and we cry when they all dye blonde....

"Apparently," C. told me this weekend, "if you have your arsehole bleached, you can have real problems getting it waxed afterwards. It's the increased sensitivity."

I'm not sure if there's ever a right moment to be told that kind of thing, to be honest, and it took a little while for the information to process. Had I heard that correctly? Yes, I rather think I had. Did I understand what I was hearing or why I was being told it? Not really.

Let's pause here and consult wikipedia:

Anal bleaching, I learn "is the practice of bleaching the pigmentation of the skin of medium- to light-skinned people around the anus. Some white people have some degree of darker pigmentation of the skin immediately around the anus, which can be mistaken for poor personal hygiene. Discoloration of the anal and vaginal areas can be caused by aging, hormonal changes from pregnancy, diet, and other factors.Bleaching is used mostly for cosmetic purposes to lighten the color of the skin around the anus, making it more uniform with the surrounding area."

Ah, I see. But where on earth does the idea of something like this come from?

"Originally, anal and vaginal lightening was discovered by adult film stars, dancers, models, beauty-forward celebrities and others on the forefront of the waxing trend who were "exposed" and wanted to enhance the appearance of the anal, vaginal and genital areas."

Right. Beauty-forward celebrities. Of course. Am I the only person thinking of Jordan at this point?

Now, I might be metrosexual enough to use moisturiser, but that grey hair is all my own, and I'm about as likely to have a back, crack and sack wax as I am to tap-dance to San Francisco singing "Holding Back the Years" by Simply Red. Anal bleaching? I'm not sure I know which is the more bizarre: the idea of someone applying bleach to their fundament, or the idea that anyone might actually want to bleach it in the first place. How does that come up in conversation? Who tries that out for the first time? And once you've started, would you ever really be happy with the colour you've achieved, or would you want more? Would you spend every spare moment over a mirror with a colour chart? And as for the news that it renders many people too sensitive to be waxed.... well.

I put it to you: if the biggest problems in your life are the colour of your arsehole and the subsequent increased sensitivity - post-bleaching - that makes waxing something of an ordeal, then I'd suggest you're lucky not to have more serious problems.

Or is that just me? Is everyone else doing this but me?

I'm clearly reading the wrong magazines.

A problem, I would suggest, that our forebears never had. This, my friends, is evolution. Can our species advance any further?

And, yes...... I am still a little baffled as to how this can come up, apropos nothing, in casual conversation with my wife. Wouldn't you be?

the future's so bright....

As I went out running this evening, I found myself squinting into the evening sun as I dragged my limbs, still aching from Sunday's 9 miler, around the Embankment. Why had I decided to run without my sunglasses on? I love wearing sunglasses and I almost never go running without them. I even have a pair that I use especially for exercise. It might have gone past seven by the time I set out, but it's not winter here just yet and there's still good daylight to be had long into the evening. What was I thinking? I almost never go anywhere without sunglasses. I'm very attached to my sunglasses.

I think there are two likely reasons for this attachment. The first is that, for thirty years of my life anyway, I wore glasses. I didn't get my first pair of prescription sunglasses until I was in my late teens. If you've ever seen the prescription sunglasses on offer as the "free pair" when you buy a pair of specs, you'll know that the choices are extremely limited and the styles generally unflattering. I began to wear contact lenses with greater regularity from my mid-20s onwards, and it wasn't long before I bought myself my first pair of proper sunglasses - a pair of Oakleys from a shop in Padstow. In fact, the very same pair that I still wear when I'm out running. I was thrilled with them and wore them almost as often as I wore my contact lenses. I've been wearing sunglasses like that ever since, even more so since I had my eyes done last year. It might be old hat to all you people lucky enough to have perfect eyesight, but the thrill of having a proper pair of (relatively) stylish frames with excellent lenses was like a revelation to me. It's a thrill that's never really worn off, and even though I no longer need to wear glasses or contact lenses, it's still the freedom to wear sunglasses when I want (along with the ability to see my watch on the bedside table) that gives me the biggest kick.

