Great Uncle Fred? May I call you Great Uncle Fred even though you are Jack’s great great uncle and not mine? I do not suppose you will agree with me that Alice Adams is the most beautiful girl in the world because I do not think that you have ever even seen Alice Adams. But who do you think is the most beautiful girl or woman that ever was in the whole history of the world ever? (Matthew, Autumn 2007).

Sorry, but it would not be possible, even if one knew everything (and I only know nearly everything) to say who is, was, or has been, the most beautiful woman in the world. This is not only because beauty is in the eye of the beholder, which of course it is, up to a point, but also because beauty is an absolute which cannot be surpassed. The only difference between a woman commonly thought beautiful and one who is sometimes thought beautiful is the length of time each one spends at the pinnacle. Being there depends on many factors. Every woman on her wedding day is the most beautiful woman in the room; just look around next wedding you’re at. Why is that, do you think? Every woman, at a moment of concentration, perhaps, or distraction, when the light is right, looking back over her shoulder, probably but not necessarily at a time of good health, can knock you for six with a sudden glimpse of her unsurpassable loveliness. Those who do this all the time are likely to be paid for doing it though it cannot be denied that some faces are naturally more beautiful than others. But that is a matter of millimetres. The person who most often seems to come top in polls to find the most beautiful woman in recent times is Audrey Hepburn, the actress most famous for `Breakfast at Tiffany’s` and `My Fair Lady`. Her perennial appeal proves the truth of the saying proposed by Francis Bacon (who was alive at the same time as William Shakespeare) - `There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in proportion`. You see, although at first glance Audrey Hepburn just melts you with her sweetness, look more closely and you see that everything is, well, too big: her eyes are huge, her nose is really long, her mouth is as wide as that of a wide-mouthed tree frog and her ears are large and pointy. But, is she beautiful!? Yes. Other women who do well in these polls - Vivien Leigh, Liv Tyler and Cate Blanchett for example - are also somewhat irregular, slightly strangely proportioned. Perhaps a touch of eccentricity in the arrangement of the face draws our eyes towards it, predisposes our sympathies, makes us feel that we belong to the same, vulnerable, species. It helps of course to be wonderfully dressed and brimming with health, but the face is the thing. That’s where beauty resides. And there is no face without it. But, then again, Helen of Troy did have a face that launched a thousand ships (leading to the idea of a unit of measurement for beauty, the millihelen, one millihelen being sufficient beauty to launch one ship), and Aishwarya Rai, the actress, is a person whom some consider to be not uneasy on the eye. But apparently there is a young contender for the title. Perhaps you have heard of her too? She comes from the same place as you. Alice Adams? She’s meant to be a cracker.

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