Warning! This is a Rant.

I have to get a haircut today. I HATE getting haircuts, & this is why I usually resemble one of those shaggy sheep you see in old pictures of Scottish countryside. I cant stand hair hanging in my eyes, nor do I like 'wispy bits' hanging OUT sides of my neck. My hair just doesnt grow in an orderly fashion, but most hairdressers dont seem to care how the hair grows. They smile their vacuous smiles, as they admire their many-hued, current haystack or helmet in the mirror & ask how you would like your hair cut? As soon as you start to speak, their eyes glaze over, & the little flaps on the front of their ears close- tight!As you stop speaking they rouse a little from their selfabsorbed trance, & grab the spray bottle, & procede to drown your very head. As you sit dripping they begin the 'CUT'. Ye gods, you can see immediately this is not going well. As you feebly try to remind them, you didnt want it TOO short, off it comes. In huge lunging swipes your hair flies off, to land upon the floor. Then out come the 'thinning' shears! If you say you dont really want 'thin hair', they glare at you in disbelief, & use them anyway. You know this is another utter disaster, you cringe as they flash the mirror on the munted ruins of the back of your head, trying to console yourself YOU wont have to look at it. As they brush hair- seemingly miles of it- off your frozen face, & bald ears, & naked neck, you curse yourself for lack of courage to roar at them, or have a full blown Tourettes attack! You imagine them lying in the hair on the floor as you stand over them & hack off their very tortured hair. But me, I subside, defeated, mutter something about it being 'very short, at least I wont need to come back haha, for a very long time.' Translate NEVER. This is a cowardly protest, I realise that, & the rational side of me says I deserve a bad cut if I wont protest, but, lets face it, once the damn hair is off your head, you cant do a bloody thing about it. You can hardly glue it all back! Basically all you can do is suffer the family's hysterical mirth as you hide indoors for the next week.

I once stormed back to protest a particularly bad haircut, which had cost a small ransom. All my friends agreed it was the most disgusting haircut they had ever seen. The back looked as if some FAT RAT had gnawed it - & in fact that is exactly what had happened. He was very fat, & he had been demonstrating to a small, nervous, scared apprentice. When I raged back in he called me 'old' ???? What??? WTF??? there is no crime in being 'older' - besides I wasnt that old then! So, I totally lost it, & had a full scale Tourettes. 'Dont you swear at me' said he, 'It is obscene'. So- & I am not ashamed of this- I called him a "BIG, FAT, OBSCENE, HEAP!!!". The poor little apprentice almost fainted, because she started to laugh. I was given a refund by his shellshocked wife, & swept out feeling I still lost out.

I have not always suffered at the hands of hairdressers. The best one I ever had was an Irishman, who always begged me to have an affair with him, -when his wife was out of earshot, of course. I routinely refused, but always returned, - after all he was good for my ego, as well as working magic for my hair!I lived a public life, & needed to have decent looking hair.
Where ever you are now Simon, Thankyou!