Just one of those things

I don’t regard myself as a vain person – others might quip “Just as well!” as this point – and as a result have never been motivated to undertake such ‘maintenance’ pastimes as diets and fitness regimes by a desire to ‘look good’.

Whenever I have gone on an exercise blitz, it’s simply because, having been a keen sportsman in my youth, I can remember the general feeling of well-being that being fit provides and occasionally decide that trying to ‘get back in the saddle’ would be preferable to continuing a sedentary life, with all the lethargy, lack of puff and listlessness that it brings.

Which brings me to male pattern baldness, as I think it is called.

The prospect of losing the hair on my head has never concerned me one way or the other. As it happens, I do have a bald patch on the back of my head and am slightly thinning at the temples, but frankly it wouldn’t even bother me if I was totally bald in a Friar Tuck sort of fashion, e.g. like BBC television’s political correspondent Nick Robinson.

With those close to me, particularly my kids, there is a gag running about my lack of hair. They make occasional deliberate references to it (in order to tease me) and I tease them back by saying “What are you talking about, I have a fine, full head of hair”, which statement is just about permissible because – from the front – I do appear to have hair on my head.

Last weekend I had my monthly trim from the lady who normally deals with my hair. After she had done her stuff, including giving attention to the older male’s issues of potentially sprouting eyebrows and ears, I was left to consider the overall effect in the mirror.

“Crickey! …” I exclaimed, after a brief but detailed examination, “… you’ve practically scalped me! The way you’ve snipped round the forehead, you’ve made me look as though I’m thinning at the temples …”

She raised a deadpan eyebrow.

“Well, let’s be honest, I didn’t got much to work with …” was her damning response.