Hair Today

The economy is booming in my neck of the woods.  At least that is the message I get from all of the construction currently happening in my neighbourhood.  Between my home and my local railway station there was a rather sad little collection of shops and a clutch of elderly houses.  Now most of them have gone and have been replaced by a large and visually unappealing block of brand new flats, and beneath the flats are a collection of gleaming new shops.

While the shops are indeed gleaming and new it can't be said that they will be awarded any prizes for originality.  So far the shops consist of a bottle shop (replacing a grotty old bottle shop), two cafes and four hairdressers.  Apparently the inhabitants of my suburb spend their few sober moments swilling coffee and getting their hair done.

I have to admit that does sound like me, except for the "getting the hair done" bit.  I also wonder whether, even taking all of the denizens of the new apartments into account, there are sufficient needy scalps to sustain four hairdressers two of which are literally next door to each other.  Oh yes, there's also a child minding centre presumably for the type of people who don't mind dumping their kids in what is effectively the basement of a block of flats while they go on a combined coffee and vodka binge and get their hair done.  Again this does sound like me apart from the "get the hair done" part.

Despite my earnest, some would say febrile, desire to contribute to the local economy it must be admitted that I will not be subjecting my increasingly scanty hair to the tender mercies of the local snip merchants.  As a young man I was clever enough to befriend a lovely and highly talented hairdresser and have somehow managed to maintain that friendship despite the fact that she is a woman of integrity and good judgement.  I must have got her on an off day.

For those of my neighbours who weren't clever enough to make strategic friendships in their youth the sudden explosion in hair manipulation establishments must come as a godsend.  Never again will they collapse weeping into the street because they have only two hairdressers to choose from.  Now they can stroll with confidence up the three hundred metres or so of street that constitutes the shopping strip near my home secure in the knowledge that if they so much as pause for breath someone will drag them into a nearby shop and have their head in a basin before they can say "Just a little off the top please".

Meanwhile their kids have been tossed into a nearby basement and are currently in the process of forming an escape committee.  Fortunately with all the construction going on there are plenty of opportunities to hide the dirt from the tunnels.