Steve Jones I'd stop at you'd need a wide angle lens for him

Steve Jones I'd stop at, you'd need a wide angle lens for him."Despite his scepticism, though, White is dedicated to his job. "It's not just about quirky personality, it's the ability to do the work. If this is my 15 minutes I'd rather be in a rock'n'roll band." He sees the Britlook as a successful derivative of punk. Billy White, aged 26, the star of the new Richard Avedon commercials for Calvin Klein, is a tailor and model who has kept his South-east London edge. "If Paul Cook were younger he'd be earning a fortune, Rotten as well. "I gotta laugh at all this or I'd go mad," he says, "let's face it, modelling is not very cool.

Williams exists on a diet of double espresso and Marlboro, exudes the cool spark of early Bowie and has become a photographic muse for the likes of Stephen Meisel, Weber, Mario Testino, Paolo Roberti and recently, David Bailey. "I'll go to castings and there's all these big French guys saying, 'Oh you English roast beef, you're all so skinny, all look like you're on drugs ...' '' The British models also convey a streetwise humour in a business that can become ridiculously earnest. Lee Williams, for example, an androgynous slip of a thing who graces the cover of Coming Up, the new Suede album, is often rung when "they need someone who looks like Brett from Suede or Damon from Blur". The biggest coup of all, however, was getting Weber to photograph Vine's nascent band Arturo for the upcoming issue of Interview. "Bruce Weber seemed an all right bloke so I talked to him about the Pre-Raphaelite features of other members of the band, and he was interested in photographing us," says Vine.There has always been a strong connection between music and fashion in Britain, and with the appeal of Britpop it's no surprise that British models are having world-wide impact. And on the strength of a couple of Polaroids, he was shot by Bruce Weber for Versace. "American models are more beefy and Waspy, whereas the British tend to be eccentric and odd I wouldn't call them handsome,'' continues Carey.

"But the Helmut and Gucci clothes don't require you to have a beefy body You can have a weird haircut. And it doesn't look so modern to walk around with that muscular physique, I think it's a bit vulgar." The British look is partly due to designers such as Calvin Klein and Donna Karan now opting for "street" models and also, more pragmatically, the influx of British editors and stylists into influential American magazines such as Details and Interview. "We can take a Polaroid of a boy who walked in yesterday and he'd be part of an advertising campaign tomorrow," says Melissa Richardson, of Take Two, one of London's top agencies, sporting alternative models such as Keith Martin and Luca Fedrizzi, the guy who within a month went from selling the Big Issue to selling Versace.Her latest discovery is Finn Vine, a 6ft 2in, 17-year-old musician from Norfolk who has become this season's Calvin Klein Khakis model. Also the film world is very influential and Trainspotting has blown out of the water here, it's so popular." Whether pale, punky and wasted, or urchin-like and funky, British male models are the "It" boys of the international fashion scene. You had so little power; there were no options available and there was nothing you could do personally to change events I can't forget It was a nightmare.". A lot of Americans revere London for its style," says Ellen Carey, who runs Seed, an "image- ing" clothes wholesale firm in New York "We scour your magazines; we can't get enough of it.

"Abortion is so difficult because a woman knows she is carrying something around that will never live - that's the most difficult grief of all."This is what happens, the critics seem to be saying, when women are spoilt for choice: they abuse their freedom. Yet listening to Sonia, it's easy to forget how recently there was no choice at all She is quite clear about her abiding memory of pregnancy "It was the terrible feeling of being trapped. "She's denying the crisis of pregnancy by saying, 'I will not change', 'I cannot accommodate or expand'," he says. Once they have made up their minds, it's often the worst part over."Yet Canadian psychiatrist Philip Ney believes that, on the contrary, a woman's psychological well-being is under threat when she opts for termination. We also know that pressure or coercion, whichever way, is the worst predictor for mental health problems; it's when she feels pushed or pressurised, wanting one thing but doing another."This is because the actual process of trying to make the right choice can be so traumatic, says Sue Germain, a counsellor for the Brook Advisory Centre. "Often women are in a state of shock, they can't think clearly. They veer from wanting it to not wanting it and feel they'll never be able to reach a clear decision.