Baldyman

Middle age (much like the office sex pest at the Christmas party) can often quickly creep up on you before you have sufficient time to do anything about it. In a few months  I will be 45 (I can almost hear your collective gasps of disbelief) and can remember back to a time when Emmerdale was still a farm, flossing was just something your dentist would recommend and Rolf Harris was actively encouraged to get his digeridoo out in public.

They say that “Age is just a number” but if your birthday cake candles need to be scaled down to fall in line with building fire safety regulations then this is usually a sign you are getting on a bit. Another one that you hear mentioned a lot (unsurprisingly usually by those over forty) is the belief that “Life begins at 40”. It may well do but statistically speaking at this point it’s more than likely that you’ll only have less than half of it left (I think I might ask for a refund on that positive thinking course I went on).

Getting old is no fun and from the moment I turned forty both my mental and physical attributes (yes I did have some once) started going downhill quicker than Gemma Collins in a Ferrari with the handbrake off. I often hear people say that when they get older they walk into a room and forget what they were going in there for. My problem is a slight variation of this whereby I remember what I was going in there for but just keep going into the wrong room.

This kind of behaviour has become increasingly commonplace  (TV remote in the fridge/ car keys in sock drawer) and recently hit a crescendo when, in full public view, I confidently strode through the house and into my front garden with an ironing board under my arm to help me cut a tall hedge (it is stored in the garage up against the step ladder). In an attempt to save face I contemplated either standing on top of it like a surfboard as if this was totally normal behaviour or quickly whipping off my shirt and attempting to iron it with a cordless hedge trimmer. Taking into consideration that this was only days after I had been made redundant and that some were concerned as to how well I was coping, I decided that both options were most probably unsuitable.

Physically speaking, I’d like to report that things are in a far healthier position but unfortunately this is far from the case. My arms and legs now regularly go to sleep before I do, my knees creek louder than a castle door in an episode of ‘Most Haunted’ and I have started finding myself making grunting noises identical to those you might hear from weightlifters competing at the Olympics. Theirs are made as they attempt to muster the strength to lift twice their own body weight above their head, mine are made as I attempt to lift myself out of a seated position in an armchair. My bags for life are under my eyes, I have more hairs in my ears than on my head (we’ll get onto that in a minute) and just yesterday in what turned out to be a real confidence booster my wife said that I smelt (and I quote) “ Like a stinking wet old dog.” In short, whilst my mind is telling me George Clooney, my mirror is telling me George from Asda.

Even when you are having a day when you feel young(er) and attractive (usually coinciding with watching ‘Jeremy Kyle’ or visiting Southend town centre) your children will soon bring you back down to earth as my 7 year-old son did as he was doing some homework the other day.

HIM: Dad how do you spell Epsom?

ME: E.P.S.O.M.

HIM: There’s a famous race course there.

ME: Yes I know. I went to watch the Derby there once when I was younger.

HIM: Really? You might have seen her there then?

ME: Seen who?

HIM: Emily Davison. She was a protestor who threw herself under the horses’ feet.

ME: When was this?

HIM: 1913!

Whilst most people attempt to reverse the ageing process through a healthy lifestyle of balanced diet and exercise, some choose to take the easier and increasingly more utilised route of cosmetic surgery. After years of being questioned, “Does my bum look big in this?” by women seeking reassurance to the contrary, we have now gone a more than confusing  full circle where they are having operations to intentionally make them as big as possible.

The option of going ‘under the knife’ has in recent years been normalized by its popularity amongst celebrities with one of the most notorious offenders being the singer and actress ‘Cher.’ In 1989 she sat scantily clad astride a giant Navy cannon as she belted out “If I could turn back time”, and then ironically spent the next thirty years on an increasingly desperate crusade to try and do exactly that. The only knife I am interested in is usually accompanied by a fork, chips and something covered in pastry which is probably why I find myself in this predicament in the first place.

