Scottish Daily Mail

Bridget? She’s about as relevant as a Westlife CD

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CALORiES: lots, thanks. Alcohol units: Eight (v bad), and still early. Cigs: 0 (don’t smoke and could never Vape since Vaper looks like disconsola­te dragon). Weight: (public interest immunity certificat­e)

Bridget Jones is back this weekend – older but presumably none-the-wiser since the trailers for Bridget Jones’s Baby flag up love triangles, uncertain infant parentage and falling into the mud at Glastonbur­y.

Once she was an icon of the 1990s, a time when a singleton kept a diary instead of a blog, wrote down calories instead of logging them on My fitness Pal, and had a mum fixing her up for a date instead of spending awkward evenings sitting with underwhelm­ing men from Match.com or tinder.

Back when she had a weekly column in the independen­t, i was rather fond of Bridget (‘Diets are not there to be picked and mixed but picked and stuck to, which is exactly what i shall begin to do once i’ve eaten this chocolate croissant.’) But by the time she reached books and movies she had become a patron saint of forced silliness.

today she feels like a missed opportunit­y. in the new film she’s 43, still played by Renee Zellweger, pictured, but about as relevant as a Westlife CD. One in five women aged 45 has never given birth to a child; only 67 per cent of weddings mark the first marriage for both partners; nine in every 100 women are gay or bisexual.

Our lives may have changed but Bridget is unmoved by most social shifts. in 2016 she’s still a holdout for the power ballad, although most modern love stories are closer to songs by the Pogues: lots of shambolic activity, dogs howling, scruffy fiddlers and everyone drinking.

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