It was while looking at photos from an average night out that the bombshell dropped.
It wasn’t the Joe Bloggs jeans wide enough to hide a small yacht (this was 1989 after all). Nor was it the fact that the snap was taken in Portsmouth’s vomit floored den of iniquity the “Ritzy” nightclub and I wasn’t being pummelled to death by a coked up sailor.
It was the realisation that the disco-lights were bouncing of my shiny pink scalp, causing my rapidly thinning hair to appear as a semi-translucent halo.
I was 17 and within 18 months I’d have a head like a cue-ball. A chrome-dome. A slap head. Jordan’s spare boob. Baldilocks. I was convinced the future would consist of my wandering the sewers with a hessian sack over my head for fear of being poked with sticks by the mocking public.
This was of course a slight over-reaction.
My last bona-fide haircut was in the 80’s when everyone’s hair was crap so I went un-noticed. I’ve saved myself about £5,000 on the various gunks needed to coax hair into preposterous shapes as well as countless hours staring in the mirror. I can’t deny that having a head resembling Barbara Cartland’s Bowling Ball had a devastating effect on my confidence with women.
To be honest being baldy hasn’t been the source of much grief at all.
However there has been a niggling little pain in my smooth cranium of late. That is the increasing tendency of the press to use “balding” as a derogatory term when discussing men of a less salubrious nature.
“The balding thug grabbed Mrs Jones’ handbag and kicked her dog before fleeing”
“The balding waiter gave my wife the bird and spat in her soup” “Mr Splandovski stumbled across a cure for cancer while single handedly solving global warming. However he is balding so obviously a useless, conniving and perverse bastard.”
Maybe I’m in denial and all bald men are in fact inherently evil and singularly unattractive, but I think this is just a form of casual prejudice.
If I was to refer to Vanessa Feltz as a “Massive Arsed Harridan” in a serious newspaper article, I am sure there would be complaints and rightfully so. It is not after all Ms Feltz’ massive arse that makes her a harridan.
The fact that Andrew Marr has arms like Mr Tickle and a face like a Creature Comforts Shark has no bearing on his exceptional journalistic talents. Why then is it necessary to refer to “balding paedophile Gary Glitter” as if the root cause of his nastiness is a lack of hair. So in a show of solidarity toward my brothers shiny of pate, I present a role call of the baldly blessed.
- Jason Statham:
Fast approaching national treasure status, you could call the Stath’ a slap-head but he would immediately kick your face off.
- Bruce Willis:
Bruce saves the world for a living! Who have the hairys got that comes close? Steven Segal? Segal cries himself to sleep at night WISHING he were Bruce Willis.
- Phil Selway
Drummer with Radiohead. The man is a machine-like genius who makes Dave Grohl look like Animal off The Muppets.
- Patrick Stewart
He does Shakespeare so he’s classy, doesn’t need a corset unlike the Shatner and made a tinfoil wheel-chair look cool. Patrick Stewart a god among baldies? Make it so.
