I don’t like going to the hairdressers’ at the best of times. The necessary level of physical contact with a stranger makes me uncomfortable. I’ve been going to the same barber’s shop for what must be fifteen years. Even so, I feel conversationally crippled. In all my (albeit reluctant) middle-class Britishness, I can only mumble inane answers to the polite conversation offered by the hairdresser. Continue reading →