mostly david ephgrave

Today, I did what few people in their right mind would do: I had my hair cut by a trainee barber. The problem with the above statement is the word “trainee” encompasses a vast spectrum; they may be on the cusp of receiving their barbers’ qualification (with the final E of “trainee” about to slip back a single letter to spell “trained”) or that may have had a single lesson before you climbed into the chair (the vital “They’re called scissors” chat). There’s just no way of telling until a sizeable percentage of your hair makes that final fateful voyage from head to floor, and your tears have made a similar journey. Now normally, if you asked me the question, “Would you be happy for me to cut your hair though I’m still in training?” on any given day, I’d scream, “Absolutely”, followed by, “NO FUCKING WAY.” For someone who may appear to spend seconds on my barnet, I’m actually rather precious about it; on the very few days I don’t wash it, I se...

Is it weird to visit a barbers' you’ve never been to before to request a guy who used to run the shop next to you, but moved without warning to this other business, which you only happened to notice the other day when you saw him in there as you walked past? For most people, the answer would be, “No”, yet for me, the answer is, “Probably”. I don’t live in the same dimension as the rest of the planet; I exist in a world where any case of awkwardness is ramped up to a hund red-and-ten and I’ll always be the one to take the brunt of it; I’m one of the privileged few who could be given a strange look by a passerby who'd just shat themselves willingly and still come out worse. The sticking point that will make me take the risk is the fact he ‘gives good haircut’. He takes his time and barely needs any guidance. I can just sit quietly, knowing I’m in as safe scissored hands as if I were in the chair of Johnny Depp (when he’s playing Edward and not Sweeney). I know it ...

Today I had my hair cut twice. This might sound like the height of excess. Perhaps you think I’ve got a problem: an addiction to trimming that’s never satiated. Either that, or my hair just grows at an alarming rate. Neither of the above are true; the reason for today’s literal double-header was the first haircut was so disastrous I needed another barber to clean up the hatchet job. I’ve visited the first shop previously without incident. I’m usually quite happy with the results. I’d never seen this particular guy in there before, though; I’m starting to wonder if he was just another customer chancing his arm.  It certainly didn't seem like he'd ever held a pair of scissors. He was the only person in the shop when I arrived. Perhaps the real barber was being held hostage in a room around the back. (Should I phone someone about this?) I didn’t realise how bad my haircut was until the last few snips. This showed t...

Right now I really need a haircut. It’s become massive and unruly; a bit like Russia in the early 1900’s. The reason I haven’t had it done is simple: I haven’t settled on where to go. For the best part of thirteen years my hair was cut by the same man. He ran the barbershop on Redhill Road and I lived in the flat above it. We started out as just landlord and tenant – but pretty soon the convenience of a downstairs trim proved too alluring. We used to spend a lot of our time talking about music. He told me how he was slowly, meticulously copying all of his vinyl onto CD, and then selling the original records via eBay. He also gave me a heads-up on a German website where you could download rare music legally for half the price of that in the UK; he had an eye for a bargain, that man. The German for ‘bargain’ is Schnäppchen. He knew that I was in a band - how could he not; I was often practising in the flat upstairs - and would ask me about the gigs that I ...