New Day: Same Shit (But Now With Crystals)

"Sunday morning and I'm in a soulless Hilton hotel in West London, in tears.

I've just told a woman I don't know that when I wake up every morning, there are a brief couple of seconds before I remember the reality of my life, and then doom descends - a heavy black cloud that I find it difficult to emerge from each day.

'What do you hate about your life?' asks the woman, Sophie Brett, a hypnotherapist, expert in Neuro Linguistic Programming or NLP (whatever in God's name that is) and life coach.

I tell her I hate my falling-down house, to which she answers in nauseating New-Age speak: 'I'm not really wearing this problem at the moment.'

The Starting Over Show is a curious mixture of the hard sell and the nauseatingly touchy-feely, which, as we all know, is the latest corporate marketing tool. Make us feel loved, and special, and cared-for in a cocoon of squashy bean bags and we will be less likely to be wary of being ripped off. I find the whole approach cynical.

Here, at SOS, you will find yoga and meditation workshops, spiritual healers (an organisation called Rhythm Of Life offers 'separation ceremonies'), psychics and mystics, makeover experts, self- esteem gurus and flirting workshops.

I can't help feeling I've been patronised. All this New Age nonsense about sending a message to the universe really isn't just a load of hot air. It's dangerously misguided."

-- Liz Jones, on how NewAgers are laying in wait after a marriage is over - and after they may have played a role in causing the divorce - still offering nothing (now that you have nothing) but time spent with a con artist, and a copy of The Daily Mail.