RICHARD ORD: Why newspaper columnists need to be top of the crops!

A far cry from the state it’s in when you book the appointment. On that day your barnet is like an exploded mattress… all coiled springs and matted fibres. Somewhere between Worzel Gummidge and Michael Fabricant. You get the picture.

Yet come the morning you head out the front door for the haircut, your flowing locks never looked better.

Yes, I’m the sort of person who washes his hair before going to the hairdresser. Why? Surely it’s best to turn up with it looking a right mess?

It must be some sort of cultural anomaly, bit like when you have a cleaner. I have lived with partners who have, on occasions, employed cleaners. Okay, so it costs money to employ a cleaner but, hey, saves you having to clean up yourself, right? Wrong. The day the cleaner is due is usually spent cleaning. I can remember being told: ‘Can’t have the cleaner thinking we live in a tip!’

‘But that’s their job!’ I would protest, while emptying the bin and sweeping the kitchen floor.

I appear to have carried on that affliction into haircuts. Turning up at the hairdressers with a freshly washed, glowing head of hair, there’s only one answer when the stylist asks: ‘What you having?’ I always respond: ‘Just tidy it up, thanks.’

Not this time. Under pressure from my other half, I was told to show him a picture of how I’d like my hair to be cut.

At this point I can sense you’re beginning to think of me as a vain old bugger. ‘Just get a short back and sides and be done with it’ I hear you say, while adjusting the beanie on your balding bonce.

Hey, I’m a newspaper columnist. It’s the tabloid equivalent of the lead singer in a pop band. I’m the frontman. The public face of this magnificent entertainment and information machine. Gotta have a decent haircut. Goes with the territory.

Picking a picture to show how you want your hair is, however, fraught with difficulty. As I’ve learned to my cost, every haircut looks good on Brad Pitt.

I provided the hairdresser with a simple style and left him to it.

Within 45 minutes I was back out on the streets with a freshly mown barnet fit for a columnist and pop band frontman. Pity the pop band is A Flock of Seagulls.