Lakin Farm

For a number of years I have dodged the barber by cutting my own hair. I have a simple hair style that just requires a number 3 clipper to be run over my head.

I normally cut my hair at 5 or 6 weekly intervals, but I was told yesterday that my hair looked as if it needed cutting again. This was only four weeks after my last trim.

The reason why my hair looked as if it needed a tidy up was because parts of my hair (at the front and at the back) have stopped growing as fast. In fact some of my hair has stopped growing full stop.

I was bit surprised by this and quickly searched on Google for an answer. To my astonishment it appears that I have a disorder called ‘male pattern baldness’.

In the 70’s a simple and widespread treatment for ‘male pattern baldness’ was to hide it using a comb over hair style, made popular by TV presenters like Robert Robinson and Frank Bough.

For todays man however, a comb over hairdo does not meet the demands of a busy, active lifestyle. So an alternative hair style has been developed called the ’90’s comb over’.

This involves shaving off all your remaining hair and pretending your not actually going bald at all, but are ‘ex forces’ or just ‘well ‘ard’ and get into lots of fights (where having flowing girly locks is a distinct disadvantage).

The 90’s comb over was made famous by the Mitchell brothers from the TV series Eastenders, and has been adopted by men the world over who want to preempt nature and look tough in the process.

I think I would look ridiculous with a Frank Bough style comb over, so in future I will be cutting my hair even shorter (starting with a number 2 all over) and more frequently, until I achieve a truly Mitchell-esque barnet.

I may also adopt an cockney accent and start saying ‘bruv’ a lot.