Definitley Not Salon

As is normal - or as normal as the flux of weirdness that dominates my life - my hair has contrived itself to grow as long as possible at the coldest time of the year. After several weeks of impractical washing and barely being able to see I finally gave up the inexorable battle against my hair and decided to have it cut. I can never win, hair never loses, it just sits there on your head and waits until you cave.

However, the decision lead to a much deadlier and more ruthless conflict between my mother and I. A battle which will probably be enshrined on the walls of our tombs in ten foot high lead lettering as a warning to future generations; THE HAIRCUT BOOKING.

Since early teenage-hood when I exited out of my never-want-my-hair-cut-again phase, my mother has been trying to get me to go to her 'simply lovely,' salon where she 'gets her hair done.' By this she means a group of overpaid sycophants without even the most basic of skills or intelligence who run brushes coated in cloying, bleach like chemicals through her hair in the hope that they will improve her appearance. And then charge £50 for a treatment that costs 50 pence and ten minutes of their time.

I on the other hand have always elected to get my hair cut at sensible establishments where they don't bother washing your hair with "The Scented Fragances of Lady Lilybottom." They just cut what is needed and charge a fiver.

On this particular occasion I was destined for failure. I arrived home on Friday, extremely tired. In my impaired state brought on through lack of sleep I had the suicidal urge to make idle small talk with my mother while I ate dinner and I mentioned I wanted a hair cut. I vaguely remember her eyes flashing as the words left my mouth, like the savage hawk who's black eye catches the sun for a moment as it ducks serenely in the air and drops towards its helpless pray, faster and faster, CLOSER AND CLOSER...

'I've booked you an appointment for Tuesday with Dylan at The Salon darling!' My eyes snap open, it is the 7 AM next morning, I remember falling gratefully into bed ready for a very, very long sleep. There are however some basic animal senses that, when triggered by the right stimulus, can be the equivalent of several cups of very strong espresso injected straight into the blood stream. One of these is the idea that I might have an appointment at "The Salon."

'You did what!?' I shout.

'I just made you an appointment at The Salon, remember, we talked about it last night, you said you needed your haircut, so I thought I'd you a favour and make you a booking.'

'I don't want it. Cancel it.'

'It's too late for that.'

'It's two days away, how can it be too late!?'

'The Salon is very exclusive,' she says this with in a voice that one might use to introduce an important royal diplomat, 'it was only because they know me that I was able to get you an appointment.'

No, it's because you're only the person delusional enough to make a repeat booking, I thought in the privacy of my own head.

'If you don't take the appointment you'll have to pay the £75 for the haircut out of your own pocket.'

'£75?' I said, in slightly dull voice, not quite believing it.

'Yeeeeeees darling, it's Dylan you know, he's one of their lead stylists, he's very good. I watch him do Val's hair every Saturday. In fact I watched him do it this morning. Oh he's such a good looking man... such a sweetie... pity I'm too much of an old bag... he must have women falling over themselves for him... he's so fashion savvy... and well groomed... and...'

I layback, tuning out, with a sense of dread descending on me, that is so profound it has its own mythology and a group of philosophers studying it called the "Dreadites."

Eventually my mother stops her cyclical wittering about how "dreamy," Dylan is and and asks 'Darling? Are you feeling ok. You're looking a bit grey.'

'No I'm fine. Fine! I've just seen my life flash before my eyes in preparation for the my ritual execution by a cult of women with giant fingernails and simpering men with bleached hair, I couldn't be better.'

She laughs. 'You do say the funniest things. I've booked it for two o'clock on Tuesday. Remember not be late... I'll be checking.' She grins, it is not an entirely nice, more like the grin of an Hyena which has its pray delicately pinned upon the edge of the cliff and is deciding whether to rip their throat now or push them over the edge and feast on the splattered carcass later. While the throat ripping does indeed offer instant gratification and more food, watching a helpless creature plunge to its death can be terrible fun.

