Writer's Block

So the day has finally arrived. We all knew it would, but we just put our heads in the sand and said ‘well it’s not this week, life will continue in its happy predictable way’. Well this is the week when it all changes – I have lost my gift of waffle! I have mislaid my art de whimsy. I have abandoned my…. no, wait I can’t think of a cute sentence revolving round the verb to pontificate. It is what all writers dread – the writer’s block. I don’t know why they call it that. It doesn’t feel like a blockage; it’s not like my head is full of brilliant or bizarre ideas which have matted together to cause brain constipation. No, writer’s block is more like a cold wintry day in the Sahara or, worse, the Fens; bare, desolate, windy and incredibly dull.



With this blog it was always going to be hard to think up 52 blogs in 52 weeks. I mean Pall Mall Barbers is a great place to work and in a great location but it’s not every week we have a film crew come in or a celebrity getting a wet shave. Would you want to read about PMB efficiency and what Adrian had for lunch? Because that is all I really have to report on what happened at the shop this week.


On the other hand I could give you a spoiler to something which we’re cooking up at the moment and which you will see in the summer. It’s a series of online sketches about fictitious employees at Pall Mall Barbers. The characters are called Paul, Mal and Barbara. It’s something Rich and I have been talking about doing for months now and rehearsals have finally started, which might explain why, if you’re walking past the shop of an evening, you might see strange-looking, overly animated and emotional people inside the establishment. They’re actors – they’re not real people! But you know what, I’m not going to give you any more information about Paul, Mal and Barbara – you’ll just have to wait till the summer for the big release (it feels like the Sky Atlantic promotions – maybe I can get Rich to splash out on some massive billboards promoting the release).



Talking of comedy sketches brings me nicely on to the subject of the upcoming Comic Relief Day. You’ve probably seen the adverts, with Armstrong and Miller racing around a shopping centre and invading a news studio, reminding everyone to start their fundraising campaigns now. The actual day is 18th March (day after St. Patrick’s Day). There have been some pretty amazing fundraising campaigns in the past, such as Eddie Izzard’s attempts to cripple himself by running more miles than most of us will walk in a lifetime. We’ve also seen both celeb and ordinary Joe embarrass themselves in the names of both comedy and of course charity. We at Pall Mall Barbers love embarrassment – bring it on we say! We prefer to see something embarrassing happen to someone else (Schadenfreude) but more often than not it’s one of us in the firing line. So tell us what you’re doing to raise money for Comic Relief. After all, who can resist the tears and even the ‘off’ fainting of a celebrity who walks around an African slum asking for our cash? I normally mute those bits. No seriously I’m only joking – it’s a great cause and one that I also donate a little something towards each year.



Now we’d really like to know how everyone is planning to raise money, but especially if it is a hair-related, hair brain scheme – pardon the pun. Is there anyone out there planning to shave their heads, legs, back, bum… need I go on? Is there a man out there who’s had a beard for the past decade who is going to shave it all off for charity? Maybe we might be able to help? But if it’s a question of shaving your head – we’d want to have full control over how close a shave it is! Like I said we love the embarrassing comedy.


So this week might have lacked any exciting gossip or news, therefore I ask for your help. Do something truly embarrassing - preferably for charity - and tell me about it so I can publish the event to the world through Pall Mall Barbers’ blog page.

Have a good week and I’ll be back to my waffling best next week. Email me at pallmallbarberslondon@gmail.com

