I’m starting to hate the concept of time.

STUART WAS ON A MISSION TO ERASE YEARS (AND INCHES) WITH COSMETIC QUICK FIXES

You should see what it’s done to my face. Four years ago, I looked great: lean, well rested, unlined. I looked like a statue. I suppose I still look like a statue – only now, it’s of a wheelbarrow full of rancid butter that’s been pushed out of an aeroplane. Since I’ve had kids, my face has decayed like that of an Indiana Jones baddie. My jawline looks like a duvet stuffed by a toddler. I’m writing this after just three hours of sleep, with a cold. I’d show you what I look like, but I don’t want to be held responsible for haunting all of your future dreams. Four years ago, I looked like me. Now, I look like me after washing up on a beach.

We all know what the answer is. It’s to rejoin a gym and broaden my diet to include things that aren’t entirely covered in sugar. It’s always worked for me in the past, slimming me down and making my skin look like it’s at least on nodding terms with the concept of circulation. But that’s the other thing about time: few of us have very much of it. From before the sun comes up to long after it sets, our days are a teetering cairn of work and chores and childcare and errands, leaving scant space for exercise. So, is this my lot? Must I resign myself to the gradual potatoification of my face? And must you?

Perhaps not. Exercise might be the sensible answer, but what if there was a quicker fix that could restore my visage to a semblance of what it once was? In short, what if I had “work done” to my face? Nothing as scary as surgery, of course. No, I’m talking about “tweakments”: non-invasive procedures that take a matter of minutes. I want to pop out on my lunch break, get my face seen to and be back before everyone else has finished their sandwiches.

Fortunately, there’s plenty of choice. According to one report, the global “medical aesthetics” industry is now worth £40bn, and it’s growing fast. Where such short cuts were once stigmatised, today’s “influencers” – such as the Kardashians – are relatively open about the work they’ve had done, from dermal fillers to borderline-experimental facials. So, after shopping around online, I found a handful of treatments that would, in theory, restore my face to near-pristine condition, and could do the same for you.