Short, Back and Sides

          When it comes time for a haircut, I am still unsure, two years after moving here, which barber shop to choose. There are so many of them – too many, according to one of the longer-established practitioners, who has watched competition grow, fuelled to a large degree by Kurdish immigrants who, according to him, “learned it off YouTube”. But, since my needs are uncomplicated (I am thankful that it was my fate to be born into the male gender), I reckon that any competent barber could – or should – be able to do the job. The brief is simple: trim the hair while keeping the style as is. The criteria for deciding where to take my custom, therefore, could readily be defined by price and convenience and, since prices are all the same, give or take a pound, that leaves convenience as the deciding factor. Except that it doesn’t, quite.

          For a while, I thought I had it sorted. Hair Port is situated across the road from the Portuguese café, which was a useful place to have coffee while keeping an eye on the busyness or otherwise of the barbers. But the café changed its opening times and I lost track of them. In any case, it seemed that, despite there being several barbers on duty, I too often got the big, unsmiling, tattooed chap whose manner was arrogant and whose method was rapid and rough. The end result would be fine, but the risk of a cricked neck was always present. So, I started to go to Malmo, a salon named for the Swedish city which had once been the adopted home of this particular Kurdish proprietor. Malmo is conveniently situated opposite the supermarket, where provisions may be obtained before or after the shearing and where there is a handy, secure bike-park. The only snag is that the proprietor is always on the phone (“Sorry, I have a big family”), which means that I usually get attended by his assistant, a nice chap with a gentle touch, but whose method is tediously slow. And, unless I keep an eye on what he’s doing, I sometimes end up with a quiff that is not only inappropriate to my age but also reminiscent of a certain far-right, former politician.

          It was for this reason that I cycled up to Hair Port on Tuesday morning, thinking to give them another try. The big man wasn’t there, which was encouraging. There was just one, unemployed barber lurking with his phone at the back of the shop. But, as I walked in, I realised that I had forgotten to bring with me the seemingly universal currency of barbershops: cash. Ever so hopefully, I asked him if I could pay with my phone. The response I got was morose and perfunctory. “There’s an ATM over the road,” he said, thrusting his chin in that direction. Fine, but I only had the phone with me and ATMs still need an old-fashioned card poked into them. I knew I had to cycle home for cash and start again, which I did with bad grace and not so much as a “See you later”.

          On the return journey, I decided, in a fit of of pique, to risk it and go to Malmo instead. The boss was on the phone but smiled and said hello, while beckoning his assistant to prepare the chair for me. The gentle barber seemed pleased to see me, so I resigned myself to his painstaking twiddling, and made sure to be firm in my instructions regarding the quiff. In the end, he did a good enough job, so I handed over the cash, told him to keep the change and asked, by the way, if they accept card payments. “Yes, of course,” was the answer.