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Valentine’s Nightmare

So the dreaded day is looming and already there has been an increase flow of men coming to the shop for a wash and trim in preparation for a romantic evening out with their special someone. Valentine’s Day has to be my least favourite event – give me Christmas, Easter or even Pancake Day every time. With Christmas and Easter comes time off work and even with Pancake Day comes decent grub. But what does Valentine’s Day give you? If you’re single you get a cold slap in the face to needlessly remind you that no-one is typing your name onto the template of a Moon Pig card. If you’re in a relationship, rather than give you heart ache, it gives you heartburn as you attempt to find that all so beautiful gift or to arrange that oh so memorable evening.
I’ve always found that dates on Valentine’s Day to be a bizarre experience with so many couples around me desperately having a romantic experience. Not that staying in is necessarily any safer. A few years ago my friend Natalie experienced the worst Valentine’s Day ever. This from a girl who had always believed that she was cursed, having been routinely dumped just prior to Valentine’s day so often it was left to her mum to provide comfort flowers and chocs. Well on the year in question Natalie was seeing a young man and they decided to cut their evening out short to get home to enjoy some… well I don’t think I need to divulge anymore specifics.
Returning home the young lady finds a beautiful bunch of flowers on her doorstep. In the card, an ex has written that he hopes that she’s well and suggests meeting up. Needless to say her date is a tad put out by this – but Natalie, determined to have a wonderful evening, puts the flowers to one side and assures her man that all is good between them and that maybe they should head upstairs. Just as they reach the top of the stairs - would you believe it - the doorbell rings. Who could it be on Valentine’s evening?
With an impatient sigh the young woman readjusts her clothing; heads back down the stairs and opens the front door. There on the doorstep behind a huge bouquet and a box of her favourite chocolates, is another ex boyfriend. This might sound similar to the plot of “Scott Pilgrim vs. the world” but I swear it is a true story. Natalie, far from welcoming her ex and despite his epic journey across the country to be with her, is furious with his unannounced visit and brusquely pushes him back off the step so that she can tell him off out of ear shot of her already peeved boyfriend.
Once she has sent the ex packing with a face like a kicked puppy, it takes lots of soothing and large quantities of champagne to bring the mood back round to its original setting. Finally things are back on track and Natalie is also on her back when the doorbell sounds once again. At first the loving couple try to ignore the incessant ringing but the demon on the doorstep will not go away.
Eventually, despite the expletives and protestations of her lover, Natalie throws on a dressing gown and heads for the front door once again. It’s a messenger from Interflora, presenting her with yet another bouquet of red roses. With utter confusion on her face as she mentally counts back her ex boyfriends in her head, she tears at the accompanying card. The flowers are from none other than her mother, continuing the tradition of giving her one and only daughter flowers on Valentine’s Day.
Surely this was easy enough to explain to her fella? Well, to be better safe than sorry Natalie decided that it would be better to ditch the flowers before going back inside. In a moment of adrenaline-fuelled madness she scurried across the front garden and unceremoniously shoved the flowers into the front hedge. Unbeknown to her, the boyfriend was impatiently waiting by the bedroom window, only to see his girlfriend acting as suspiciously as Colonel Mustard in an Agatha Christie novel, stashing the incriminating evidence in the foliage.
It was the final straw and no amount of weak truth could dispel the raging paranoia that had taken residence in the young man’s head. He dressed and headed out the door and though the couple have remained friends, their love life was effectively over as of that day.
On that happy note I wish you all a happy safe and eventful Valentine’s Day. Let me know how it goes or if you also have some horror stories you want to share!
pallmallbarberslondon@gmail.com


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Blind in Business

Ever heard of “Blind in Business”? I hadn’t and it was only when Richard and I were sorting out the junk yard of an office in the shop that I came across them. I should quickly explain (before Richard gets defensive) that we are extremely well organised in the office. That it resembles the aftermath of an SAS anti terrorist insertion operation is because it is a small thriving entrepreneurial engine space, which enables the magic to happen upstairs, which you will know only too well! As I was saying, Richard and I were doing a spot of tidying up when I came across a number of photos of the staff with their clients. Normally in these situations the clients will have some sort of claim to fame – some valid, some not so, but on looking at these photos I didn’t recognise any faces. These were the participants of an exercise called “Project VIP” which is run by Blind in Business. Robin Spruell, who runs the scheme, contacted Richard last autumn to see whether we would be willing to participate. On finding out what this involved, Richard was more than happy to put Pall Mall Barbers forward to play its part.

