Apparently one of the easiest ways of dealing with the visible effects of the ageing process is to avoid looking in mirrors for a split second longer than in takes just to check that there is no spinach lurking in your teeth.

Now this may well be good advice, but at 47 and having spent many of those years checking my appearance in shop windows and being renowned for carrying around the kind of mirror more commonly found gracing a bathroom than a handbag, that’s going to be difficult for me to follow.

Just to clarify, it is vanity that drives this vice and not conceit. I just need to reassure myself that nothing has gone badly awry since the last time I looked.

And being the kind of person who manages to wear more of my lunch than I digest and have hairstyles that are destroyed by a cloud passing over the sun, there is far too often something about me that desperately needs fixing.

I also have an ongoing battle with lipstick that disintegrates with my first breath after application. Even the brands guaranteed to stay glued to your lips for at least 24 hours spurn me in less than 24 seconds.

Thankfully, I no longer feel such a failure to womankind after noticing, in the small print of ads, that international manufacturers only seem to find about 73 people on the entire planet to trial their products’ claims – and only about half of them seem prepared to endorse them.

Some people however do really seem to enjoy gazing constantly at their reflection purely for their own pleasure and to reaffirm how absolutely fantastic they are.

The most narcissistic being I have ever encountered was a man I dated who had a strong attraction to anything shiny. He swooned blatantly at himself in the back of spoons in restaurants, and once couldn’t resist kneeling to catch a glimpse of himself in the hubcap of a parked car, which proved so satisfying he promptly proposed to himself.

Needless to say I finished that relationship. It was several years ago but I doubt if he’s noticed yet. The downside of my mirror checking obsession for flaws is that as the years fly past very few of them appear to have actually passed, and there’s always something new to worry about. But I have an antidote.

Instead of avoiding mirrors, I advocate that not only is it best to embrace them but to actually use a magnified one whenever possible (unless you are horizontal – never ever use them then).

By the time you are used to your imperfections magnified to five times their actual size, when you next see yourself in a regular mirror the relief that wrinkles and open pores can’t actually be spotted from a country mile is enormous.