Hair Today- Still Hair Quite Some Time Later

This lunchtime I tried to get my hair cut.  A straightforward enough task, you might think.  But I failed miserably.  Instead I spent an hour sat on the sparsely-appointed barber's shop's waiting bench before, just as it was very nearly my time to ascend to the comparitive luxury of the chair, getting up, walking out again and going back to work with exactly the same amount of unkempt, windswept hair as I had come in with.  It was perhaps the least productive lunchtime in the history of lunchtimes.

It had all started so promisingly.  I was up and out of the office at 12:15 sharp, and poking my head around the door of the old-fashioned hairdressers behind the Spanish Institute at 12:25.  But it looked a bit busy- five slightly-too-hairy men waiting for one of two chairs to be vacated- so I went to Sainsburys to get some lunch.  One chicken and stuffing sandwich later I came back to find just four fidgeting individuals waiting their turn.  I still had an hour and a quarter of my extra-long flexi-lunchtime left- and reckoned to be looking at a twenty minute wait.  So I sat down and settled into that bi-monthly guilty pleasure of Guardian-reading armchair environmentalists everywhere- the browse through the well-thumbed copies of glossy motoring publications which are by law the only reading matter permitted on English barbers shop tables.

Half an hour later, thanks to the pleasingly unambiguously-titled car magazine 'Car Magazine'  I was significantly better informed as to the virtues of the new Mercedes R-Class (The sleek lines are let down by a rather clumpy ride, apparently), but no less hirsute.  However things were looking up; there were now only three blokes between me and the barber's chair, and just as I was launching into a full-page editorial on the myriad injustices of the rural speed camera network, one of these decided he had had enough- pointedly laying down his copy of 'Top Gear' and marching out into the steet.  At this rate I was going to be shorn of my flowing locks and back at work with time to spare.

But I had forgotten the USP of the old-fashioned barber's shop behind the Spanish Institute- it is The Place Where The Barbers Like To Take Their Time.  It's nothing unusual to sit in those chairs for the best part of an hour while the silent barbers (that is the other thing about this place, the barbers won't talk, even if you broach the subject of the weekend football fixtures they will just mumble in a non-committal way and busy themselves with the clippers) snip around your ears at non-existent strands of stray hair with ever-smaller implements.  Even Bobby Charlton would be in there for half-an-hour, I reckon, and they wouldn't be letting Yule Brynner out until they had spent twenty minutes polishing his scalp.  Anything less they would perceive as a dereliction of their professional duty, it seems. 

So the clock on the wall ticked by, and by half-past one I had moved on from the editorial columns, enjoyed a picturesque ride through the mountains of Provence in a BMW coupe and even pored over the used-car price guides on the back pages.  My Fiat Punto, I was aggrieved to learn, comes out badly in comparison to the rival Nissan Micra, and its 'pointless' City button makes the steering 'unbearably featherlight'.  I resolved to turn off this clearly unmanly accoutrement the very next time I took to the wheel- and continued waiting my turn at the chair. 

But it never came.  Instead we got to half-past-one and the silent barbers were still silently clipping away at the heads of their silent customers with ever-more-miniscule pairs of scissors, while BBC Radio Six played unobrusively in the background. For all I know they could all still be there.  But not me.  I had had quite enough waiting, and quite enough petrolhead press for one bi-month- and anyway I had to get back to work. 

We are going o Newcastle at the weekend and I will visit a hairdressers there instead.  Maybe the pace will be swift, and the barber will prove a locquacious sort, happy to exchange views on Newcastle United's faltering pre-season. Hell, if I'm lucky he might even cut my hair.  Oh yes, a fast-talking, fast-snipping Geordie clipper will make a change from the morose, slow-moving practioners behind the Spanish Institute on Manchester's Deansgate.  I'm quite looking forward to it already.

Comments

[John]

Crinklybee patience is a virtue don't you know and if you look hard enough you can usually find a dog eared FHM lurking beneath the pile of car mags. I must admit to suffering the same dilemma a few months ago in the Crown barbers and stormed out.

After suffering a nightmarish 'cut' at the hands of a Pompey loving Sweeney Todd at a local Bury establishment which left me sobbing in front of the bathroom mirror back at home i came to the conclusion that true artists work in silence. I was happily back at the 'Crown' a few weeks ago. After all where else do you get your eyebrows and ear hair trimmed for no extra charge. I do hope the Geordie barber didn't slice of an ear because he was too busy worrying that Newcastle were only beating Yeading 1-0 after 79 minutes.

[Derek Boland]

This is Over Priced This Barbers and Waiting for Hours For a Cut,Forget it,This is one TO stay AWAY From.12 QUID for a Haircut I DONT THINK SO.

[mike]

I think derek boland needs to get a life! nothing better to do than review a barber shop in manchester,the poor c-nt

[jonathan]

Usual is it, gentlemen? Short back and sides? Something for the weekend? Heated exchange of views over long-forgotten, questionable quality post that I knocked off after lunch at the flangedesk sometime in summer 2005?

I don't know, this comment box never ceases to surprise me...

[Nissan Micra]

That is absurd.LOL.but just be patient.Your hair will go back and you'll have the time to cut it on your style again.