Imagine it’s the day of the interview for your dream job. You’ve picked out your best suit and your lucky underwear and you’re shaved and groomed to the hilt. You look at yourself in the hall mirror one more time and say to yourself “I’m a winner” before heading to the door. But what if you can’t check yourself over and give your reflection a morale boosting pick-me-up?

Of course if you’re like me you’ll also have checked and re-checked and then checked just one more time in an AtoZ where you have to get to and which combination of buses, trains and tubes you need to catch to get you to that all important interview with time to spare, even if you’ve made the journey a 1000 times before, but again what if the option of an AtoZ in the briefcase is not an option at all? What if you’re blind or partially sighted?

Now, or course those who are visually impaired are more than capable of getting around and presenting themselves in a fashionable and professional manner, but if you think about the stress and nerve levels that a sighted person feels before taking the , how much do you need to multiply that by for a visually impaired person? As the Blind for Business website states, “…confidence is so fragile and often lacking in young blind and partially sighted people.”

The purpose of “Project VIP” is to take a group of blind and partially sighted men and women and educate them in how to present themselves for both interviews and the workplace. This is done by first taking the participants to a hairstylist for a consultation on how to mould / style their hair. This includes the barber telling the participant what they need to ask for each time they go for a haircut and photographs to be used for future reference. The participants are then taken on to a clothes store to discuss what they might wear for interviews before going to a workshop to chat with top corporate professionals about the issues for blind and partially sighted people in the interview environment.

On November 2nd Pall Mall Barbers welcomed the participants into the shop and got cracking, making them look sharp and dapper. It was a bonding exercise not only for the participants but also for the barbers and of course with this came plenty of banter – Richard wouldn’t have it any other way!

From the Blind in Business website it sounds like they had a great day, not only at Pall Mall Barbers but at all the other venues then went to, including Google HQ. I’d be fascinated to know what the Project VIP guys are doing now and if I find out I’ll let you all know.


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Frank Discussion on Hair Loss

In the past I’ve joked around and been flippant about the week’s subject matter, whatever it was. Sometimes I’ve been guilty of being philosophical and vague in my blog. But this week I’m going to talk frankly about hair loss and my own experience.
Some men will never know the feeling of looking in the mirror and seeing their hair retreating from their face. They will not have to come to terms with seeing their profile take on a new shape or the careless derogatory remarks from others. It’s a painful experience and for some it is no exaggeration to say it is crippling.

I started to lose my hair at the age of 18. The average age for a man to start losing his hair is 30, but at the time I didn’t particularly mind. I thought I was simply getting a widow’s peak like my father and that this was part of the transition from boy to man. And a widow’s peak can also be sexy – look at celebs like John Travolta. It was at university the following year that I realised I wasn’t just dealing with a receding hairline but a more significant thinning of the hair. It started to become apparent when my hair got wet in the rain - or I put product in – suddenly my scalp was all too obviously glaring through the hair. After a year or so of this, trips to the hairdressers became increasingly depressing and there seemed little point in styling my hair or making the most of what I had. By the time I reached the age of 22, people I met assumed I was in my 30’s and I took the all-too-inevitable decision to shave my head, so the egg look was complete. For some men this is a great look, but to pull it off you need a strong jaw line and a stockiness, preferably with a tan or dark skin complexion to prevent you looking like a refugee survivor. Unfortunately I did not own these physical attributes and I felt ludicrous. I learned not to focus on my reflection when passing mirrors and I took to wearing caps. By this stage my sense of self worth was so low the mere suggestion of girlfriends seemed ridiculous to me. I was accepting the fact that my hair loss was not going to stop or even slow down and that by the age of 25 I was going to be bald.

