The barber is making a comeback, apparently. I recall my miserable trips to the barber’s as a child. My hair would get to a nice long length just as I liked it and my parents – mostly my mother who dislikes long hair on men – decided that I needed a short back and sides. I hate – with a vengeance – short back and sides. I will never, ever, wear my hair in that dreadful style again as long as I live. I haven’t been to a barber for decades, not since I had the option of deciding for myself how long I wanted my hair. A salon will cut long hair properly, a barber, generally, won’t. Indeed, I recall my last trip to a barber to have my long hair trimmed and he made a pig’s breakfast of it. It wasn’t short back and sides, you see.
So, good luck to the those barber shops who are making their comeback, but you won’t be seeing me crossing your threshold.
Barber… I seem to remember them.
Something to do with four people singing in a shop?
Indeed.
As one rapidly leaving his 63rd birthday well behind him, and whose son has on occasion, referred to him as “an ageing hippie”, I share your reluctance.
After all, having read of one Mr S. Todd, one can’t be too careful.
Heh! Same as that, except I don’t have much hair left these days!
An upside of nature deciding how I should have my hair (non-existent on top, buzzed to the bone elsewhere) is that I’ve not had to set foot inside a barber/salon since I hit 30.
I have similar memories of awful trips to the barber. We had one who would spend five or ten minutes discussing exactly what style of haircut was wanted and then do a short back and sides.
The demise of the short back and sides was the echo of the triumph of feminism. And now look at you all.
Nonsense. Long hair pre-dates the fashion for short hair. Apart from Roman times and a period during the Middle ages when the helm cut was popular with the nobility, the trend for short hair (and the dreadful short back and sides) is a relatively recent phenomenon coinciding with the rise of militarism in the early twentieth century. Prior to that, pretty much anything went.
Given that the hirsute man (unshaven as well as long hair) is the natural state of affairs, the short hair fashion is a form of infantilism. Real men have long hair, mummy’s boys cut it short.
If you think that last statement is ridiculous cack, you would be right. However, it is no more ridiculous cack than the suggestion that my choice to keep my hair long has anything to do with feminism. It doesn’t.
Had one MOP at the re-enactment one year.
I had a CPOs navy uniform from about 1812… (NOT unfortunatly origional, but…).
“Hmmm long hair, the Royal navy would never allow that!”
Now, even my wife sais, I behaved myself well, and did not IMMEDIATELY punch his fucking lights out, but it was CLOSE.
He is probably still wondering today, why sailors wear a collar. And why he still has nightmares on the subject.
Jack Tars didn’t lose their pigtail until some while after the Napoleonic wars. They were clearly a product of feminism 😉
I can’t remember when I last saw a barber, I get the misses to chop some off when my pony tail gets too long for comfort. With me it’s not that I am particularly vain about my hair, although I’m pleased I still have some, I just hate anyone (with a very few limited exceptions of my choice) messing around with bits of me.
I tried the pony tail for a while, but decided eventually to cut it back to shoulder length.
I’ve never not gone to a barber. No4 all the time for me. And my local barber is very good, trims the eyebrows and ears too. I also like the fact that he ignores a few rules too like smoking indoors.