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Due to Easter and being in a play and being pretty knackered, I basically did no exercise in April. Also in the play I wore my own suit jacket for one scene and did a gag where I couldn't do up the button (by quite some distance), so I am keen to get back into getting mildly fit again.
I went for a run before lunch and wasn't expecting to get far, but it felt pretty good to begin with. Maybe I could do 5k. Then I got to 1k and had to stop running and walk home. But it's a start. I have done quite well at stopping eating biscuits and chocolate and sweets (obviously still having a Solero every day - you'll have to prise that Solero out of my very cold, dead hands), but it hasn't made much difference. I need to get back to pounding the streets and then when I've finished that, go for a run. It's depressing how quickly everything drops off if you don't use it when you're my age. Yes, like my testicle.
I got round to having my hair cut for the first time since early October. I had needed to keep things long and messy for the play and it was disconcerting how much of a laugh the line about me looking like a geriatric hippy got.
In fact they laughed quite a lot at the “walk round looking like that” bit which is even more upsetting!
I decided to try a barbers that is 2 minutes walk from my house rather than go into town and spend a fortune on Toni and Guy. I'd booked on line last week and then got a message that I needed to pay up front. Obviously people make appointments and then don't turn up, which has to be annoying, but it's a baller move. Especially as the website than asked what kind of tip you'd like to give. I normally do tip my hairdresser (though I am not sure how they managed to get into the elite club of professions where you have to give more money at the end - how did the taxi drivers and the waiting staff and porters and the hairdressers manage this? The doormen are the most impressive though - they get a fiver for just opening the door, maybe sticking out their hand for a cab), but I thought it was a bit much to give a tip for a service that I was 5 days away from receiving. What if the haircut was terrible? Could I ask for the money back.
Maybe I could give him a tip the next time I book if I enjoyed the haircut today. Though rebooking would also be the tip.
The barber seemed a bit suspicious of me when I came in - he said I should have booked an appointment for long hair (I had not seen that option) and that he wouldn't be able to cut my hair in 25 minutes. To be fair to me, every other hairdresser I have been to has cut my hair in under 30 minutes and also I was just wanting all the long bits cut off. Surely that involves the same amount of cutting as doing short hair. It shouldn't matter at what point in the hair you do the cut. Unless there's a fee for sweeping up.
I think when he realised I was basically just wanting the length taken out he wasn't so worried and he did the cut anyway (and didn't charge me any more). He asked me where I last got my hair cut and I told him it was Toni and Guy and he said "Aren't they doing a good job?" As if he didn't want my business. But I told him that I lived almost next door to him and that his service was almost a quarter of the price, so I wanted to give him a go.
And I'd much rather the money went to a Hitchin businessman than to Ian Toni and Ian Guy who probably live in Monte Carlo (just a guess). I liked it though. It was like I had to pass a test to be worthy of his service.
He didn't wash my hair (I'd done it myself) or give me a weird awkward head massage, like they do at T and G (hey, they could have called themselves "G and T", the idiots), but he cut my hair, in 25 minutes and didn't ask for further payment. I shall tip him the next time I go. I hope one day to be trusted enough to be allowed to pay him afterwards. He was less suspicious of me by the end. But only a little bit. I like to feel slightly ashamed as I get my hair cut.
This month's monthly badge prize winner lives in Hitchin. So I was able to drop off their big box of prizes to their door and save £8 or so of postage (also put some of the heavier books I am trying to get rid of in there). It felt too much to hand it to them personally and I suspect they were out at work, so I left it on their doorstep as their dog eyed me suspiciously through the lounge window. You could win the draw too and if you live within 10 minutes drive from me, have footage of me leaving something on your doorstep. Plus you get lots of other benefits.
Head here to join the crew. All the money goes to making more podcasts.
Talking of which
more Newsround (not that this costs anything, but it certainly doesn't make anything). Today about the UK's most mendacious politician.