The second reason? I like the feeling that people can't see my eyes. Perhaps this is another fallout of wearing glasses for so long, or perhaps just because I'm a bit shy, but I like to hide behind my sunglasses: pretty much every pair that I own are big wraparounds with pitch black lenses. I can see out, but you definitely can't see in. Part of the reason I like to wear sunglasses when I'm running is that I want to keep the pain on the inside. I don't want anyone to see my eyes lolling about in my head as I drag my sorry body around the place, and somehow I think that sunglasses make the whole process look effortless. It's a bluff, but it's a bluff that somehow makes me feel better about myself and perhaps makes me run harder. A double-bluff, perhaps. Even if the only person I'm fooling is myself, then it's still worthwhile.

I might risk looking a bit of a prat walking around on a mildly overcast day, but I not sure I care. Lest you think I'm a complete moron who wears his sunglasses ALL THE TIME, I should add that I do have limits: the sun has to at least have the potential to show it's face, otherwise the sunglasses will stay at home. Even when the sun is shining, I will always take them off when I'm indoors and usually when I'm talking to someone. I'm not one of those people. At least I like to think I'm not.... maybe I am? I don't wear sunglasses to look cool, I wear them because it's still the thrill for me that I can wear the sunglasses that I want when I want to wear them. They make me feel free. It's a small freedom, I know, but I hope I'll never get bored of it.

Regular readers here will not, I'm sure, be surprised to hear that I like to spend my time fretting about possibly invisible scratches on the lenses......

dress me, I'm your mannequin....

Sad news: my much loved Kukuxumusu Barcelona t-shirt has finally bitten the dust. I bought it in September 2001, a day or two after we'd sat in a bar in Madrid next to the Bernabeu and watched with horror the collapse of the World Trade Centre buildings.



It came from a little shop we found on the backstreets of Barcelona somewhere behind Las Ramblas. All of the t-shirts that they stocked featured distinctive cartoons, but I was particularly taken by one that mimicked the famous statue of Christopher Columbus that stands atop a column in the port, replacing him with a money and his telescope with a banana. I especially liked the fact - and I only noticed this later - that the monkey's cojones are on full display.

Eight years is a pretty respectable age for a t-shirt to perish, and truth be told it was probably on its last legs anyway, but the end finally came courtesy of my cat. We had a mouse, you see. It was sitting, bold as brass, on the back doormat. At this point, the cat was busy eating kibbles at her bowl, and by the time she had wandered over to see what all the fuss was about, the mouse had disappeared behind the kitchen units. The cat now had the scent, but surely no mouse would be stupid enough to make a return appearance.... ah.... there it is again. The cat pounced, and as cats do, she proceeded to bat the poor little rodent around. Claws in, naturally. After all, you wouldn't want to actually hurt it, would you? Not right away, anyway.

Nature might be raw in tooth and claw, but the cat usually catches leaves, scotch eggs and moths, and I wasn't entirely convinced that she knew what to do with a real, live mouse. I couldn't watch this, and decided to intervene. As C. tried to catch the mouse to take it outside, I held onto the cat. Well, I tried to hold onto the cat, but she was high as a kite on her instincts and was really quite keen to get back to her mouse. By the time we'd got the mouse outside and I was able to put the cat down, she'd managed to make quite a mess of my t-shirt. My much-loved, difficult, if not impossible, to replace t-shirt.

Balls.

But, ah.... we live in the age of the Internet. I don't need to go back to Spain to buy another Kukuxumusu t-shirt, I just need to go to their website. I'd have liked a direct replacement if I could find one, but - no surprise - they don't make it any more. Still, there's plenty of other choice.

Too much choice, as it turns out.

I bought two.


A cardinal as a slavering wolf and his flock as unthinking sheep? Ah yes.



...and because I'll miss the colour and the monkey of my old-t-shirt, I bought this one too. Instead of swinging cojones, we get monkey's shagging. Classy, no?

I'm not sure I can quite bring myself to throw out the ruined old one either.

My name is ST and I'm hopelessly addicted to t-shirts.

Oh well, t-shirt maketh man, right?

no jacket required....

Whilst I was researching the best type of fedora to get and the best place to get one, I stumbled across a group of people who really couldn't have existed in the world before the internet. We're all familiar, of course, with the stereotypical image of the nerdy geeks who populate the world wide web.