It was a relative who saw how inhibiting my situation was and suggested I go and speak to my GP about my options. This proved to be a hideous mistake. I made an appointment and when discussing the problem with the doctor I was roundly told off for wasting his time and advised to accept my situation and not be so vain. Chronic shyness took a dangerous turn to self loathing. By now I would grimace if I caught my reflection in shop windows and started to take myself away from my friends and stay home when they went out clubbing.

When I was 26 it was suggested that I go to a hair clinic for a free consultation. Despite all the shyness and self loathing, I found the thought of cosmetic surgery even more embarrassing and extreme than going bald, but the suggestion had planted a seed in my mind and eventually I decided what was the harm in a free consultation? The clinic was predictably just off Harley Street, but what I hadn’t expected was the number of options they presented me with. There was the option of pills, hiding powders and of course surgery. At first I chose to go with the powder and pills. The powder has obvious limitations; it doesn’t stop further hair loss and can’t entirely replicate the look of natural hair, but it is, nonetheless, helpful and it gave me an idea of what my hair would look like if it was once again thick. The pills have been extremely impressive. They’re called Propecia and their purpose is to prevent any more hair falling out and to strengthen and thicken what hair you have left. What these little pink pills don’t do though is help grow new hair – there is nothing in existence that can do this. And the big downside to these pills was the price, though they can now be bought at Boots and this has thankfully driven the price down (12 weeks supply will put you back £90).

After a few months I decided to take the plunge and go for the surgery. I realised that if I never took this step I would always wonder what life would have been like. There’s a lot of misunderstanding about what is involved in hair transplants, partly because there has been so much progress over the last 15 years. In the modern transplant, a long strip of scalp is cut from the back of the head and placed under a microscope so that the individual follicles can be separated out. These follicles are then placed into tiny incisions across the front of the scalp to create a new, stronger hairline. It is a long and labour intensive operation, which can often take seven or eight hours to complete. The success of the operation is limited by the quantity of hair that can be harvested from the back of the head, so doctors can give their patients strong definitive hairlines but they can’t give them the mop of hair they would have known as teenagers; well not yet. I read an article not too long ago which stated that within 10 years they will be able to take just one follicle away and mass produce replicas in a science lab. Then there will be no need for cutting out lumps of flesh from the back of the head.

I had the operation just before Easter and so a combination of annual leave and bank holidays meant I was away from the office for an adequate amount of time - not only for the op, but also for the scalp to heal, so that when I went back to the office it wouldn’t be obvious what I had done. If you’re wondering why my colleagues didn’t notice a ton of new hair on the front of my head it’s because once the hair is planted into the scalp it actually falls out within a week, leaving the follicle to grow new hair of its own accord.

Like the pills, the surgery took a long time to take effect, which I was actually pleased about as a sudden change would have been difficult and embarrassing to explain to people I didn’t feel I knew well enough to share my experience with. The results were life changing and I don’t say that lightly. I don’t have a dream head of hair, or even what I had when I was 16, so I won’t be appearing on any shampoo ads, but I can now walk down the road feeling good about myself and be sociable. I can also look at myself in the mirror and not cringe and if you see me wearing a hat it’s because I like the hat, not because I don’t like my head.

Surgery is certainly not for everyone, nor are the pills, powders, hats and lord knows what else I’ve tried. Some people might read this and think me a fool for spending so much money and time on something so trivial. But though hair loss might mean little to them, it does, for some reason, affect me and many other men greatly. What I would say to anyone who is struggling with hair loss is take positive action now. Whether you choose to use pills or hats or even surgery is totally up to you, but if I had started taking the pills 2 years before I did, I would not only have saved a lot more hair, but would also have spared myself a lot of emotional pain en route.

Lastly, I can’t speak for all barber shops, but one of the things which helped me was talking through my options with my barber at Pall Mall Barbers. Having an unbiased expert opinion helped me sift through the options.

