“It could happen to anyone”.
“No, it couldn’t”.
A typical marital exchange. No sympathy there, not that I was asking for any. I had to say something as the visual impact was so obvious. I have been cutting my own hair with electric clippers (a practice that has saved for more than the cost of the clippers) when today, by accident, I started cutting my hair without the comb thingy that sets the length. Number 1 is the full skinhead going up to No 6 which is about George Clooney length. Without a comb it cuts even shorter than number 1, in fact it’s more of a scalping. Not having a particularly elegantly shaped head, I usually go for number 4.
I wasn’t looking in the mirror as I was cutting but when I looked up, I saw a four-inch-long “fire break” cut down the centre of my head (from front to back). Forgetting to attach the comb must happen all the time, especially if you are listening to podcasts like I was (which was on A J Ayers dismantling of Wittgenstein’s metaphysics, or so he thought). The mirror presented a physical fact, I couldn’t bluff my way out of. It could not be passed off as a centre parting. Too wide. I stood there, clippers in hand, open mouthed looking at a head with a firebreak down the middle. Obviously, I would have to sort this out.
Shaving my whole head to create a uniform, consistent all-over appearance seemed extreme. So, I cut test strips by its side with a number 3 and then a number 2 and when it became obvious that nothing could stop the shaved patch looking like hair growing back after brain surgery, I buzzed over the whole bone dome with a number 1, taking care not to remove any ears.
Looking in the mirror and then holding up another mirror to check the sides and back, I was struck by how my friends, who have been bald since early manhood, have done a much better job of cultivating a human look. The face left hanging under my scalp looked, vague and idiotic.
Day after haircut
Day before haircut
But there it was. I needed to check how this new look would go down. My wife immediately asked her colleagues who work in our house, to “come and look at Ken’s new hairstyle”. Who could resist? There is a moment on a person’s face when they see something when they can’t conceal the truth. Then they change their expression and wrap kind words around it. On this occasion we didn’t move beyond the moment. “What did you do that for?” a normally polite person said, leaving a pause before continuing “at your age”. Trying to think what George Clooney would say, who is a man only four years my junior who is also a self-haircutter, and, therefore, must have made this same mistake at some point, I said “It was an accident”. There wasn’t much more conversation. A raised eyebrow. A glance to the heavens. A shake of the head. I think they were hoping for something comical rather than plain tragic.
Fortunately, I had no immediate speaking engagements, and I rarely bump into young children so I wouldn’t have to listen to screaming. The pub is a concern. Without cultivating a deliberate image, I have been labelled over the years as a serious businessperson. A steady hand who can be relied upon. A sound judge of the world whose opinion carries weight in the courtroom of the public bar. Hair incompetence isn’t something you can stand under and hope nobody notices. You either bring it up yourself “did if for charity”, “fleas”, or face the comedians “did you pay for that”, “where did you get that done, I want to avoid them”, “did you fall into a pencil sharpener” etc etc.
A J Ayers logical positivism offered no help. To be frank. I don’t rate him. Wittgenstein had more promise. His obsession with the games that people play to establish norms and conventions to aid effective communication could be deployed to explain that this stunning haircut was one of those anomalies that prove that language communication can never be absolute and exact. Unlike events in Maths or Physics the subject under observation is always open to subjective variations in interpretation. Here was a head that clearly screamed “ageing fascist football hooligan” while, in reality, it was actually saying “self-haircut gone horribly wrong”. Wittgenstein was right. He always is. To illustrate this further, I have replica football shirts from the 1960s and 1970s which is when skinheads evolved. And I admit I was there. I also have a pair of Doc Marten’s (boots), a Ben Sherman shirt, and a long dark overcoat (Boss not Crombie). Each of these items is safe and acceptable to wear separately, but worn together, under my current hairstyle, they are toxic. Is this what Bill Gardener looks like today? I thought (ref ICF hooligan). I never got personally involved in hooliganism, but I knew people who did. Back then you had to wear the clothes that football hooligans wore, to move safely about the streets. As a young person you had to look like them to be invisible. Believe me, you didn’t want to be visible (different). In all the times I walked home at night to save bus fares I never got attacked. That didn’t happen until I was fifty walking back home in the dark from Wokingham station, wearing my glasses, dressed in a suit, carrying my laptop bag through streets lined by nice executive homes. After a blow struck the back of my head hit and knocked me from the pavement into the road, I realised my appearance had painted a bullseye on my head. In the games going on in the minds of young males walking between pubs on a Friday night I was an irresistible, riskless target.
Bearing that in mind, though It might look ridiculous my current hairdo combined with some working-class clothes and maybe a tattoo might be a safety measure. It would suggest to the casually violent that they should wait for a more willing victim. Maybe I will keep it.