Do you like Star Wars or Star Trek or the X-files? Are you into gaming or virtual worlds? Do you wash irregularly and wear t-shirts with pictures of dragons on them? Do you have a blog? Do you consider yourself friends with someone you have never met? If you answered 'yes' to any of them, then the chances are that lots of people would say that you're a either a geek or a nerd (or both). People like this have existed for centuries, of course, it's just that in the old days they used to do things like write down the numbers of the trains that came through their local station or they collected stamps. Mostly they will have done these things on their own, or at most they would be members of a small, locally based club. What the internet has done is that it has provided the most fantastic mechanism for bringing people together and helping them to share their hobbies. If you're a fan of something - Star Wars, say - you are now only a few clicks away from the most incredibly detailed resource that will tell you everything you ever wanted to know, and much, much more. You will also have access to like-minded people. I always liked the Star Wars films, but it wasn't really until I was at University and I met other people who loved the films that my interest deepened and they stopped being merely films and started being something else.... we egged each other on and we made each other worse, and at some point down the track, you realise that you are no longer quite like other people who see them as just harmless fluff to be enjoyed on the telly, and you see that you now have strong opinions on Ewoks and Gamorrean guards. But by the time you see this, it's too late to go back: you have become a geek.

The most comprehensive resource that I found on the internet about fedoras by a country mile was an Indiana Jones fansite. Fair enough, I thought. After all, Indiana Jones is probably one of the most famous hat wearers in the world. It only took me a couple of minutes of browsing, though, to realise that I had actually stumbled upon a thriving community of people who spend their spare time trying to dress themselves like Indiana Jones... and I don't mean they wanted to dress approximately like Indiana Jones either; they wanted to dress themselves EXACTLY like Indiana Jones. I quickly found a set of useful consumer reviews of different types of fedora and where to get them. Thanks to the opinions in the forums, I was able to steer away from a wool felt hat and towards a fur felt hat, together with a good idea of the best places to get hold of one. That was all I had originally come to the site for, but now I was mesmerised.

How much can there be to discuss about a hat? Did you know that the fedoras used in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" came from Herbert Johnson in London, were made of italian fur felt and that you can no longer get the exact same style? (quite tall crowned, narrow-brimmed and very much in the 1930s style). Perhaps you did. Did you know that the hats used in the three films are very distinct in terms of style? That the "bash" of the hat used in "Raiders..." has an unusually tight and everso slightly lopsided "pinch" at the front, that the one in "Temple of Doom" is the slackest and that the one in "Last Crusade" is a hybrid of the two? No? Can you spot the differences in the hats used between scenes? Can you tell whether a fedora someone has bought has slightly the wrong ribbon bow and tapers too much at the back? No? Well these guys (and they are almost all guys) can. They debate at great length where to get their hats and how to bash them. They put up photographs and compare notes. I was both horrified and fascinated, and completely unable to look away.

As well as absurd level of discussion on the hat, there were other sections dedicated to the leather jacket, the whip, the pistol, the canvas satchel, the shirt, the trousers, the shoes, the grail diary and to every other possible prop used in any of the films. God help me, but I started looking at the forum on the jacket - it's a pretty cool jacket, after all. I quickly discovered that it was possible to get a very reasonable custom measured jacket from the small outlet in Kent that supplied the original jackets for "Raiders..." for a little over £150. That's quite a small price to pay for a fitted jacket, I thought, and read on.

Oh. My. God.

As well as sensible discussions around what kind of leather you can get (lamb, goat, horsehide, nuovapelle, cow hide...), there were endless discussions on how the pockets should look (the scalloping on the flap has to be just so), what kind of sliders should be on the straps (rectangular and not d-ring), whether or not there should be a storm flap (yes, but it should be a narrow one) and if it should be secured at the top and bottom (no for a raiders look, yes for crusade look, apparently). No detail too trivial in the pursuit of screen accuracy, and every post was accompanied by a photo of a member wearing their jacket and asking for advice on how best to get the distressed look or how to treat it. My head quickly started to spin. God knows what the poor guy in Kent who tries to make jackets to these ridiculous specifications to send out to people from all corners of the globe feels about the whole thing...even if it probably is the cornerstone of his business as many of the members clearly have several jackets apiece.