If you have any questions about what I have written I’d be happy to answer them, or send you in the direction of somebody more qualified than me. Send your emails to pallmallbarberslondon@gmail.com

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Tattoo or not to Tattoo

I’m sitting in Pall Mall Barbers on yet another wet Monday afternoon. It’s particular gloomy outside so it’s probably a good idea to turn away from the window and see what’s going on inside the shop! Adrian is just about to give a haircut to a bloke who I’d say is in his early to mid 30s. The man looks like he takes care of himself without being a gym freak and clearly takes pride in what he wears, but as he takes off his designer jacket I can see through his pink (sorry salmon) shirt the dark definition of a large tattoo. It starts on his shoulder and works its way down his shoulder blade. The idea that this well groomed man should also have a chunky tattoo sort of surprises me, but should it?

A few years ago I became friends with a lovely man who in many ways was very much like me. We were roughly the same age, both in long term relationships, not originally from London but had lived here now for many years - my friend in fact comes from Ireland and he speaks with a gentle brogue accent. However, on the surface we couldn’t look more different, the reason being my friend is covered from head to foot in tattoos. That’s not strictly true, his face is bare but the rest of his body is a cacophony, or rather a kaleidoscope of tattoos including his scalp.
We became good friends partly because when I made the decision to leave my job and pursue my ambition to be a writer my friend was in the same process of leaving his safe job and venturing into the scary world of tattooing. We both found ourselves exposed to the elements of our new industries feeling extremely unequipped and wading upstream, constantly fighting the apathy of those, who in our eyes, held the key to our futures.
By happy coincidence he is now working in a shop just round the corner from where I live and on slow days I pop round for a coffee and a chat. It’s funny - the first time I visited I was quite nervous to walk into a tattoo parlour. I have never had a tattoo and have never really had a compulsion to get one either. It’s not that I have anything against them, quite the opposite – a good tattoo on the right person looks great. What I know for certain is I’m not the right person.
Anyway, entering the tattoo shop surprised me as I was expecting employees with attitude and dark gothic interior design, what I saw was more what my local GP surgery aspires to achieve yet fails to attain miserably: a clean, bright, cheerful shop with welcoming staff. I was completely astonished by this at first but then on review I had to admit that my mate was a friendly, cheerful man who wouldn’t want to intimidate clients or work somewhere gloomy and dingy, but also tattoos don’t just decorate the flesh of overweight bikers. More and more people from all spectrums of life are choosing to get tattoos, whether they are Milwall fans or Oxbridge students – tattoos are definitely up for grabs.
One reason why I’ve never thought seriously about getting one is because what on earth could I choose that I would still want in ten years time, let alone 30 or 40 years from now. I have a friend who got a tattoo of a dolphin on her foot. For her it’s a reminder of a time when she was very happy and so whether her feelings about our aquatic mammal relatives cools over the years hopefully her tattoo will still be able to conjure up happy memories for her. For many people this decision making is the sticking point with any tattoo. If you watch just five minutes of any of the American tattoo shows, “LA Ink” or “Miami Ink” etc the client is hit with the question “why? – what does this tattoo signify” and the client will often refer to a dead sister, brother, child, granny, pet guinea pig. They never ever say, “because I think it would look nice”.
I know that my friend finds these shows infuriatingly patronising, as if tattoos need to resemble something greater whether past or present in the client’s eyes. For my friend it is simply art. And that’s his background. Before he became a tattoo artist he would draw and paint; what he’s seen himself do is swap sketch pad and canvas for torsos, arms, legs and the odd backside. However I think the problem for him is that although he sees it as art and relishes the opportunity to do “big pieces” the clients he often has to deal with see it as novelty. I mean how do you explain to a kid that getting a bar code on the back of your neck really isn’t cool or querying the 18 year olds desire to get his girlfriend’s name emblazoned across his pec?
My favourite bad tattoo choice has to be a woman in the 60s who decided to have “mild & bitter” etched for all eternity across the tops of her breasts with the “&” in the cleavage. Now if she was in her 20s in the 60s she must be in her 60s now – one shudders to wonder what her tattoo must look like and whether she still enjoys her witticism. That must be one rule everyone has to abide by – don’t bring humour into your tattoo as humour dates badly.
So what makes a good tattoo? Something meaningful or beautiful, or personal, or what? My friend would say, “Don’t ask the question.” I would have to reply “How on earth can you not?”
Tell me what you think of the tattoo and if possible let me know any horror stories – they’re always fun! Email me at pallmallbarberslondon@gmail.com

