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HIS FUNERAL was planned and the plot was paid for 21 years ago. But Christopher Blum's remains have never rested beneath a headstone. Instead, his tiny frame lies frozen in a mortuary in a drawer marked: 'Baby Blum: Deceased.' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

SHELLEY PRICE can't stop the tears from falling as she makes her startling confession. The mother-of-two is in the living room of her home in Halling, Kent, surrounded by all the usual signs of a busy family life. There are photos of her daughters on the sideboard and toys spilling out of cupboards. But the cosy domestic scene only makes what she has to say even more poignant. Shelley is about to admit to one of the great taboos of motherhood. No matter how hard she has tried, she says she can't bring herself to love her elder daughter, Catherine. 'I know what people will think. Everyone will hate me. I'm the woman who doesn't like her own child. But I'm speaking out because I'm convinced I'm not alone,' says the 33-year-old. 'I hate myself for the way I feel, but whatever it is that makes a mum want to hug and kiss her child, I have not felt it. Catherine has always felt like someone else's daughter.' [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

IT IS a decision no parent -- or child -- should have to face. But in yesterday's Mail, terminally ill teenager Hannah Jones described how, at 13, she is refusing a heart transplant and wants to stay at home with her family in the last months of her life. Her parents have been criticised for supporting her. So are they right? Here, two parents facing a similar dilemma give their very different answers -- while the Mail's advice columnist Bel Mooney gives her trenchant view. . . [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

DID THEY feel empowered? Did they feel great? No. As they huddled together in their underwear in a filthy, disused Victorian swimming baths, the lucky finalists in Gok Wan's Miss Naked Beauty competition felt anything but. 'Degraded, confused and very, very tearful,' is how Denise Ching describes her emotions as she staggered from the pool, where moments earlier Gok -- self-styled champion of real women -- had set a fire hose on her and 23 fellow 'contestants' in a bid, he claimed, to reveal their natural beauty. For Sonia Potoczny, 30, the stunt not only left her shocked and embarrassed, but sickened by its brutality. 'I was genuinely scared,' she says. 'And afterwards, disgusted.' Having already endured the humiliation of a bikini parade on Blackpool Pier, for some of the women who arrived for filming that day -- dressed to the nines in eveningwear and full make-up, as per Gok's instructions -- doubts over taking part in the show had already started to set in. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

ARE you the kind of girl who thinks Bluetooth is what happens when you forget a dental appointment, or that Blackberries are only for pies? Don't despair! Gadgets and gizmos are no longer just for geeky guys. With apologies to feminists, here, male chauvinist pig DAVID THOMAS brings you the Blondes' Guide To Gadgets, while ELLA WILLIAMSON, the 'gadget girl' from TV's Something For The Weekend, gives her verdict. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

IN THE red corner, on towering stilettos, stood Amanda Holden, 37. And in the blue corner, Kelly Brook, 29, the young contender to her crown. Dressed to the nines, the newly announced female judges on Britain's Got Talent emerged from the rehearsal studios into a blaze of publicity yesterday, and immediately faced questions over whether they would develop a bigger rivalry than Cheryl Cole, 25, and Dannii Minogue, 37, who went head to head as judges on The X Factor. So which of these four gorgeous young things should be crowned the queen of reality TV? RACHEL PORTER asked a panel of experts to give their waspish views. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

IN DECADES past they would have marched out in comfortable shoes to protest about nuclear disarmament or women's rights. But these days, university girls are fighting for the right to look hot. Hundreds of them have applied to take part in an inter-campus beauty pageant. They claim that it is sort of, um, postfeminist to wear high heels and a pretty frock and parade on stage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

FOR Dawn Griffiths, it was a moment she had dreaded and dreamed of in equal measure: the day her beloved teenage daughter would leave home, and her mother's watchful care, to set off alone into the world. Earlier this week, she waved off her 18-year-old daughter Alex from Middlesbrough train station on the first leg of a trip to the Italian Riviera. To her surprise, she was able to hold back her tears. While thousands of such scenes are played out across the country every summer, for years Dawn felt it was something she could not contemplate. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

THE thought of posing naked for a photo is a nightmare for most women. But when the ladies of the Rylstone and District WI dared to bare for their famous charity calendar, they raised a fortune, as well as a few eyebrows, and inspired a Hollywood hit. Now their story has been turned into a play, and six of Britain's best-loved actresses will be stripping for live theatre audiences across the country. So how do they feel about baring all? And what do they think of their own bodies? [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]