It's a harmless enough hobby, I suppose. I couldn't help but smile when I saw that two of the members of these forums had set up their own hat company a few years ago. It was presumably the natural end to their quest for perfection. Good for them, and good for their fellow members who can now order the perfect hat made to their own perfect specifications in the perfect Raiders bash.... as long as they're prepared for the 12 month wait as their hat is made up for them. Brilliantly, these guys were discovered by Steven Spielberg and were asked to provide the hats for the new film. Every hat that you see Harrison Ford wearing in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was made by these obsessive fans. Their quest for the perfect Indiana Jones hat has led to them to be making the actual hats themselves. Even if you're not a geek yourself, surely you can imagine how thrilling a feeling that must be.

The internet is a strange, brilliant and appalling place.

God help me but I've sort of been looking for a zip-up leather jacket. Maybe I've been staring at the screen for too long, but I'm starting to think that I do actually want one of those jackets. I doubt anyone will believe me, but I have little or no desire to look like a fictional archaeologist (I did a history degree, after all. We historians frown upon archaeologists as they are prone to make sweeping assumptions about thousands of years of history based upon a single find...). I know it looks bad, but I really am just getting a fedora because I want a(nother) proper hat and I really do just like the jacket. I will not be looking to get a whip any time soon. Well, not that kind of a whip, anyway. Not one that I'll use to accessorise a costume. Well, not that kind of costume.... Perhaps I'll just stop talking.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got forum posts to catch up on and pictures to look at....my own custom jacket* won't spec itself you know.....

Or maybe I should just STEP AWAY FROM THE INTERNET NOW.

[* custom only in the sense that I may ask for it to be a touch longer in the sleeve so that it actually fits me, unlike every other jacket I have ever owned, not custom in the sense of an obsession with screen accuracy. I couldn't give a monkey's if the zip is slightly too large or if it's got a storm flap with fasteners, to be honest. Fair play to those that do, but I just don't]

you can leave your hat on.....

I've always liked hats. Even back in the days when I had some hair, I used to like the idea of wearing a hat. In those days, baseball caps were where it was at. As soon as you were a teenager and you decided that bobble hats, deer stalkers and cloth caps were off the agenda, if you were going to wear a hat, then you were probably going to be wearing a baseball cap. Sadly, I look a complete noggin in a baseball cap, but I always used to feel that my options were somewhat constricted, and so for a while I persisted.

I used to have a Wayne's World cap that I absolutely adored, but even though I wore it until it fell apart, I never really felt that I could carry it off. I still have a number of baseball caps: one from the Ryder Cup in Dublin, an England cricket cap, a battered old Adidas thing that I always wear when it's raining at Glastonbury.... I quite like them, but I never really wear them as I still think I look pretty stupid in them.

I've got other hats too. Over the years, the need for them has grown greater, either to protect my poor bald head from the sun or from the cold. I have beanies; I have a wide-brimmed leather hat that I bought in Australia; I even have a couple of funny flowerpot type affairs. These days I'm rarely anywhere without a hat of some sort, but I'm still not really feeling it. Somehow all those hats just aren't really me.

In some ways I hanker after a really classic hat. Not one of these tasteless modern affairs, but a something altogether classier. The thing is though, although everyone might have been wearing those sorts of hats right up to the 1960s, nowadays they're only really worn by old people, aren't they?

In spite of this, when we went to Ecuador last year, I was still determined to bring back a proper, authentic Panama hat. So when we were in Otavalo, I went out to the famous market and I bought myself a genuine, original Panama hat. I didn't wear it there and then, but I rolled it up, put it into its box, brought it home and planned to wear it at some unspecified point in the future. One day, I want to be the kind of person who wears a Panama hat.

I mention this because, several months later when I finally came to take my Panama hat out to have a look at it, I discovered that it had almost completely lost its shape. I put it away again, and it wasn't until last weekend that C. decided to dig it out and see if she could give it some shape. A bit of research revealed that this was fairly easily achieved with a steaming kettle and a lot of patience, both of which C. possesses. A short while later, and my Panama hat was back on the table as a serious option for the summer. I had a moment of clarity: I was looking at myself in the mirror wearing the newly reshaped hat, when I suddenly realised that even if it was true that you have to be a certain age before you can carry off one of these hats, I was almost certainly that old already.

I'm going to wear it out.

I haven't worn it out just yet, and I'm still a bit self-conscious about it, but I will. Who cares what people think anyway?

