Self-confessed.

There are many people who believe that if they acknowledge a fault, a flaw in their character, then it's all OK. I'm one of them. I have in the past confessed to my hypocrisies and even claimed that they are unavoidable...

1. One contradiction that I have recently noticed is in my beliefs about tanning. Having naturally very pale skin, and hating the sun, I have always been in the 'pale and interesting' camp. Self-tan? Tanning booth? Tights or leggings to protect people from the 'blinding whiteness of my legs'? No way! It's stupid, can lead to skin cancer and in my opinion a tan doesn't look that great anyway.

But it truly, truly bugs me when people comment on it: 'you're so white!' or 'you've just come back from holiday and you're just as pale as before!' or, even worse, that incessant fussing which teachers are so prone to, ensuring that I'm wearing sun-block to prevent burning. So when I realised how I had a very pronounced tan line from where I was wearing my watch, I felt disproportionately happy. I'd proved all those doubters wrong! I can tan without burning, I just choose not to!*

2. Perhaps less ridiculous are my confused ideas about animals; I know I'm not the only one who is neither a staunch PETA supporting vegan nor a Tory country girl who enjoys hunting and has rosy red cheeks. Recently I have become a vegetarian (pescetarian to be precise; another hypocrisy, I know...) but I still enjoy wearing the plenty of leather garments I own and continue to buy. And I've had a serious fixation on the perfect fur coat to last a lifetime, but somehow I feel wrong about real fur (see?? Contradiction!) so I'm hoping to find the perfect faux fur. How fantastic do these women look in their fur adornments? (from top: Greta Garbo, Anna Friel in Me Without You, Gwyneth Paltrow in The Royal Tenenbaums, Kate Moss and Bosworth at random sleb events)

And I don't particularly love animals either; some dogs and ginger cats are cute, but you'll never find me stroking a cow. So the only way I can justify myself is that I don't mind killing or wearing them, it's just eating dead things I have a problem with. Anyway, isn't it pretty?

*you don't know how tempted I was to put up a picture of my tan line, before realising just how ridiculous the idea was.