VERITY LUSH: I can't get my head around the general fakeness today

I don’t much venture from the sofa most evenings, lost as I am in a fug of work, kids, exercise and exhaustion, so I don’t see much of the Land of Out Out.

Given what I am confronted by when observing Take Me Out, perhaps this is no bad thing.

When I was in my teens and late teens, back in the day of More magazine and Sky, eyebrow-plucking was all the rage.

Spiral perms vied with grunge in the playground, selfies didn’t much exist and clothing was generally purchased in Pilot.

If you’re currently in your 20s or younger and reading this, then the majority of it probably sounds like a foreign language.

That, or very bad fashion choices.

And much as I agree to an extent, I am also mightily relieved that I didn’t become an adult in the age of now. It’s the general fakeness that I cannot get my ancient, wizened little head around.

Fake brows, fake lips, fake tan, fake boobs, fake lashes, fake hair.

So much effort!

I always felt a tad deceptive in my good old Wonder Bra, let alone cladding myself in plastic from top to toe.

Take Me Out revolves around a series of single men being revealed to the women on the show.

They weigh them up, find out about them and decide whether or not to leave on their lights. No lighty, no likey.

From those who do leave on their lights, the blokes then pick dates to take to the isle of Fernandos.

Said males make their choices from a vast array of clones, not one of whom could generally be described as being in possession of natural beauty.

In fact, most look like you’d need to scrape 10 layers off with a pallet knife to see what you’re really getting.

It could just as easily be Dot Cotton under there as Cindy Crawford.

I wonder if the males on the show could get away with suing under the Trades Description Act, because at least they’re real.

IT’S A FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN THAT IS THE MOST SCARY IN LIFE

The increase in terrorist attacks seems unprecedented.

I remember growing up in the 1980s and hearing about the IRA on the news, and the Middle East and Iraq, but always being too young to fully understand why there were issues, or what those issues were.

For children, watching the news is important for their ever-growing world view.

However, it must also be increasingly scary.

I don’t recall ever having lived in such unstable times.

From Russia to North Korea, from Trump to Putin, from ISIS to Brexit; nothing is certain.

We have no idea of what we are heading for. We face uncertain futures and, as many adults agree, it’s fear of the unknown that is most scary in life.

I WAS GOBSMACKED TO FIND OUT THAT SINGER WAS HARRY STYLES

I’ve never been much of a fan of One Direction (I am really showing my antiquity in this week’s column).

Not that they were remotely offensive; I’m just past it.

However, I was gob-smacked after discovering that the song I’d been enjoying all week on Radio 2 (yep, still rolling with my oldness), is by none other than Harry Styles.

Sign Of The Times – and especially the live performance on Graham Norton – is an eye and ear-opener.

Whether written by Styles or a host of paid contributors, I don’t care.

It’s haunting, it’s tuneful, and it’s also very good to run to, which makes it just about perfect in my book.

It was like blind music- tasting with no room for preconceptions.