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New Year - Old Weather

Good day to you all – I hope you are safely inside and out of the rain. Now I must have been writing this blog for a number of months and I very much enjoy the now weekly ritual, but I would be dishonest if what I wrote was all cheerful and happiness if that’s not what I’m feeling. Don’t worry I’m not going to spend the next page moaning and bleating, far from it, but I am going to reaffirm what I’ve just written on the Pall Mall Barber twitter page – “I am suffering from January Blues” – I can’t help it. I’m sitting here looking out the shop window at 1pm and it’s already looking gloomy outside and even the puddles forming in front of the hotel opposite can’t reflect enough sunlight into the shop to make our little cosy home from home enough to cheer me up today. I’m probably just jealous of Richard who is currently tanning himself on a Thai beach – actually with the time difference he’s probably hitting the Asian Nightlife – I promise I’ll do my best to get him to divulge his holiday anecdotes when he’s safely back at PMB and I’ll post them on the blog for you all to see! There’s no denying the man had the right idea. Stick around in London for the Christmas cheer and as those crazy bargain hunters head off to the shops to fill their bags with January sales products, Rich is busily filling his suitcase with swimwear to head to a warmer climate
So I ask you – I implore you to tell me the cures for a New Year slump? Obviously get yourself to a warm sunny beach many miles away from our beloved capital but if that is not an option, then what? I have a number of tricks up my sleeve which on the whole do the job, but in these situations you can never have too many options. One of my favourites is to batten down the hatches, order in the takeaway and put on one of the many box sets I tend to get at Christmas. It’s the geek’s version of hibernation and many a January weekend in the past has been lost in such a pursuit. Having said that it doesn’t really go hand in hand with New Year resolutions – but as I have made a firm point not to fall into such naïve promises I can comfortably put on the weight whilst waiting for sun!
So the weekend is safely taken care of with pizza and box sets of Homicide, Mad Men and Dexter, but what about the weekdays and the inevitable journey into the West End and the workplace. How can I prevent these days turning bleak? Firstly I say – hot lunches! – screw the budget, if you’re wet, cold and need a little pick me up – get yourself a hot lunch. It doesn’t have to be an astronomically expensive steak but something hot and preferably spicy helps you face the soggy world on your own terms. Personally my new favourite haunt is Benito’s Hat – it’s a Mexican fast food type place – with very filling burrito’s – there’s one five minutes walk from Pall Mall Barbers in Covent Garden – trust me it’ll make the afternoons a breeze!
So I’ve covered weekends and food. So what other tips can I suggest? Well it sounds stupid but dress the part and embrace the cold. Sometimes a fresh walk in St. James on a lunch break (prior to my daily burrito) can have a reviving effect, especially when you watch the pelicans practising formation sailing or see the perplexed squirrels searching for their nuts. I wouldn’t recommend this if it’s raining but the park can be so deserted it does feel like you’ve got a private wildlife viewing.
So my last tip tackles weekday evenings and I must admit it’s a bit of a plug. I have a friend who has started up a group called “The Matey Institute” – it’s about trying random stuff out you’d never think to do and at cost (we’re talking between £2 - £5 tops!). So they do everything from an introductory class in ventriloquism to making chutney. I’ll be heading off to their next gathering where we’ll be taught by a trained masseuse how to give massages. It’s a lot of fun and especially in the winter months it gives you a feeling of camaraderie, so that no matter how dark and cold the weather gets and no matter how impoverished we’re feeling we can still have a good time!
So in summary my guide to surviving the winter blues is:
Weekend hibernation
Hot Lunches
Dress the part
Don’t stop having a laugh with friends and trying out new stuff
So can any of you add to the survival guide? Between us we can make this a January of fun and frivolity and we’ll make Richard wish he never deserted us for 30 degree sunshine beaches…. Email me at pallmallbarberslondon@gmail.com




