With the evenings getting lighter and phase one of vaccine roll-out gathering pace, we may be slowly moving out of the worst of this Covid nightmare. But there’s still some way to go and I’m not booking a haircut just yet.
It’s now one year since my last haircut, which happened when I was in Napier. I wasn’t intentionally growing my hair long, I just didn’t fancy going to a hairdressers early on in the pandemic.
As time has time passed, I made the decision to not get a haircut until the Covid-19 outbreak is officially over. So that could be 22 June, but likely possibly even further away. In any event, never has a haircut been more symbolic. Samson may disagree with that, but he loses the argument instantly for being fictional.
When I was going to Perth last year, I was told to expect mullets and counted about a disappointingly low tally of 30. Little did I know that I would be joining their ranks and boosting the tally less than a year later. The longer I spent in Australia, the more I became won over by the practical benefits of the mullet. For one thing, there was no need to apply layers of suncream to the neck if most of it is covered by hair.
I last tried growing my hair long when I was 17, inspired by the wrestlers that I watched far too much of on TV. But it kind of stopped at the awkward Hobbit phase. I think that was after about nine or ten months.
For probably the better part of a decade, I was regularly having it cut short and had the clippers on grade one or two every couple of months. When I lived in Walthamstow, I would regularly visit barbers who only charged a fiver and many spoke very little English. There were times when I had real concerns about how much damage they were going to do to my head, especially those barbers who were pretty forceful and used actual razor blades around the edges.
Then I shaved it off completely when I was in the Highlands after Edinburgh in 2019. And despite the best efforts of my genetics, it has grown back to density probably not seen since I was at least 15. Maybe all those vitamin B tablets and hemp shampoo have worked finally wonders, or perhaps it’s some other form of magic entirely.
I may also need the long hair for a potentially playing an extra in a medieval drama that’s filming near where I live next month. This is a real thing that’s happening. I’ve registered with an extras agency, but I’m just not sure if I’ll be involved yet. And writing about it on here probably isn’t going to help matters.
But my hair will all be shaved off again when I start performing Ross Kemp: The Musical. I’m currently in a bit of a narrative cul-der-sac with that project, which hasn’t been helped with not being pemitted to go around Rich’s house for more writing sessions. Or perhaps my writers block is being imposed by my follicles.
In any case, with my beard, I will have the Jesus look nailed on this Easter.