This new determination has stoked me up with new enthusiasm for hats. Proper hats. Although the Panama hat is probably the most famous hat to have come out of Ecuador, a far greater number of people actually wear the traditional felt hat. Panamas are all very well, but it's quite a fine hat, not an everyday kind of a hat. Felt hats are much more durable and all-purpose; much better suited to all year round wear. I took a shine to them when we were over there, and if I didn't have such a big head and they didn't have such a narrow brim, then I might have bought one there and then.

Perhaps not entirely unrelated to a forthcoming cinema release, I've decided that he only sensible choice for a man in the market for a proper hat has got to be something like this, hasn't it?



I'm going to get me a fedora. I may still very well look like a nugget, but I just don't think I care anymore. It's got to better than a Wayne's World baseball cap, right?

Or perhaps this kind of a midlife crisis is even worse?

wherever I lay my hat....

When I was in town this morning, I saw a guy wearing an immaculate looking baseball cap standing around with an overnight bag at his feet. Nothing unusual about that, I suppose. It is the weekend after all, and he could easily either have just arrived from out of town to visit some friends or be a Nottingham resident about to leave on a visit of his own. It was the hat that caught my eye, I think. He was dressed well enough, I suppose, but it was obvious even to the casual observer that his look was entirely based around his hat. Now, I'm no connoisseur of these things, but the cap perched on the top of his head looked both big and expensive. It was obvious that hats were his thing.

As I walked past, I had a quick look down at the bag at his feet- as you do. Now, I don't know about you, but when I pack my bag for a weekend away, I tend chuck in stuff that is likely to be useful: a clean pair of pants, a book, a toothbrush, iPod.... stuff like that.

Not this guy.

This guy's bag appeared to contain nothing but three absolutely pristine, oversized and pricey looking baseball caps. Very similar to the one he was currently wearing on his head, only - y'know - different. Three. Together with the one already perched on the top of his head, that made a total of four baseball caps.

Now, I don't claim to know a whole lot about fashion, and that seems like a whole lot of hats for a weekend away, but a guy's got to accessorise, right? Besides, who can really say how many oversized, expensive-looking baseball caps is too many?

you can brush my hair, undress me anywhere...

As I was showering at the gym this evening, I noticed that someone had left some shampoo behind. Shampoo and conditioner are provided by the gym, so I've never felt the need to take any additional bottles into the shower with me. Still, each to their own, I suppose. As I was otherwise lacking in visual stimuli, and because it was an interesting looking bottle, I picked it up to have a closer look.

It was this stuff:



I read the blurb with some interest:

"Stop excessive hair loss.
Reduce access to Dihydrotestosterone (DHT)
Reduce conversion of Testosterone to DHT
Promote healthy hair growth
Contains Zinc and Vitamin B6 (P5P form)"

Wow. That's amazing, I hear you cry, but how does it work?

Well, here comes the science bit:

Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) and Hairloss

It is universally (universally!) agreed that men and women with male/female pattern baldness have increased levels of Dihydrotestosterone (DHT) in the scalp, which contributes to a shortening of the growth phase and a thinning of the hair. Testosterone is converted to DHT when in the presence of the enzyme, 5 alpha-reductase

In the presence of Nanoguard, the conversion of Testosterone to Dihydrotestosterone is effectively blocked, meaning the cause of hairloss is partially eliminated and conditions for follicle growth are optimal.

How does Nanoguard A work?

Nanoguard blocks the activity of 5 a-reductase, the enzyme responsible for converting Testosterone to Dihydrotestosterone. This enzyme is present in the scalp and hair follicles at high levels. By blocking this conversion, the levels of the androgen DHT are reduced, which stops the shedding & miniaturisation. This also revitalizes & protects the hair follicle and creates an environment conducive to healthy hair growth.

Hmm. That's interesting. So a shampoo can help to arrest hairloss in both men and women? And only £15 a bottle? Where can I get me some of this miracle product?

Oh hang on..... it's all bollocks, isn't it? Aren't male and female pattern baldness caused by totally different things? Is a shampoo really likely to affect that process?

