Don’t mind the gap
It has long amused me that when alighting from the tube at certain stations, a voice from above entreats passengers to ‘mind the gap’ causing the uninitiated to immediately look upwards instead of focussing on the yawning void below.
Well, no such problem at the recent New York Fashion Week where teeth with gaps (diastemas to you and me) were hailed as ‘the must-have orthodontic trait du jour’. I had no idea there was a rolling programme of such daily orthodontic options. Designers have been looking for models with a diastema as a sign of beauty.
The search is now on for ways to open anterior spaces rather than close them. I suppose that at least it keeps our American practitioner cousins in business, first creating more gaps and then closing them again, because, rest assured that in a fluttering of very expensively crafted eyelids, cosmetic dental divides will soon be ‘so yesterday, dahling’.
Chewing it over and out
Clever people at Bristol University have come up with one of those genius inventions that you wonder why no one has thought of it before; a non-stick chewing gum which dissolves within 24 hours. According to the report, the water-soluble product went on sale recently in the United States and so it will be interesting to see if it takes off, or should that be washed off?
The dental beneficial effects of chewing, sugar-free, gum have been extolled for some time and it may be that this new variant will be able to claim similarly desirable properties as well as cleaner environmental credentials. It will certainly be preferable to having to put trousers into the freezer, wait for the grunge to harden and then trying to chip off the gum that you’ve sat on somewhere; or from using gallons of high pressure water to scour it off pavements.
Education, education, vocation
A slightly alarming note has been sounded from the world of education in that apparently some schools, in order to boost themselves in exam league tables, have started offering more vocational courses. These include a GCSE-equivalent on ‘personal effectiveness’ the syllabus for which encompasses giving make-overs and tooth cleaning.
So it seems that as well as woodwork, metalwork and sewing, dentistry might soon become a GCSE in its own right. No need to worry about fancy long degree courses, diplomas and all that shenanigans, an O level in fillings and an A level in gums will set you up for a career in dentistry with the option of an S level in one of the specialties – ‘orthodontic trait du jour’ perhaps? Mind the (credibility) gap.
SEPTEMBER WINNER
The winner of the September prize of Beverly Hills Formula products is BG Mistry of Leicester for the caption: ‘NHS or private? The choice is yours!’