Though all of these gents have been snapped through 2006 carrying rather more cargo amidships than the strict Body Beautiful would allow.

And the reason is? There aren't any 'after' photos to show. They have always been like that, and always will be, because when men look for role models they look for different pounds - money not waistlines.

Women are meant to look for role models who are a size 0 or aspire to get there.

So, step forward (in a thigh rasping way) Michelle McManus, Vicky Entwistle, Gaynor Faye, Davina McCall, Jennifer Ellison and Jade.

These women, from varying degrees of pork-dom, grin out from the covers of their respective DVDs, looking radiant, toned, triumphant and heavily airbrushed. Actually, a big up to Michelle (right).

Two years ago almost to the day, when she was at the peak of her fame after winning X Factor and blowing off about how her win was a victory for big women supposedly happy in their skin, I predicted that when the Fat Gimmick ran out, as it soon would for her, she'd be at the Thin Thing,too, or I'd eat my words. I didn't have to.

Still, her version represents a cunning variation. You'd have to squint at her DVD to find the word 'workout'. There's a tiny photo of her doing an impression of three women in a swimsuit - and a huge photo of her doing an impression of two women in a dress.

There's not a trace of perspiration anywhere.

The other women appear on their DVD covers in lycra workout gear, giving the horrible impression that some physical activity may be required.

It's Shape Challenge Workout, Weight Off Workout, West End Workout, Fit Friends Workout and the truly frightening Pump It Up, Burn It, Lose It. Michelle sells The Lifeplan, 'the ultimate weightloss tool kit'.

It's a tool kit which you'd almost expect to find including a knife and fork.

It's pure genius.

If you are as big as McManus - and many women and men are - this is the DVD that promises at least being able to get through a door head-on instead of sideways.

You won't end up with a body like Ellison's, but you'll lose some lard and feel like you've made progress.

Even if you haven't. Result.

Who'd be the new Di?

Every day now there are pictures in the papers of a young woman leaving her central London home on her way to work. Her first job with fashion chain Jigsaw is apparently aimed at filling in the time until she gets married.

Already, she has a 'signature' style - wealthy, young Sloane Ranger - and her every fashion choice is covered in-depth in glossy magazines.

The funny thing is she couldn't be described as at the cutting edge of fashion, yet it's reckoned she's already inspiring thousands of lookalikes.

Since her every move is charted by the paparazzi, she now has police protection.

And soon we'll know if she will get her Prince Charming, as William Windsor has reportedly been told to make up his mind about whether he wants to marry her.

Sound familiar?

Where once there was Diana, now there is Kate.

Nearly a decade after the death of the first Queen of Hearts, we are being groomed for a new one.

Yet, for all the superficial similarities between the two women, nothing is really the same.

When Lady Diana Spencer married into the House of Windsor, we'd no idea just how dysfunctional it was. Princess Anne was still on her first marriage, Prince Andrew had yet to wed and divorce, and Charles had yet to drive his young bride insane with his own brand of freakish adultery - "I've a beautiful young bride, now for a crone on the side." At Charles and Di's wedding, the Archbishop of Canterbury declared "this is the stuff of which fairytales are made". Indeed it was.

Little Red Riding Hood. Or Snow White, except this time the Princess actually dies from a poisoned apple.

A lot of the same people who, 25 years ago, would have looked at Diana and thought 'what a lucky break', now glance at Kate Middleton and wonder 'are you mad?'

Of course, there's been some of the inevitable British sniffiness about Kate, too. Only a 'middle class' filly (albeit the daughter of millionaire parents), the stuffier papers have been wondering whether she is really of good enough stock for the heir to the heir to the throne.

But that sort of guff doesn't have the same edge to it now, because the Windsors' own stock has plummeted. After all, there are many parents, and the Middletons may be among them, who would look at the Windsors and wonder whether they'd really want a much loved daughter marrying into that crowd.

We now know everything we ever wanted to about the Windsors - and a lot we didn't.

