Byline: by Angela Epstein
CHERYL COLE and I have never had a great deal in common. The X Factor judge is a global superstar with the kind of looks that can bring traffic to a standstill. I'm a mother of three from Manchester who rarely attracts an admiring glance.
She earns millions of pounds a year; I earn peanuts. You get the picture.
But after spotting pictures of the Geordie singer arriving at the latest round of talent show auditions yesterday, I realised we share something: cankles.
The lovely Cheryl may have looked like the perfect pop princess in a perky little fish-tail dress and sky-scraper heels, but there was no mistaking the unwanted accessory pooling round her feet.
In fact, when I saw the former Girls Aloud singer, I gasped aloud in sympathy. Forget her previous woes (being cuckolded by a philandering former husband or flattened by a dose of malaria), this was worse -- much worse. And as a cankles sufferer, I should know.
Cankles, for the uninitiated (oh lucky, lucky you!), occur when the calf meets the foot in one unapologetic union. It's a fusion of calf and ankle.
No elegantly turned, twiglet-thin ankle contours for Cheryl or me. Just one sausageshaped lump of fat splodged at the bottom of your leg. Think Hillary Clinton, Cherie Blair, Patsy Kensit and Mischa Barton. Even the saintly Helen Mirren -- who manages to looks stunning in a bikini even though she's eligible for a bus pass -- can't escape the curse of the cankle.
And my heart just bleeds for her because, unlike any other physical defect -- jowls, ugly teeth, a wonky nose, enormous breasts -- there's little you can do about cankles.
There is no ointment that can shrink your bones -- nor can improving your diet or pounding the gym treadmill really help shrink your ankles in the way they can banish a tummy bulge.
AS A size ten, I can tell you from painful personal experience that cankles bear little relation to your weight or fitness. After all, Cheryl's slight frame would suggest she'd be the last person on the planet to exhibit the kind of lower legs usually found on a swollen matriarch down the local bingo hall.
In fact -- and I try not to seethe with the unfairness of this -- I once worked with someone who was as round and bouncy as a TV agony aunt (she even kept a scrunched-up hankie in her hand to complete the look), but come summer, she'd unpeel woolly tights to reveal the daintiest little ankles I'd ever seen.
It didn't matter how many times a day I'd catch her face-down in a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel. The ankles never put on a pound.
No, the only option for the Cankle Crew is to try to hide the damned things. That is why I've spent my life constructing a wardrobe that means my shapeless ankles are out of sight: think thick black tights, loose-fitting trousers and no short, flirty skirts. I dread the summer because that's the time cankles are almost impossible to conceal -- I thank God every sunny day for the maxi-dress: the ultimate in cankle camouflage.
Selecting the right footwear is as critical as your clothes. Forget gladiator sandals or dainty ballet pumps. Flat shoes only serve to accentuate fat ankles.
Instead, I live in long, slim-fitting, high-heeled boots -- the column of black providing a cankle-disguising optical illusion. I keep these on even when the thermometer nudges 70 degrees.
When I do buy high heels, I always select ones with an ankle strap or one across the foot to distract from the flesh beneath.
I have a favoured pair of black stilettos with heels like a giraffe's neck and a strap that garottes the skin and leaves a pink welt. At times my feet go blue though lack of circulation. But what choice do I have? It's the nearest I can get to ankle corsetry, squeezing the damned things into a shape that Nature denied them.
Any other tips? Well, I'm told that toning the calves may help -- perhaps going on long walks or cycling to shift those fat deposits around the lower leg.And go easy on the salt. Too much sodium can make certain parts of your body bulge, especially your ankles.
Sitting around for hours (me in front of a computer; Cheryl in front of the next Mariah Carey) can cause blood to pool round the feet and enhance the swelling.
So it's important to get up every 20 minutes or so to stretch your legs.
If the only thing for it is the plastic surgeon's knife, some clinics offer laser-assisted liposuction of the lower leg. An incision is made in the skin and light from the laser is absorbed by fat cells, liquefying them so they can be flushed out by the body. For the more squeamish, the internet is crammed with magic creams and potions promising to fight cankle fat.
Do any of these treatments work? I doubt it. As far as I can tell, our hideous little problem is incurable and one we will take to our graves.
So my best advice, Cheryl, pet, is simply to take heart from the fact that very few women have it all. If cankles are all you've got to worry about, consider yourself blessed.
But take it from me: a short skirt, bare legs and heels? I'm afraid it's not your most flattering look, any more than it's mine.
CAN YOU TELL WHOSE CANKLES ARE WHOSE? (answers at the foot of the page)
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You're looking swell, pet: Cheryl Cole at The X Factor USA auditions last week
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