Do you have poor teeth symmetry? Are you unpleasantly gummy? Well, you're in good company. According to leading US cosmetic dentist, Ron Baise, Nicole Kidman may be fêted for her beauty, but her molars are too short and lack the requisite whiteness. He's equally trenchant about Cameron Diaz and Denzel Washington, who have mis-matched canines and top teeth that slant inwards.
In the run-up to this evening's Oscars, Baise has fearlessly analysed the grins of 15 of Hollywood's top stars - and from that deduced their future earning power. Overall winner Halle Berry has a smile so dazzling that it is worth a million dollars, while toothy Julia Roberts comes a lucrative second (smile net value $944,000).
Which only goes to prove what I've always feared. Childhood victims of poor dentistry haven't a hope in hell. Your natural tooth colour is determined by your genes, and there are 28 natural shades, from near-white to grey. Most people are born with ivory teeth, which is seven shades away from the brightest natural colour. Teeth are a marker of class, prosperity, health, sex appeal. Hell, people marry you for your teeth.
Of course anyone who is under 20 can stop reading now. The youth of Britain have magnificent molars thanks to a plentiful supply of fluoride in the nation's tap water. Scarcely any have even seen a filling. But if you're aged between 35 and, say, Joan Collins, a lifetime of tea, coffee and red wine will have done its worst. And yellow horse teeth is not a good look. May I suggest a few simple rules: try not to smile too much, never wear white next to the face and, for those inclined, invest in lots of red lipstick.
This isn't purely a frivolous matter. Dentistry is currently a hot political potato. Can we speak frankly? Are you NHS or private? Which roughly translates as do you sit in a delightful waiting room, leafing through Vogue while nice Mr X consults you about the latest veneers? Or are you sidelined as disreputable scum ('no dogs, no NHS') in a freezing cold lobby? The funny thing is both sets of patients gather in the same building, but there's a Red Sea between us. Anyone relying on the beneficence of the NHS can only dream of the privileged world of teeth whitening and snazzy cosmetic procedures that goes on behind (strictly private) closed doors.
We're lucky if we get a basic scale and polish on the NHS. Or the same dentist twice. Alarming reports reveal that just 44 per cent of adults are registered with an NHS practice. In other words, 28 million adults and 4m children have no access to an NHS dentist. We're creating an underclass of people who spend years waiting to register with an NHS dentist. In the meantime our teeth are rotting away.
Personally I'm torn. Am I an NHS masochist? If I'll pay £40 for extracurricular activities such as a haircut or a massage, shouldn't I invest the same amount in my teeth? But having a dentist seems to me a central tenet of the welfare state. Surely if dentists who receive state funding were made to repay those costs when going private, we would have more NHS dentists for those who have paid into the system?
As Eamonn Holmes feelingly observed last week: 'Nursing is a vocation, being a GP is a vocation. But being a dentist is a business.' And let's face it, going for a checkup is an ugly, invasive procedure. It's hardly a lifestyle activity. When you are lying back in a chair with your mouth open, you are not best placed to argue when a dentist announces you need hundreds of pounds' worth of treatment.
Two in five dentists refuse to take new NHS patients. No wonder 3,000 would-be patients queued from dawn to register when Dutch practitioner Dr Aria van Drie opened Scarborough's first state-funded dental surgery for years. The tabloids reported 'shocking Third World scenes' and van Drie, who commutes from Holland, was hailed a heroine.
But the Dutch tooth fairy was soon hit by disaster when it emerged that van Drie had been sentenced to 240 hours' community service and given a six-month suspended jail sentence back in Holland, after being found guilty of the kidnap and extortion of the Belgian dentist who bought her former practice. UK health chiefs immediately closed her down to investigate the allegations, although van Drie's receptionist insists that the surgery will reopen tomorrow.
Quite right, too. If, like me, you are forced to make a 700-mile round trip to the West Midlands to visit the dentist (they think I live at home, spinster-style, with my parents, please God, no one mention the London address), deceit comes fairly easily. So Dr van Drie, I'm all yours. Fashion me your best set of porcelain crowns, put those vats of hydrogen peroxide on to boil, bring out the laser and the customised mouth trays filled with whitening gel. I'm more than happy for a career criminal to look at my teeth.