As tuesday rolled round a sense of impenetrable dread began to sweep over me. I was unable eat or even sleep. The merest moment of rest was punctuated by nightmares involving seas of scented hair wax crashing in along a beach of combs. A tsunami shooting towards me. Upon the great wave ride hair dressers on comb boards, scissors glinting and ready to cut the hair from my head and then the living flesh from my body.

Tuesday was grey and windy, the world doing its best to muster up as much pathetic fallacy for me as it could. There were no lightning storms or the dead walking the earth however so it wasn't really that convincing to me.

I walked down to the Salon in the cold as if my shoes were made of iron. I arrived "The Salon" nausea rising and pushed open the door. The bright pink interior hit my eyeballs like a truck and I shied back for a moment, wondering if I had opened the door onto a violent explosion coming the other way. No such luck. As my eyes adjusted to the pink, which adorned almost every surface, I walked in.

"The Salon" reception desk, just around the corner, was picked out in a fluorescent green, behind it sat a small blonde woman filing her nails who was wearing only bright orange. It occured to me there was a theme to the colour code and it made me feel even more out of place I did already. (I found out later that people who work in Salon's on average have a highest proportion of eyesight problems than any other demographic in the world. They are also one of the only groups of people who have been able to tune their eyes sufficiently to see into the ultraviolet spectrum beyond what normal human beings can perceive. I think I know why)

'I've come for an appointment with Dylan,' I say haltingly. She stops filing her nails, looks up at me, scowls, nods, rolls her eyes then gets up from the reception desk and leads me down another bright corridor to the main salon, her sharp high heeled shoes clicking liked razors on the floor, where I meet Dylan.

Dylan is wearing a top so shockingly pink that all the other pinks in the room seem like washed out shades of grey next to it. It radiates the incandescent hue as if it has an extra physical property extending several feet outside of where the material of the top ends.

The apparently mute receptionist stamps her foot irritatedly to catch Dylan's attention. He is talking animatedly to a woman who is dressed entirely in bright yellows and has long black hair that seems to been mixed up in a jewelry store robbery. Dylan turns, nods and comes over. The woman tinkles quietly away into the back of "The Salon" and receptionist returns to her desk where she can presumably file her nails in peace.

'Hi,' Dylan simpers as he reaches me. And it really is a simper, I get the unnerving impression that I might be a cute baby again or some sort of furry animal his simper is so strong. It radiates tones of 'awwww' and 'isnicuteissocuteoaoaoaoaoaoaooowhosacutie' into the ultrasonic, bringing up a brief personality paradox in me, as noted above.

'Hi.' I reply weakly.

'Sit down, in the cutting chair my darling and lets find out what we're doing today.'

'err.'

'Just a cut?'

'Yes'

'I can do extension and colours too.'

'No Thank You.'

'They'd suit you'

'No.'

'Suit yourself.'

'Just sort of generally shorter I think.'

'I'll do a nice cut on the top and keep it a little longer over the ears?'

'errrm.'

'You do have quite big ugly ears so its probably best to hide them.'

'errmm-'

'Okay then lets get your hair washed and we'll start. CHANTELLE!!!!!!!'

The woman, presumably Chantelle, who's hair is encrusted with little sparkly gems, to the point that she appears to be carrying around some sort of mythical serpentine creature on her head, reappears. She takes me over to the hair washing sinks, sort of like basins with a chunk taken out of one side and I sit down to have my hair washed. This is probably the best part of the experience as she gives a quite a relaxing head massage and shampoo. It is ruined somewhat when one of her metallic strands of her catches on a shelf, stretches as she turns and then whips out to spring across me, lodging like juddering dart in the leather of the seat in which I am sitting, inches from my face. It gives me a nasty fright and I comment 'Perhaps that's enough.'

I return to the cutting chair and Dylan comes over from idly twiddling his thumbs, I learn later that it would be demeaning for a lead stylist to wash hair and that is why Chantelle has to do it.

Dylan begins by cutting my hair in silence. After a few awkward moments and because the radiation from Dylan's shirt is beginning to effect my brain I strike up a conversation. 'So how did you get into hairdressing I ask?'

