Cirrus@Austlit

'You may be under the impression you are reading a knock-off of Miss Taylor’s engrossing, if sadly premature, health-kick memoir Elizabeth Takes Off when I tell you that in 2015 I experienced a few golden months in which I had never felt better in my life. And the reason I felt this way was due to ‘the menopause’, a state that is usually as welcome as a hot cross bun at Glick’s. I felt so very wonderful that I was even seeing fit to state on almost a daily basis that I was — wait for it — ‘rocking the menopause’. Friends would sit, riveted with boredom, as I confided in them that I had reached this milestone, and that I, apparently alone among womankind, felt great. No more cramps that made me feel as though the dwarf from Don’t Look Now had punched me in the abdomen! No more PMS that made me cry just because some guy in Grey’s Anatomy was getting a face transplant! But then it turned out that I wasn’t actually menopausal after all – though, believe me, things in that department are winding down as comprehensively as Rod Stewart during one of his live shows.' (Introduction)