."

These tips should be tattooed on the eyelids of everyone who's trying to sell in France at the moment - most of their properties look awful, and a potential buyer couldn't help but be put off the second they turn into the courtyard. Some have broken-down old cars in the driveway, most have moss and weeds everywhere, and few Brits seem to spruce up their paintwork and plant geraniums in windowboxes, the way the French do. 

Warm

"If you have a viewing, make sure that your property is warm."

Well doh, you would think. But people are stupid...

Lived in

"Few properties are more difficult to sell than unlived in, empty shells. ‘Dress’ your property so that it feels like a permanent home and not somewhere that is temporary or deserted. Always retain furniture in your property together with pictures, curtains, towels and the minimum obvious objects to give the impression that someone is living there all the time."

This is obviously written for holiday home owners, so its relevance to UK sellers would be minimal, but lived-in vs tidy is a hard balance to strike.  Too many Brits regard their property as a house and not a home, and paint and furnish it to suit the next buyer, stripping it of all individuality.

Property surroundings

"The impression of a buyer is not restricted to just within the boundaries of your property. Rubbish piling up close by, a badly potholed road, excessive weeds on pavements and discarded junk all provide a negative impression.

"It may hurt to clean up the mess of others (or do the work of the town hall!) but it is essential to ensure that the immediate environment of your home looks good and not neglected. So, get out there and fill in the worst of the potholes and regularly get rid of any junk and rubbish!"

Easy enough to do here - my local commune would be delighted if we slung a couple of buckets of gravel into the pothole that regularly opens up in our driveway (there's a source underneath), but harder to do in the UK, I would have thought.

Individuality

"If your property is identical to many others close by, try to give it some aesthetic individuality such as painting it a different colour, having window boxes of colourful flowers, adding wooden shutters or perhaps some pretty water feature in the garden beside an imaginative shaded seating area. Make sure your property stands out and has the capacity to leave a positive and distinctive memory."

Our Dutch friend Gerry was always a big fan of 'My pink half of the drainnpipe' but until he came to Britain he didn't know it was a REAL phenomenon. In London, our half of the drainpipe was black, if memory serves. It can be hard, though, to make a mid-terraced house look individual when it's surrounded by others exactly like it. 

Be relaxed

"Always give the impression to any potential buyers that you are perfectly relaxed and content. Never appear nervous, never over-sell and never mention anything derogatory about your home."

Well LOL. The last time I sat in someone's house to ask about selling her property, she gave me a massive list of everything that was wrong with it. Admittedly, I wasn't buying, and she may have been unguarded, but her near-hatred of her own home certainly came over in the conversation.

"Have a plausible reason for wanting to sell and make sure that reason has nothing to do with anything that could be considered a negative about your property (‘we would like an en-suite’, ‘need a bigger garage’, ‘the garden takes too much effort’, ‘we hardly use the the pool’ etc)."

I know only two people who've cracked this - one who sold because her husband died and another who sold because she had become too disabled to continue living in the property. Both are reasons that any buyer would understand and sympathise with. If we ever sell this place, we'll probably just say we're moving closer to family.

For more tips, visit the link above.