My hair is receding fast, along with any chances of singing a selection of my top 20 hits to a swooning audience at a packed-out Brixton Academy. That's fine, I can cope with that. But part of the problem of receding hair is – ironically, although Alanis Morrisette might disagree – that you need to get your hair cut more often to stop you looking like a middle-aged physics teacher with a complete disregard for personal grooming. It can't be more than 4 weeks since I last had my hair cut, but I'm looking frayed around the edges. I need to get it done again.

Part of the problem has been my local barbers. Since the magnificent star of many a journal entry, Phil, went into retirement to go back to his native Cyprus, the business has been run by an Asian woman called Sam, who celebrated signing the lease by immediately contracting gallstones and having to undergo a couple of operations. She has dictated the direction of the business from her sickbed, while her sullen teenage daughter treks to Tooting everyday to open up between, say, 2pm and 5pm, to half-heartedly snip away at the coiffures of men whom she suspects – probably rightly – are entertaining elaborate sexual fantasies about her. I exclude myself from that set of men, obviously. So, we have reasonably polite conversations, mainly concerned about the size of her mother's gallstones, but she just doesn't take quite enough hair off. And ever the repressed English consumer, I'm loathe to complain, especially when I'm only paying £6.50 (Tuesday to Thursday only.) Not like Phil, who would slough off huge hunks of hair with a graceful sweep of his arm, while uttering his wonderful catchphrase of “stupid f*cki-idiot”. I miss him a bit.

Anyway, Sam's attempt at turning Phil's barber shop into a major Tooting attraction has floundered rather badly, as for the last 3 weeks the shop has been manned by 3 pretty ferocious looking male Asian yout', who loll around in the chairs while casting sneers at passersby. I'm ashamed to say that I'm too nervous to go in. I've no idea why I'm happy to have my hair cut by a distracted teenager singing along to Heart 106.2, or a filthy mouthed Greek Cypriot with a recurring heart condition, but somehow don't trust my head in the hands of these guys. It's not so much a vanity thing – I mean, what could possible go wrong? – I think I'm just worried that they'll say “Oh, man, your hair is well nang” and I won't know whether they think it's marvellous, or appalling. So maybe it's time to switch allegiance. There's a place around the corner called Broadway Hairport, that I've never gone inside on account of it having the name Broadway Hairport. But the thing is, I need my hair cut.