Monday 23 April 2007

Hair today

At breakfast a couple of weeks ago—toast very sparingly spread with Patum Peperium (The Gentleman’s Relish), if you must know—I was glancing through the pictures in the paper (too early for the effort of reading) when I noticed something which had not struck me before: nowadays, men do not part their hair. I realised that even my elderly friends have dispensed with their traditional parting (except, that is, for the many who settled years ago for the Erich von Stroheim look).

So I discussed this with my stylist (Wendy at Annabelle’s, 10% discount for pensioners on Wednesdays) and we agreed to just comb it straight back.

It didn’t work. At first my hair just stuck up so that I looked like a mad professor, then gradually it began to part itself again, whatever I did. What I have marked here is not a bald patch (I do have one, but not that shape and not in that spot), but the parting beginning to re-establish itself. In a week or two it will once again look much as it has done since my mother first parted it, round about the time of the Munich crisis. I suppose that's something to be thankful for, really.


Isn’t that interesting? No? All right, then: next week, some pictures of my elbows, which.... no, perhaps I won’t bother.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What was it about the Munich crisis which prompted your mother to part your hair? Some sort of gesture of defiance against Henlein and his cabal? Or one of support for Daladier and Chamberlain? Can it be said to have tipped what followed in one direction or another?

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure, but I remember that as she did it she was saying something about peace in our time; I have no idea what she meant, but someone must have picked it up from her.

Anonymous said...

You are quite certain she wasn't saying "This'll need a hairpiece in the fullness of time"? Because that would call for a rethink about events at Heston aerodrome and indeed what followed.