Actress Gwyneth Paltrow is famous for a string of movies that I have to admit I've never seen, but that could be because there's no cinema in my town and I'm not much of a movie buff anyway. She has never been nominated for an Academy Award (neither have I, but I have to admit that my film acting is restricted to advertisements which offend people) so she should welcome a nomination here.

Following a long show business tradition of people being famous for one thing branching out and using their name to sell things, she has gone beyond the usual perfumes and clothing lines and has become an "expert" on health matters. For some reason she seems fixated on vaginas. One of her early surprising suggestions was that women should steam their lady bits. The purpose of this wasn't made very clear, nor was the method – squatting naked over a boiling kettle, turning the heat right up in the sauna, hopefully not those wands with steam coming out the end that are used to clean soot and muck off the stonework on old buildings. The general consensus from women I know was that vaginas are essentially self-cleaning so the idea of steam cleaning was treated with a good dose of skepticism. And even a bit of ridicule. Her next project was a range of stone eggs to be inserted for no reason that could be explained in polite company. How these differed in principle from the Ben Wa balls that I've never heard of but are apparently available at a sex shop or Internet near you is a mystery. Maybe Gwyneth's eggs provide more wellness.

All of that was just general wooness. What got Gwyneth over the line for this award was a new product she has for sale. It's a candle. A $75 candle. The prosecution rests.