As you may know, I'm a bit of a slaphead myself:



Speaking as a man with hairloss, I really don't see what the big deal is. Sure, I'm fascinated by the way my hairline is retreating on several fronts all at once. I'm also mildly curious why all of the other men in my immediate family still full heads of hair... but have I ever wished that I could make it stop? Have I ever stared enviously at another man's luxuriant mane? Nope. Not really. What would be the point? I've got the hairline that I've got, and that's the end of it.

With this in mind, I've always been amused by the lengths that some people will go to try to either cover up or even to reverse their baldness. Have brush-overs ever fooled anyone? Do they start when a young man first notices a little tiny bald spot and innocently parts his hair over the spot? Does this simple act commit you to a brush-over for life? As your bald spot gets bigger and bigger, do you find yourself sweeping that single lock of long hair further and further over your pate? What about drugs? I watched someone on telly once, a young man, responding to the news that one of the side-effects of taking Rogaine was that it could rob you of your libido. He thought that this was a trade worth making: hair in exchange for your hard-on.

No. Just no.

No.

So I looked at this shampoo bottle, shook my head sadly and put it back where I found it.

Was I remotely tempted to use it? No.

Did I hurry away from the shower cubicle after my shower just in case the person who went in after me chased me up the changing rooms after me trying to hand "my" shampoo back? Yes, I did.

Bald and proud, me.

Well, certainly bald anyway.

---

As a footnote to all that Morrissey stuff last week, do go and read this in the Guardian - it's the author of that piece, Tim Jonze, in the NME telling his side of the story. The article is interesting, I suppose, but the whole thing is worth reading just for the comments, which quickly degenerate into the predictable slanging match, but are notable for the contributions of Andrew Collins, Jon Wilde, the author and others. Does it add anything to the debate? Nah, but it's funny watching people trying to have a reasoned debate on an open internet forum. Surely everyone knows that's an impossible dream.....?

(letting in water)

I am incredibly hard-wearing on my shoes.

I'm an overpronator. This means that the outside of my heel strikes the ground hard and then my foot rolls inwards as I take each step. I'm 1m 98cm tall and I weigh something around 86kg. With every step I take, all this mass is magnified and forced down through my spine, through my legs and feet and out into the ground. This means that I place a lot of strain on my joints when I go running (unless I buy trainers with the right kind of support), and it also means that I go through shoes like nobody's business. I got a pair of shoes re-heeled a couple of months ago, and within three weeks, the outside edge of my heel was worn down so much that I needed to take them back to be done again. I like my shoes, but this was going to get really boring really quickly. More drastic action was required. I was offered harder wearing soles, but I decided to go nuclear: this time, I opted for quarter-steels, where the cobbler inserts a bit of metal into the heel to slow down the wearing process. It might sound drastic, but it certainly works. It does have it's downsides though..... I now sound utterly ridiculous as I clippity-clop down the street. As well as sounding like a berk, it's a noise that reminds me of being at school, where quite a few public school numpties (including me, it has to be said) had this done to their (new) shoes just because they liked the way it sounded. I suppose, to a certain ear, that clipping and clopping could sound vaguely patrician. Whatever. I don't really like it much any more, and it makes me feel terribly conspicuous. But y'know, what can I do? What choice do I have?

So anyway. I had the quarter-steel put in and put up with the ridiculous noise accompanying every step and the imagined stares, safe in the knowledge that at least I would no longer have to keep popping back to the cobblers every five minutes.

....well, except that no more than two weeks later I spotted holes in soles of both feet.

*sigh*

On the bright side, it's finally stopped raining, so at least my feet aren't getting wet.

The glass is always half full around here.

I'm telling you about my shoe-wear issues. Does it get any better than this?

"I'm just a boy with a new haircut"

"Baldness" - taken at Glastonbury and courtesy of Statue John

I know this is a statement of the bleeding obvious, but I'm bald. Well, balding anyway.

A fellow slaphead at work was telling me the other day how he forgot to take a hat with him to the Cambridge Folk Festival and as a result had burned the top of his head. I sympathised with him. I've been there. Although I might like to think that my baldness is restricted to a forehead that's getting ever bigger, the truth is that my once luxuriant and shaggy mane of curls is getting decidedly thin on top too. Luckily I've worn my hair short for years, so it's not much bother keeping it clippered and thus avoid any unfortunate stacking of thicker hair against thinner hair. In the last ten years I've moved from a grade four to a grade three to a grade two. Nowadays I ask the barber for a one-and-a-half on top and a one around the edges. I'm under no illusions that this progression is going to inevitably lead me at some point to a completely shaved head.