Time waits for no man (Marty McFly excluded) and it’ll soon be my turn to get on board the ‘Saga Express’ for a one-way ticket towards Velcro shoes , Werther’s Originals, elasticated jeans and the reconsideration that the adverts for walk-in baths in the back of Sunday supplements aren’t quite as ridiculous as I once thought.

Going bald is every man’s worst nightmare (unless of course you’re Duncan Goodhew as it helped him win Olympic gold and saved him a fortune on swimming hats) and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy (unless of course it was Ming the Merciless or Lex Luther as it wouldn’t matter).

In my mid-twenties it appeared that my hairline was beginning to recede and I began to find a succession of long brown hairs in the plughole after showering. Taking this evidence into consideration I came to the conclusion that either;

A. It was actually my forehead that was growing and I was possibly distantly related to Klingons.

B. My flat mate was blatantly flouting the strict ‘no pets’ clause in our contract by secretly harbouring a stolen orangutan in his room that had a liking for taking baths when I was out.

or

C. I was going bald.

The obvious and most likely truth was staring me agonisingly in the face so I took the only rational course of action and;

• Hired a genealogist to scour my family tree for any links to Star Trek related aliens.

• Left bananas on the landing and played a video of ‘Every Which Way but Lose’ loudly on a constant loop in an attempt to flush the fugitive ape out of hiding (Right turn Clyde).

Now desperate to hold onto my once Tarzan-like flowing locks (the loin cloth is another story) I even started frequenting a costly, up market salon (over £10 with sinks, matching towels and National Geographic magazines) in the hope that they could save the day. Despite their extensive training and undoubted scissor skillset, it soon became apparent that unless one of them had graduated from Hogwarts as well as hairdressing school that my beloved barnet was a goner.

Each of their appointments was standardly set to 40 minutes in length but in my case this proved to be beyond excessive (and comparable with allocating 25 minutes from your daily schedule for putting your socks on). At the beginning, the final question they would always ask me was “what would you like on that sir, wax or gel?” By the end, while the majority of the question remained the same the range of products on offer had now changed to a choice of either ‘Pledge’ or ‘Mr Sheen’. Between them they had tried everything within their powers to help my diminishing mop but at the end of the day as the old phrase goes, “You can’t polish a turd” (a bald head on the other hand is a very different matter).

As I sat in the queue at Argos patiently waiting for my BaByliss PowerGlide Hair Clippers to slide down the conveyor belt into ‘Collection Point B’ I was sad but no longer in denial. I was briefly buoyed by the current sex symbol status that at the time was held by Bruce Willis and Jason Statham. It was then brought to my attention that there was a distinct possibility that their prowess was more likely down to their Hollywood standing and capacious bank balances than their close resemblance to a hard-boiled egg.

Despite an unsavoury incident when a fast travelling car-load of teenagers screamed “Baldie!” loudly in unison through their windows at me as I walked home from work (which on top of the humiliation almost made me sh*t myself), I soon learned that living a smooth headed existence was a real double-edged sword.

The negatives include looking a lot older, your friends chasing you around in a snake formation to the theme tune from Benny Hill, people hilariously offering you lollipops, and continually being asked to sing a rendition of “I’m too sexy for my shirt”. The positives are that you are always the first person to know it is raining, Halloween costumes become a lot easier and you never have a bad hair day (or in fact any type of hair day). In time you come to terms with it and even begin to appreciate the humour it can generate in others. In my fortieth birthday card from my work colleagues someone had written, “Congratulations on outliving your hair by 15 years”, this had then been subsequently amended with an arrow that lead to the words, “And the rest!”

So in summary, my body is broken, my belt buckle is bursting, and my bonce is blinding (if caught at a particular angle on a sunny day). Middle age may have eventually caught up with me, but I am determined (possibly with the help of a pair of male Spanx) to make sure that I stop it from overtaking.

In book news I am preparing for my visit to the local school next week on World Book Day and I have approved all the pictures with a brilliant illustrator who will have them completed by the end of March. This will then mean all systems go with the publication stage of things.

Thanks again for reading.