Do you face life head-on or are you an avoider?

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? That's if you dare look in the mirror at all.

It's a crying shame but a law of nature that time is directly related to gravity. As the years roll on, gravity takes hold - hair flutters gently off the head to the ground, jowls and breasts sink south, paunches droop and obscure the waistband.

Most people are vain about their looks. Whether it's touching up the grey streaks, powdering over the eye pouches, combing foot-long hairs from one ear to the other, or wearing a breathtaking corset to conceal the flab, we yield to delusion.

That is because inside we still see ourselves as the youngsters we once were. There are those locked in a perpetual time warp, still clinging to the style of hair or clothing from decades earlier when, for one fleeting moment, they thought they looked good.

Some superannuated blokes are still wearing the long hair of a 1970s pop or football star, even though their face resemble a wrinkled prune. Some women - now so ugly their lipstick backs into the tube - insist on wearing outrageous mini-skirts and straw-blonde hair. Add to that the leatherette tan one degree short of cremation and the effect is truly enchanting.

Trouble is, when your partner is a generation younger than you, it must trigger a certain paranoia.

Film star Michael Douglas was all over the papers at the weekend sporting a fresh facial scar which sparked off all sorts of speculation about a nip'n'tuck operation.

Mr Douglas, 60, denied it of course, but who could blame him if he did? Not only is he married to one of the most beautiful women in the world, she is also 25 years his junior.

At least if he has had a facelift, he is admitting to himself that time - the relentless gelder - has begun to take its toll. Many of us just will not face up to it.

One of my female colleagues simply deludes herself by using a mirror in a darkened corner of the room (must be hell when she's shaving). A male colleague admits he takes off his spectacles to look in the mirror so he cannot see the ravages of years (must be hell putting on his mascara). And despite - or maybe because of - his poor vision, he also refuses to wear glasses around the house so he cannot see how untidy it is!

My wife uses a mirror with a five-times magnification. The image is so horrific, she says, that when she peeps into a normal mirror, she looks positively flawless in comparison.

But we don't have to put up with any of it. Life is a vanity fair. We are firmly entrenched in the era of denial. We spend billions now on cosmetic surgery, probably more than goes into the NHS for doctors who have a proper job curing sick people.

You can get breasts enlarged or reduced, eyelid surgery, facial implants, lips plumped up, hair removal and hair transplants, and liposuction on the arms, thighs, bottom and stomach.

You can have implants in the calves, biceps and backside; you can even have your 'bingo wings' tightened (you know, the saggy flesh under the arms which flaps about when you jump up, wave and shout "house").

So why don't we grow old gracefully? Blame it on television. They have 19-year-old, blemish-free models bleating about having no wrinkles because they are using a special cream; and there are couples who look like teenagers gallivanting about on an all-action Saga holiday.

I refuse to be enticed. My mirror was stolen from the wicked queen in Snow White, and has been re-programmed to lie.

At least God was in a good mood when he was sorting out our ageing attributes. He made sure our eyes failed in direct proportion to our fading looks so we could not see what was really happening to us.

So which fool went and spoiled it all by inventing specs?

Updated: 09:01 Tuesday, April 05, 2005