You know what? It really doesn't bother me.

Someone first pointed out to me that I might be losing my hair back in 1994. I was in the middle of my term in Venice, and instead of going out and looking for a hairdresser, I let my friend Mark cut my hair. He introduced me to Scott Walker, so when he offered, how could I not entrust him with my hair? When he had finished, I looked in the mirror and it seemed as though I had a little bald patch on either side at the front of my head. I accused him of botching the job. He accused me of going bald. We laughed. I forgot about it. I was twenty years old and I had no idea that it was going to be all downhill from there.

Has it affected my life? Who knows, but I shouldn't think it's made much of a difference except that I now own a lot of hats. At twenty and long out of school, I was old enough not to be teased by anyone about my hair-loss. I got my first serious girlfriend shortly afterwards, so I've never associated lack of hair with a lack of success with women (just my general ineptitude).... so apart from not getting through very much shampoo and no longer owning a hairbrush, it doesn't really worry me. In fact, I find the whole process fascinating, as I do watching the hair that remains turn grey....

What can you do? And no, I'm not interested in taking any drugs to make my hair grow back, thanks very much (and especially not when one of the side-effects can be a loss of libido. What kind of a trade-off is that? Hair for sex? No thanks.). Nor am I interested in dyeing my hair. I don't judge those who do, but I've simply never felt the need.

Still, at least I now definitively know the answer to a question that has been vaguely troubling me for the best part of the last twenty-five years: when I was seven years old, I had a great big mop of hair, and I used to damp it down in the morning with cold water before brushing it and heading off to breakfast. I was warned that if I continued to do this, I was certain to go bald. Clearly this was nonsense. Even at that tender age I had a working grasp of simple genetics: my dad and both of my grandfathers had full heads of hair, so how likely was it really that I would go bald, eh? I laughed in the face of my potential baldness and continued damping down my hair every morning, shrugging my shoulders and saying that if and when I did go bald, I'd simply have to put it down to the damping.... but not before.

Well, now we know.

Don't do it kids.

I can't remember, tell me what's his name?

We've done Santa.

We've done Spanish Cardinals.

We've done the Flintstones.

We've done Biggles.

We've done Star Wars.

It's one of the biggest decisions of the year and it simply cannot be rushed.

Well, if I have achieved nothing else today, I reckon that the thorny issue of what fancy dress we are going to wear on the Saturday of the Trent Bridge test match has now finally been decided.



Yup. We're going to do "Zulu".

Well, we're going to do the British soldiers from "Zulu" anyway. I don't imagine that anyone is that keen to go as a Zulu warrior (which if memory serves me correctly is a costume that consists of a grass skirt and some grass leg warmers).

It's a pretty simple costume to put together too: red jacket, pith helmet, medals, white straps.... perhaps even a sabre or service revolver or two.



Most importantly of all, it's a costume that allows plenty of scope for ludicrous facial hair.

What do you mean it might be a slightly culturally insensitive choice for a game against India? Surely it's clear that we're aiming for the British Army on the Cape, not the British army on the sub-continent?

To my eyes that's a wholly different set of atrocities, isn't it?



And we get to pretend to be Michael Caine all day too. Who could object to that?

Altogether now: "Stop throwing.....those bloody spears.........AT ME!"*

* yes, I'm aware that Caine doesn't actually say this in the film. But everyone thinks he does, and that's what matters.

here comes the summer...

It's really started to feel like summer in this particular corner of the East Midlands over the last couple of days. The sun has been out pretty much all weekend, and although it hasn't been particularly hot, it has been nice to dust off my sunglasses and to leave my coat and my umbrella at home for a change. I even attended a splendid BBQ on Saturday, of all things.....

At the risk of sounding like Bill Oddie (albeit a rather taller, thinner and less hairy version), it has also been nice to see the nicer weather bring out some of our more welcome summer visitors.



