Though marginal to the main existential business of anthropogenic climate change and looming geopolitical conflict, there have been a couple of stories recently that should focus our attention on what will be one of the inescapable themes of the twenty-first century. Four Corners’ investigation into plastic surgery entrepreneur Dr Daniel Lanzer and the conviction for manslaughter of body-modification artist Brendan Leigh Russell in New South Wales are not, perhaps, the principal topics of conversation around such water coolers as are operational post the lockdowns. But both highlight, in very different ways, an increasing readiness to cut into human bodies in the pursuit of beauty and identity. While centring on very different procedures, both provide evidence of a radically changed, and changing, attitude to our own corporeality. [More here.]