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New Year Resolutions

May I take this opportunity to say welcome to 2011 and to express my hope that you all enjoyed a merry Christmas and a happy New Year. It’s been a while since I wrote a blog due to unforeseen delays in my trip to Berlin caused by a dumping of snow at Heathrow and of course the festive period. Maybe one day I’ll write a comic novel about my journey back through Europe in my attempt to be home in time for Christmas – it was very “Trains, Planes and Automobiles” esq…
I believe in my absence you have been entertained by one of our loyal clients Benedict Brookley-Stone who I am indebted to for keeping our little blog project going smoothly. If any of you readers would also like to send in anecdotes either about Pall Mall Barbers or indeed anything to do with grooming please – feel free to send them to me at pallmallbarberslondon@gmail.com – I’d love to hear what is on your minds.
So it’s a new year and a chance for new beginnings. I’m sitting in a coffee shop around the corner from our beloved barbers, drinking a slightly more expensive cup of coffee in comparism to last year due to a hike in VAT and am contemplating the dreaded yet pointless subject of New Year Resolutions. I am as guilty as everyone else at setting myself targets which are never met, at least I have been in the past. I believe I am now wiser and probably more cynical to fall for a foolhardy idea, though in previous years you would have seen me standing in line to give away my money to an overpriced gym with posters of rippling muscled Adonis’ adorning the walls with the claim that, “only 3 hours of training a day can have you looking like this”. I wonder what the poster would look like if the subject had followed my training regime of 3 hours a month (that being a particularly productive period for me). Being a non smoker and non drinker has kept me away from those two bear traps but I nevertheless find myself toying with self improvement exercises.
This year I have a couple of ideas: one is to read more, by which I mean worthwhile material, not just the range of papers we stock in the shop. Next to my laptop is an already dog eared copy of “A Suitable Boy” by Vikram Seth, it’s a mere 1473 pages long and so rivals “War and Peace” in length. I am pleased to say I am making steady progress and have now read a grand total of 188 pages so just a measly 1285 to go… So who knows at this rate I’ll still be reading it come Christmas 2011 and I can state that I haven’t failed in my New Year Resolution! Though in all seriousness, if any of you out there have any suggestions for great literature that I should read send me an email or pop by the shop and let me know your thoughts. So far “1984” has been the most recommended to me.
The other resolution I have set myself is a more fragile promise. It is to spend just a fraction more time looking after my personal grooming. Now I am no neanderthal – I shower at least once a day and dress reasonably well, but it’s the finer points that I through pure apathy let slip. The first is my beard – I am a proud beard wearer and do not plan at anytime to lose it, though I believe I have stated on this blog before that my reason behind growing a beard was due to a laziness about shaving (and a troublesome shaving rash).
What I have found over the last 18 months is that a beard like smooth cheeks requires care and attention or it goes feral. So I am making this public declaration that I will regularly trim my beard and prevent it from becoming a ginger(ish) bramble. In this mode of thought Rich has also suggested that I should get my haircut on a more regular basis. Please don’t read this as a sales pitch by me to all you readers to come in to the shop, it is purely an observation made by Rich to me that, again through a combination of disorganisation and laziness, I leave it too long between haircuts and so end up looking a little wild about the face and head.
So there you have it – my new year resolutions are to become a well read, well groomed better man – not too tall an ask is it? Oh and while I’m about it I plan to gain a rippling Adonis’ body, cut up the credit cards, save a small fortune, correspond more frequently with old school friends and rise every weekday morning at 5:30 and make myself a healthy fruit smoothy… When will I learn?!
Let me know at pallmallbarberslondon@gmail.com what your New Year resolutions are and how they are going.


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