Bookmark and Share

Wednesday 23rd November 2005

I was feeling a bit better today, thanks for asking. What do you mean you don't care? Well, how rude.
I went to Chiswick to do a bit supermarket shop and get my hair cut in the morning.
As I was sitting waiting to have my hair washed by an uninterested young woman, I stared idly wondering what happens to all the hair after it's been swept up off the floor. Do you think they make it into wigs or stuff cushions with it or just store it all up at the back somewhere and then have a big hairball fight at the Christmas party. It's certainly one of the drawbacks of running a hairdressers, there is a constant supply of hair to get rid of. Even when they have swept up one person's dead hair (am I right in thinking that all hair is dead anyway?Probably not. But once it's cut off it surely cannot survive for very long in the wild) there is yet more hair to sweep up. It's a never-ending cycle, which leads many hairdressers to eventually realise their entire reason for living is pointless and give up on the job and sometimes life itself. "Hair! Hair! I had no idea the job would involve so much hair. A never ending avalanche of hair!" is a typical hairdresser suicide note.
Of course occasionally you must get some good quality, long hair (from someone who decides they want really short hair now) that you can sell on to wig makers, making you up to 25 pence a week.
I don't really like getting my hair cut which may date back to one of my earliest memories of sitting in a barber shop and having the tonsorialist in question make a joke about cutting off my ear. I am sure he was joking, though he may have been a latter day slightly more humane Sweeney Todd who only made ear pies and let his victims live to tell the tale (though not hear anyone's reaction to their amazing story). Funny what little instants you remember from childhood, when so many other things disappear into the fog of the past. I also remember the same barber pulling my hair a bit too hard as he was cutting it - he was clearly a pyschopath the more I think about it.
I am pretty sure that although that barber did not scar my ear, he has scarred my life. Now I must go. I have an ear pie in the oven. De-licious.

Bookmark and Share



Subscribe to my Substack here
See RHLSTP on tour Guests and ticket links here
Help us make more podcasts by becoming a badger You get loads of extras if you do.
To join Richard's Substack (and get a lot of emails) visit:

richardherring.substack.com