The Apprentice: But Leah – what do I do if I suffer a Looking Older emergency?

If you ask me, and even though I know I am rather alone in this, I would like to offer The Apprentice’s winning candidate, Dr Leah Totton, my heartiest congratulations, and wish her luck with her new chain of clinics specialising in Botox and fillers.

The news, admittedly, has not been greeted warmly in some quarters. It’s a betrayal of women, some people are saying, and a betrayal of the Hippocratic ideal, and a betrayal of the £250,000 it has cost the state to train 24-year-old Dr Totton thus far, and to what end? So she can make a personal fortune from shoving poison and lumps of cowhide into women’s faces? Oh, come on.

Indeed, my own particular hope is that more doctors will see the light, take the state investment, and perhaps even come together to open entire hospitals dedicated to treating that horrendous and unnatural condition known as Looking Older.

It might even have an A&E department, so you can be rushed to it outside normal hours, should you suffer from a bad case of Looking Older in the middle of the night, say, or should you suffer from it suddenly while crossing a road.

I would also hope they’d run their own research laboratory where serious work can be put into inventing yet more body parts for women to hate. After all, the “cankle” (fat calves where calf and ankle become one) and the “ninkle” (wrinkled knees) are quite old hat now, so it’s about time that there were some new and exciting breakthroughs.

I would urge them towards the wankle (wrinkled cankle) and the finkle (fat ninkle), but what do I know? It’s not like I’ve ever taken the Hippocratic oath! It’s not like the state has spent £250,000 training me! It’s not like I should be taken seriously! (Particularly when you consider that, as it happens, I do rather suffer from back fat, or “fack”, as it will probably become known in time.)

So good luck to Dr Totton, with her £250,000 investment from the taxpayer, and her £250,000 investment from Lord Sugar. And to all those who have, over the years, watched Botox and fillers become more and more normalised, as if it’s what all women were born to do at some point, and ever asked their own selves: “Did feminism actually happen, or did I dream it?” the answer is: “Yes, you dreamed it, you big silly!”

Lastly? OK, should a hospital offering emergency cosmetic surgery ever come into being, I shall certainly get my own back fat sliced away. Indeed, I shall race straight over and say to the doctor: “Fack Off! Now!” And I am so looking forward to that.

Twitter: @deborahross