Wrong time of the month

The political conference season has now commenced, each party will now take the better part of a week making earnest, passionate, polished speeches.  Apart from the Labour Party where it all went wrong, he missed out the vital part of his speech, he forgot it!  The wide eyed, foam spitting, none fist clenching preachers will assure us that their vision is the ONE!.  Their voices will crackle with indignant emotion.  All others are false gods; propelled from Tribes that are greedy, self centred and inept.

Ummmmmm didn't they say all that last year.  Of course in about 8 months the United Kingdom is to have its next General Election. So this year the promises will be a little bit bigger, the lies a bit more ambitious, with moral outrage wrapped in a eco-friendly, none gender specific, politically correct blanket of knitted velvet words and good intentions.

That special time of the month has come again, not one of my more favourite events, but unavoidable; so I march forward; staring reality fully in the face.  It is of course time to get my hair cut!  As you can guess, I can think of better things to do with my time.  During the last 12 months I have moved my allegiance from one salon to; dare I say another one, well I think it's a sort of salon.  The first establishment was great but a little pricy, not that it was the reason why I absented myself from there.  It was more the repeated rubbing, sorry attempted rubbing of his tackle against my arms.  I learned to keep my elbows tucked in.  Mistress went once and didn't return!  Anyway quite a few months ago I had a poor haircut, Mistress said it was poor, so I strode forward and located my current Hair Designer/Technician.

The establishment is located near a reasonable cheap car park, which is helpful.  Anyway today was the day so I climbed the flight of stairs and entered.  The Hair Dresser (HD) was hunched over the counter writing a letter, briefly looking up he nodded to the chair and went back to his missive.  I sat down onto the faded brown leather barbers seat.  Most of the leather was worn and ripped, foam peaked out where my buttocks now rested.  Surveying the Salon! I could see little had changed.  There was still the smell of oil and unwashed bodies.  The mirror to my left still had a crack in it.  Soft porn lads mags were draped over the pitted, drink stained coffee table, where there were more rings embossed on the surface than the Olympic Flag.  The ceiling was still yellow, showing that before the smoking ban many a Drag had been taken on the premises.  To my right the only window remained unwashed restricting the natural light so that it was forced to compete with the harsh strip lighting.  BBC News 24 gently sounded in the background.  The geriatric fake wood TV had apparently kept going.

Throwing down his pen the HD waddled over, his swollen belly forcing its way out of the grubby white shirt, old scruffy trainers with grey trousers completing the ensemble.  His flies down by an inch with the zip handle pointing out horizontally. His face was white and puffy with jet black hair that resembled an upside down bog brush.  He looked at me in the mirror in that quizzical way, meaning what do want.  I asked for the usual, he nodded and swept a sheet around me, poking an edge into my collar.

Now if you don't live in the United Kingdom you may or may not have come across an old mans Barbour's shop.  The patter is none Politically Correct, sexist, racist, fattish   (yes I know he's fat) thinish and anything else that upsets the cuddly do goofing up minions that now infect our lives.  In my eyes if you cannot deal with it; don't go in there, there are many other perfect, smart, sharp venues to honour with your patronage.  The blokes honest, well as far as I know.  Clearly poorly educated, inarticulate and maybe not the sharpest tool in the box.  So you may ask why do I go there.  Well for one Mistress likes the haircut he does, I actually like him, once you get past the veneer you find a warm lonely white middle aged man adrift in the great ocean called life.

There was a poorly written note sellotaped to the mirror that stared back at me; stating that due to a forth coming operation he was about to have, the shop was shortly to close for 3 weeks.  We talked about it, he becoming agitated before finally explaining that he was behind with the rent, and when I entered, he was in the middle of trying to write a letter to the landlord asking for the rent to be put to one side for three weeks and promising to pay off the arrears this coming January.  Sweeping up the letter he thrust it into my hands and asked my opinion.  His writing was legible but child like, it did in a simple way make reasonably clear his request.  I politely told him it was more than adequate, and that there was always a possibility that it may help.  We rent out a couple of properties and if a tenant had taken the time and trouble to write I know we would sit down and talk about it.  We may not give the answer sort, but we would discuss it.  So I wasn't just being polite to fob him off.

While he snipped away I asked him about his trade and customers.  This was an attempt on my part to get him to calm down so I got a decent cut.  This subject was of course easy for him, his voice changed into that prerecorded patter that you hear when someone has said the same things too many times.

IF YOU ARE OF THE POLITICAL CORRECT PERSUASION PLEASE DONT READ THE PARAGRAPH BELOW.

I'm not prepared to alter what he said just to make anyone else (apart from my Mistress of course) feel unoffended. He told me most of his customers were P*€*s, N%{{#€s and old men! his words not mine.  Apparently p*€*s have a number 1 cut, n%{{#€s a 0 cut and men like me an old mans cut.  Thanks I thought, it's now official, I'm old!.

Apparently he's very popular doing the 0 and number 1 cuts.  I'm not sure what these cuts are, I suspect very short ones with patterns or words cut in.  He told me he gets loads of work "Off Them".  I did wonder how-come he's got problems with rent if he's so busy but decided not to ask on the bases that he had, at that time, only cut one side and I feared the other side could end up somewhat different from the former.

He then went on to tell me about his Misses and Kids, again the voice changed becoming loving Father, concerned, proud and worried all in one.  Smart enough to realise his life is "Fucked" and desperate that his offspring don't blindly follow in his foot steps.

My allotted time was up, 20 minutes maximum apparently was the most he allowed.  I handed over £10 and told him to keep the change.  The note was stuffed into the rear pocket of the grey trousers.  The till ignored. Obviously the Back Economy boomed here.  I'm i allowed to say Black Economy nowadays?

Wishing him luck I ventured downstairs; gratefully sucking in cleaner air as I stood on the asphalt.

Will I return?

Carlesburgh !

Mistress has just gone out for the evening to visit a girly friend.  I express to Her the wish for Her to have a good time.  It's just a gossip She said.  So You will have a good time I replied!  She just laughed.

So what will I do now after finishing this......... I guess I will just have to wash my hair.

m