Firstly, I had to rescue a bumblebee from the kitchen, where he was rather indignantly headbutting the window and wondering why he wasn't bobbing lazily above some flowers. I like bumblebees: they're such friendly looking things, aren't they? Apparently they are in some danger of extinction though, so I was more than happy to rescue this little chap and to set him loose in the garden, where he buzzed away sluggishly on his silly little wings and slowly disappeared up into the blue skies (a bumblebee's wings, of course, have been scientifically proven as being insufficient to enable them to fly. According to these learned people, a bumblebee only manages to fly under "the power of its own arrogance". It's the obvious solution to an otherwise intractable problem....)

I was out in the garden again a little later on when I spotted some birds swooping and soaring above the suburban rooftops.



They were Swifts, back from their winter quarters in the tropics to enjoy the few brief weeks that we somewhat laughably call our summer (if it was me, I reckon I'd stay in the tropics. Why bother with all the dangerous hassle of a migration?) I suppose they could have been swallows.... but I reckon they were too big to be swallows, and I used to be in the YOC, so I'm prepared to stick my neck out over this).

I don't think there is any other bird that manages to make flying look like quite so much fun.

Mind you, I was soon reminded that not everything summer brings is so welcome: I popped into town and was confronted by the sight of loads of gnarly footed men wearing flip-flops.

Swings and roundabouts, swings and roundabouts.

just you stood there only in your underwear....

When it comes to the world of fashion, I have - in the main - lived a life of blissful ignorance. Of course, I can't claim to be entirely label blind. Who can? Since I first left university and got myself a job, I have gradually spent more and more money on what I wear. I've never spent all that much, but the more money I had, the more likely I was to spend that cash on clothes. I used to get my jeans from Marks & Spencer, then I moved on to Gap and now I buy from Diesel... there's no question that I have started to buy labels, although I like to think that as a result I look better. I hope it will be a cold day in hell before I buy something with a label just because it has a label. Versace jeans? Hmmm. I don't think so.

Perhaps I shouldn't be so definitive. After all, until today, I still bought my pants from M&S or John Lewis.

So what changed today?

Today I went to the first fitting of my wedding suit. This is where I get to try it on for the first time and the tailor gets to work out what tweaks he still needs to make to get the suit just so. It looks brilliant, but as I pulled on the trousers in the fitting room, I experienced something for the first time, something that has never happened to me in the past. I'm sure this sounds ridiculous -- and ladies, please feel free to snigger at this point -- but normally when I step into a pair of trousers, it's a simple matter of pulling them up and doing them up. Job done. Apparently it's different with tailored trousers, and I found that I needed to sort of wiggle my hips into them before I could do them up. Once over my hips, they fit fine and looked fantastic..... except for one detail..... I appeared to have developed VPL.

Now. I don't really have a general theory about different types of underwear, but I do know that I've always liked boxer shorts. They're nice and airy and comfortable. Unfortunately, they also have a lot of surplus material. Under normal circumstances, and in my normal everyday trousers, this has never been a problem. Apparently, in more closely fitting tailored trousers, this results in a visible panty line.

Bugger.

The tailor was very polite about it, but the bottom line was that I was required to go out and buy some more styled pants.

And so, dear reader, I walked out of the door of Gieves & Hawkes in the Mailbox in Birmingham, I turned right and I walked the 25m down to Harvey Nichols. Once in Harvey Nichols, I bought myself a pair of Calvin Klein 365 trunks.

I'm wearing them right now, and -- if you'll pardon the overshare -- I'm finding them a little clinging.

And so I have discovered something that wiser people than me (many of them women) have known for centuries: you think I wake up looking this good?

kick off your sunday shoes....

What is it about men and flip-flops?

I'm not a massive fan of flip-flops generally, to be honest. I can see how they're practical when you are in the showers at the gym or on the beach or something, but beyond that I haven't really got any use for them.

So why have men started wearing them around town? Perhaps it's just Nottingham, but I see it all the time: guys wandering around town with over-sized sunglasses, gelled hair, fitted t-shirts, designer jeans and wearing flip-flops.

Why?

It's not as though Nottingham is the sunniest city in the world or anything, but the weather doesn't seem to make a jot of difference. It can be pissing with rain and still you see these people, flaunting their dirty feet to the world.

I just don't get it.

They're not that comfortable, they're not that practical and -- let's be honest -- most men simply don't have feet that should be seen in public.

Is this the modern metrosexual male in action?

If so, I'm simply not having it.

David Beckham has got a lot to answer for.