Dylan smiles, flutters his eyelashes in a weirdly effeminate manner and then simpers 'Well. I sort of fell into you know. Left home. Thought. What am I good at?'

'Hairdressing,' I smile.

'Seeing the vision.'

This blind sides me a little.

'The vision?' I ask.

'Yes. The vision. The vision of style. I can see what people really need. What makes them beautiful. And that is why I knew I had to work in a Salon. I knew as clear as day it was my destiny. I said to myself Dylan, look at you, your a genius, you might be good at football or being an electrician or something else, but that isn't true work, there is no vision in that. no... magic!'

'Yes...' I say diplomatically.

He pouts. Shakes his head. Seeming to notice my uncomfortableness for the first time he says 'I'm not gay though.'

'No.' I agree. Then, because even with my brain irradiated by Dylan's top, I can still summon up some spite, I say 'Not at all,' with as much concealed sarcasm as a knife wreathed in velvet.

'Yeah. well, just ended up doing it. But yeah, not gay like. I mean I've got a wife.' He simpers this last part slightly unsurely.

Because I am still feeling a little resentful towards my mother I ask 'What's her name?'

'Errrm. Kristal.' He simpers, uncertainly.

'Oh right. Two kids as well I expect.'

'Yeah. And gays can't have kids.'

'Surrogate mothers.'

'What?'

'Nevermind.'

The rest of the haircut passes in silence. Except for one simpering comment when he notes that I might be getting a few grey hairs and I'm also going bald and should probably consider plastic surgery for my face. I dismiss these suggestions accordingly.

As he brushes me off and I stand up to pay a strikingly tall man in iridescent reds and purples bursts into the Salon. He is made more striking by the fact that his face is also bright red with rage and matches his clothes quite well.

'You Whore!' he screams and Dylan.

'Ricardo no! What are doing here?' Dylan manages to simper and still sound loud and aggressive somehow

'You slept with my brother! Oh all the people Dylan? You betrayed me for him!? What am I going to tell our kids.'

'Nothing.'

'I can't tell them nothing. This relationship is over.'

'No Ricardo. No!' Dylan simpers and sobs.

I consider briefly asking the livid Ricardo if he's actually called Kristal and then think better of it.

Dylan sinks to floor crying as Ricardo stares at him balefully. 'Goodbye Dylan,' he whispers. Then savagely. 'Goodbye forever.'

Ricardo storms out. Chantelle tinkles concernedly back into room and tries to comfort Dylan where he lies on the floor. He shakes her off and continues to cry.

'I'm going to goooo...' I say quietly. 'I'm sure my mother will pay when she's in here next.'

'Just go!' screams Chantelle. Can't you see this man is having a major life crisis.' She then coos to Dylan. 'Come on darling, there you are, its ok.'

I leave. Happy to be free of the horrible suffocating place.

Later my mother comes to room and tells me what a nice a haircut I've had. I can't tell if she is being sarcastic or not.

She asks also 'What did you think of Dylan? Lovely isn't he.'

'Yes.' I agree, trying to keep a straight face.

She looks worried for a moment then says 'Do you think he's gay?'

'No. Probably not.' I say.

She nods.

Two Black Swans

It seems to be a cosmic law of the universe that every extremely crowded train journey comes with an obligatory couple or group of friends who talk in loud, jolly voices and are apparently unaware of the horrible conditions in which they are traveling, that they are pressed uncomfortably against other passengers, faces inches from each others and trying to awkwardly avoid other people's gazes.

Said friends that materialized as reliably as gravity in the train journey I made on Monday morning, manifested themselves as a couple of Australian women who were particularly loud and unnecessarily happy for 08:00 on a Monday morning.

Upon squeezing their way unceremoniously into the carriage and giggling every time they knocked into someone the women proceeded to talk at length about a man called "Dave" who turned out to be the estranged husband of one of the women. "Well he just wouldn't listen in the end, didn't want to hear me talk anymore," the apparent wife said as a conclusion to why they were divorcing. There was a moment of silence when I imagined most of the carriage were probably thinking this wasn't much of a surprise, while the other half who were nursing their bleeding ears from the EXTREMELY LOUD, self-indulgent crooning of the two women.

