2004-06-03 - 10:21 a.m.

I went for a haircut today.

Yes. It's the most riveting opening since 'Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday, I don't know'. In fact, if Camus had just given my opening haircut gambit a spin, by now literary existentialism would be right up there in the public consciousness with Harry Potter, Eminem and ITV1�s Taxi Nights, narrated by Coronation Street�s Sue Cleaver.

Anyway.

I went for a haircut today.

I shuffled into Tony and Guy (I prefer the French pronounciation of 'Guy', I feel it better justifies the �32 I will later have to pay a man for removing strands of dead cells from my head and rearranging those that remain) and asked if anyone was free right away. It was 3pm. No-one was free. Who the hell is having their hair cut at 3'o'clock on a weekday afternoon? Surely everyone except me and tramps has a job? And tramps rarely patronise Tony and Guy. SEE MOUSEMILK'S LIST OF THE DAY!

So, I arranged to come back in an hour, at 4'o'clock. The man behind the counter retrieved an appointment card and said, "Do you want me to write that down?" Do you want me to write that down? I understand that as a matter of course they write down details of appointments made in advance for the customers so the customers won't forget. But surely not...an hour in advance. I was only going to get something to eat and come back. What epochal happening, what history-shaping ultra-event is likely to happen in Putney at 3'o'clock on a weekday afternoon so synapse-meltingly riveting it's going to make me forget the hair appointment I made only minutes earlier? Has there been a rash of unexplained no-shows at Tony et Guy de Putney? Is Tony and Guy Putney the laughing stock of Le Tony and Guy chain thanks to its pathetic appointment-to-haircut conversion ratio?

As well as offer me the appointment card, they took my mobile phone number. So if I failed to show at 4, they would ring me anyway. Jesu, why not have done with it and electronically tag me?

But here's my question about the card - what's the point? If you're likely to forget you've made a hair appointment within minutes of making the hair appointment, how likely are you to remember you've been given a card detailing the time of that hair appointment? Do they reckon you'll remember you've made it, just forget when? "God, what time did I just make that haircut for? Was it in an hour from now, or was it 10.45am on September the 23rd? If only...I had...some sort...of...reminder..."

So anyway. I went for something to eat. Then I forgot about the haircut and went home. Nah, not really. I went back at 4 and scanned the staff�s faces for signs of relief. My hair was cut by a Japanese man whose name I didn�t catch. It was a good haircut, though inevitably the point at which my hair looked best came about ten minutes before the end of the haircut. After that point, he kept taking more off and I watched that Zenith of Haircool becoming more and more distant, as if pressing my nose to the rainy rear window of a taxi that�s sped past my destination and just kept going. Obviously I should have told him to stop. Obviously I am British and male, so instead I spent the time silently calculating how long it would take to grow it back to the Zenith of Haircool, a figure that I continually had to recalibrate as he razored off yet another strand. Eventually he stopped. It was fine. I paid, and as is traditional I was handed an appointment card. Not to remind me that I had an appointment to leave the shop thirty seconds later, but to remind me (or in this case inform me) of the hairdresser�s name in case I want to make my next appointment with the same person. Normally they just write their name. This feller added a personal message.

Have you spotted the subliminal message? Hmm, so that's what happened to all those people who made appointments and never came back. No. Kil is his name, of course. My hair was cut by a man named Kil. So if I ring up for another appointment and they ask me who I want I can legitimately go �Kil! Kil! Kil!� and no court order in the land can touch me. Not this time.

Mousemilk's List of the Day:

Why might tramps begin to patronise Tony and Guy?

1. Tony and Guy's corporate rebranding employs confusingly similar typography and colour schemes to Weatherspoon's pubs.

2. Tony and Guy begin serving complimentary Thunderbird.

3. Tony and Guy open branch in middle of Shepherd�s Bush Green.

4. �Fuckoff!!!�, the tramp equivalent of �Hello!� carries Tony and Guy advertorial as part of Tramp Council PR offensive.

5. Tony and Guy offer discount haircut to anyone wearing a torn fifteen year old Marlboro promotional sweatshirt that�s a size too small and carrying a thin corner shop carrier bag with a bottle of Piat d�Or in it.

Add your own suggestions.

Profilage - Previosity - Nextitude