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| Letters From London |
| Humorous Views on London Culture, Royals, Gossip and Politics |
My Hair Made Me Do It - 10 May 2006
Take Mark Oaten, the former Liberal Democrat leadership contender and home affairs
spokesman: bald. His loss of hair in his late thirties precipitated his fall from grace. “…a mid-life
crisis…prompted me to act as I did…I was turning 40 and I really felt that I was losing my youth.
The problem was undoubtedly compounded by my dramatic loss of hair. This really knocked me
for six. I started to look noticeably older.”
Let me do the maths: later thirties, turned forty – dear, dear, that’s only a few years and yet he
felt compulsively compelled to ruin his career, risk his family life with wife and two children to
have a bit of rough and a romp with three rent boys involving a little S&M here, a few unprintable
bodily secretions there. Not quite the ‘hey sailor’ sort of thing; Mr Oaten went for the full on
experience.
“Any television appearance would result in a barrage of e-mails…about my lack of hair. It’s not
surprising that I became more and more obsessed by its disappearance.” Perhaps poor Mr
Oaten should have spent a fortnight at a Buddhist temple to assuage his self-consciousness. Or
perhaps poor Mr Oaten should have rubbed cow saliva on his fuzzy head as the Italians did
during the Renaissance. Perhaps poor Mr Oaten should have got out more; shaved heads have
been a sort of fashion for years.
Now take Roger Knapman, please. The leader of the anti-immigration UK Independence Party
since 2002 spends his time ranting, raving and rallying against the employment of ‘foreign’ labour:
“We want our country back.”
Revelling with a satisfied smile and a Nazi-style haircut as a brand, Mr Knapman enthused to an
undercover reporter: “…they have a very good work ethic and work so much harder than anyone
over here…many of the workers here just aren’t skilled enough to do the work involved in
renovating an old property.” Dear me. Like his rather impressive country mansion where ‘they’
have been busy, busy, busy for the last eleven months? “These men work 10 hours a day, 6
days a week…but they want to do it…they won’t let you down…[they work] like an army of ants”
and are paid £50 per day, half that of a British ant, I mean builder.
Mr Knapman is not in this venture alone; he has recruited the workers through his son, William,
whose company, Billdar (now that’s clever) specialises in bringing eastern European workers into
Britain en masse. Mr Knapman continued to let his hair down:
“He will bring over some Polish workers according to what you need and they won’t let you
down.”
The party was the only British group in the European parliament to vote against allowing east
European states into the EU. Their manifesto stated: The Labour Government’s untenable
excuse is that we need large numbers of immigrant workers.
The questions remain. Does hair make the man? Does hair style or hair loss make the man
irrational, hypocritical or simply a liar?
Take Mark Oaten, the former Liberal Democrat leadership contender and home affairs
spokesman: bald. His loss of hair in his late thirties precipitated his fall from grace. “…a mid-life
crisis…prompted me to act as I did…I was turning 40 and I really felt that I was losing my youth.
The problem was undoubtedly compounded by my dramatic loss of hair. This really knocked me
for six. I started to look noticeably older.”
Let me do the maths: later thirties, turned forty – dear, dear, that’s only a few years and yet he
felt compulsively compelled to ruin his career, risk his family life with wife and two children to
have a bit of rough and a romp with three rent boys involving a little S&M here, a few unprintable
bodily secretions there. Not quite the ‘hey sailor’ sort of thing; Mr Oaten went for the full on
experience.
“Any television appearance would result in a barrage of e-mails…about my lack of hair. It’s not
surprising that I became more and more obsessed by its disappearance.” Perhaps poor Mr
Oaten should have spent a fortnight at a Buddhist temple to assuage his self-consciousness. Or
perhaps poor Mr Oaten should have rubbed cow saliva on his fuzzy head as the Italians did
during the Renaissance. Perhaps poor Mr Oaten should have got out more; shaved heads have
been a sort of fashion for years.
Now take Roger Knapman, please. The leader of the anti-immigration UK Independence Party
since 2002 spends his time ranting, raving and rallying against the employment of ‘foreign’ labour:
“We want our country back.”
Revelling with a satisfied smile and a Nazi-style haircut as a brand, Mr Knapman enthused to an
undercover reporter: “…they have a very good work ethic and work so much harder than anyone
over here…many of the workers here just aren’t skilled enough to do the work involved in
renovating an old property.” Dear me. Like his rather impressive country mansion where ‘they’
have been busy, busy, busy for the last eleven months? “These men work 10 hours a day, 6
days a week…but they want to do it…they won’t let you down…[they work] like an army of ants”
and are paid £50 per day, half that of a British ant, I mean builder.
Mr Knapman is not in this venture alone; he has recruited the workers through his son, William,
whose company, Billdar (now that’s clever) specialises in bringing eastern European workers into
Britain en masse. Mr Knapman continued to let his hair down:
“He will bring over some Polish workers according to what you need and they won’t let you
down.”
The party was the only British group in the European parliament to vote against allowing east
European states into the EU. Their manifesto stated: The Labour Government’s untenable
excuse is that we need large numbers of immigrant workers.
The questions remain. Does hair make the man? Does hair style or hair loss make the man
irrational, hypocritical or simply a liar?