After this brief pause the wife, who was looking into the middle distance with a sort of dark-night-of-soul expression, likely brought on by the clanging bell of irony that had filled the silence in their conversation, looked up brightly and said "I saw Black Swan this week, finally! Had to wait for to it come out on DVD but it was still fantastic."

Her friend nodded enthusiastically, "yeah, I saw it at the cinema. The music-"

"Amazing!" cut in the wife.

"I know, I know. Doo-do-do-do-do Doo-do-Doo Doo"

At this point they both began to sing the theme from swan lake. Their representation of Tchaikovsky's masterpiece was as a beautiful, sequined dress is to a dirty axel grinder covered in blood. As they launched into the high notes at the themes climax a man several metres away who had managed to get a seat convulsed, spitting the coffee he was drinking out onto an unfortunate set of school children who were sitting in front of him. I don't think the children noticed however, as they seemed to be reliving a host of infantile terrors brought on by the shrieking banshee voices of two women, which extended deep in the subsonic realms of instinctual fear.

I was probably only saved because I was behind on the glass dividers in the carriage.

After the tunes climax they collapsed into laughter. Upon regaining their composure the friend commented again "fantastic, fantastic, really gets your juices going."

I shuddered at this.

The wife jumped in with "You know what really gets MY juices flowing, that Vincent Cassel."

The rest of the carriage shuddered.

Several people nearby the two tried to distance themselves subtly lest the idea of Vincent Cassel as being attractive become somehow infectious. Of course as the carriage was so crowded it simply had the effect of compressing everyone into more uncomfortable, contorted positions while not putting any meaningful distance between the passengers and the two women.

"Very sexy." agreed the friend.

"Mmm. Very sexy indeed..."

At this point I thought I heard a woman several seats away grown and vomit as her belly finally gave up from the combined assault of the singing and the images of Cassel. I can't be sure though.

"And he got that lovely Natalie Portman." Continued the wife.

"She looked so good in that film." the friend commented. "So good, I don't how she does it."

"Very thin, I wish I were that thin sometimes." nodded the wife making a twisting movement with her hands around her waist.

While she was obviously disillusioned about her singing and Vicent Cassel, she had evidently realized certain things about her weight, even if she did relate them in the conscience clanging steel of understatement.

"I heard.. I heard that she only ate celery the entire time they were filming. And...! That a lot of the weight loss was actually due to all the blood she lost during the film."

"No!" Said the wife in apparent disbelief. "Really?"

"Yes! Yes! If you look at carefully at the beginning of the film you can see she is weightier than at the end. All those scenes when she had to cut herself took their toll."

"And I thought they were just fake." Replied the wife, without a hint of sarcasm. "Well, makes you think, she must have to work very hard acting AND cutting yourself. But I couldn't do all that, I've got a good amount of blood in me, that's probably why I'm slightly heavier."

"mmm," nodded the friend, with slight reservation, "probably." It seemed that even her cheerful enthusiasm could not quite bend reality that far.

"Definitely, both of us. We don't need to become anemic and arty like those skinny bitches!"

Both women laughed at this, the friend cheering up as she had now been included in the excuse for her weight. They clapped each other on the back and giggled for several minutes without a break, seemingly overcoming the human need for oxygen.

"Oo! It's our stop!" Shouted the wife, her head whipping round. Both women bulldozed their way out of the carriage just before the doors closed, crushing several slighter people in their path.

As the doors closed the carriage collectively breathed a sigh of relief. The ordeal was over...

There was a loud delighted shout from the other end of the carriage. As the Australian women had exited from one set of doors a group of three teenage girls had got on, discussing make up tips in their best shouting voices, thus maintaining the equilibrium of socially obnoxious people in a crowded space.

The battered passengers, minds assaulted, ears bleeding, soldiered on.