We've been through two and a half decades of ghastly revelations, from the public snubbing of Diana, to bugged telephone calls, to tell-all documentaries, to that slaughter in the Paris underpass, aborted court cases, urine samples, Camillagate, Colgate-gate...it's a horror picture.

The Royals came to depend on their two final and most valuable assets - both of them women.

One's dead - though, God knows, she hung on as long as she could.

The other, well, God Bless Her.

After that? Forget it.

The unsavoury aura which hangs around Charles also hangs around his sons. It can't be shaken off. Who didn't raise an eyebrow when it emerged William and Harry were inviting Camilla to their mother's memorial concert? You have to admit it's all a bit crass.

Already, for all the artificial coverage, the public is jaded and tired and can't work up much enthusiasm for the William and Kate match.

Will the fact that Kate is 'ordinary' help her cope with royal celebrity? Does the fact she is older than Diana - she turns 25 today - make her better able to make a go of the marriage? Who knows? How many really care?

Because, for all the obvious similarities between Diana and Kate, there is one major difference - the spectacle may be the same, but the audience, older and wiser, has changed for good.

Saddam doesn't deserve this Middle England outrage

So Tony Blair is finally going to express his dismay this week on the nitty-gritty of Hussein's execution. This comes on the heels of Gordon Brown's hand-wringing on the same issue at the weekend.

The hypocrisy of New Labour knows no bounds. On the one hand, there are cries from liberal quarters for 'action' to be taken against tyrants and genocidal murderers from Slobodan and Pinochet to any number of criminals in Rwanda, Burundi, Zimbabwe, Sudan and Somalia.

When it comes to the bit, though, our lefty leaders get all queasy and pale when confronted by the grim reality of the noose or the firing squad.

Execution is not nice. It doesn't matter who does it, the State, the mob or hooded paramilitaries. There is no dignity attached to it, either, on any side.

Remember the festive treat 17 years ago in Romania when the Ceaucescus were shot at the back of their house and the video was circulated worldwide? That was a clear message - this is what happens to dictators and it's exactly what should happen to them.

Better that than a cosy lifetime on the fat of the land like the monster Idi Amin in exile in Saudi Arabia.

Personally, I've no problem with capital punishment after due process. I didn't feel that Hussein appeared particularly dignified before justice hit him.

I share the frustration of the Kurds and other victims in Iraq who feel cheated that their cases weren't made the occasion of a trial for the Iraqi dictator also. I also sympathise with those victims of his murderous regime who were able to be present at his execution but found themselves unable to restrain their enthusiasm for the event. And I sympathise with the Iraqi government which carried out the sentence of the court, as is its right as a sovereign state, and now finds itself the subject of sniffy sermons from Middle England.

The fact is Hussein's execution was much more civilised and much more decorous than those of the anonymous thousands he ordered to be murdered in the very killing shed where he met his own end.

It was carried out by the people he had terrorised for decades. And it was legal.

So, just who are you trying to impress, Mr Blair?

It's hard to keep in tune with progress

Sometimes, you just know that the 21st century was not a good idea. It's just the small things.

Last Sunday, we had the first official singles chart which counts downloads purchases. The previous system allowed downloads for songs which were also physically available in records stores.

Alas no more. A sale is a sale is a sale.

People who worry about these things fear that it's going to ruin pop music as we know it. Experts say that it leaves the way open for the charts to be dominated by golden oldies.

Saturday night screening of Top Gun? By the following week expect Take My Breath Away by Berlin to crash the poptastic chart. A Beatles season on BBC4 - Strawberry Fields Forever. And Ever.

Who knows with H from Steps and Jo from S Club 7 featuring in the latest Celebrity Big Brother, we might be facing a kiddie-pop revival of fearsome dimensions.

Indeed, the first week's charts seem to confirm experts worst fears with Mad World from the film Donny Darko bubbling under.

And there's even the possible return of 80s band The Proclaimers' Five Hundred Miles.

And they said the web was going to revolutionise everything.

What was it the man said?

The more things change, the more they remain the same.