Paul Thomas: On changing hairdressers and the revelations therein

Curmudgeonitis is the tendency to become irascible when confronted with aspects of youth culture or anything that can be lumped under the heading of political correctness. Curmudgeons see themselves as a resistance movement fighting those who vulgarise and dumb down society in pursuit of wealth and celebrity and those who want to suppress individualism in the name of eliminating discrimination. Their foes see them as sore losers who can't come to terms with their impending if not actual irrelevance.

The latest high-profile figure to come out as a curmudgeon is Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music fame. Allegedly the "coolest living Englishman", Ferry abhors bad manners, admires the aristocracy, disdains email and describes himself as a "small c" conservative, a roundabout way of saying that, seeing Genghis Khan won't be a candidate, he'll vote Tory at the next election.

Curmudgeonitis can creep up on you. For the last few years I've been getting my hair cut at the local hair salon, to apply a metropolitan term to a quintessentially suburban operation. It's a three-minute drive away; I can park right outside and be back in my study in 20 minutes. Admittedly the result wouldn't have style gurus giddy with excitement but for me haircuts are now as much about convenience as appearance.

True, I was usually the odd one out among the kiddies and old-age pensioners and the woman who does my hair has more than satisfied my interest in life in Vladivostok. But chattiness goes with the territory and these were minor quibbles about what was a swift, uncomplicated exercise.

On recent visits, however, she's seemed more focused on her life story than my hair. Driving home I estimated that under the new price regime I'm paying $3 for every minute in the chair, a hefty rate given how much of it is down-time devoted to Madame Siberia's momentous narrative.

When I grumbled about it over dinner, the family were unanimously of the view that I should take my custom to a "proper" hairdresser. They knew just the place: a salon in the city with one of those punchy if random (in the kids' parlance) names that proclaims: We are not barbers; we do not cut hair, we provide a total hair experience. Our mission is to make you an altogether groovier person.

I was boxed in. I couldn't very well ignore this suggestion and carry on moaning. So I made an appointment and drove into town to discover that public carparks no longer put a sign out the front to advise you that the carpark is full. They let you find this out for yourself - by wending your fruitless way up and down all umpteen floors and eventually to the exit.

I told the inevitable sourpuss in the ticket booth that the car park was full. "I know," he replied. The good news is that they haven't yet got the nerve to demand payment for sending you on this wild goose chase.

After some frantic to-ing and fro-ing involving several minor traffic violations I found a meter park on the right side of town.

Decor and layout-wise, the salon was a cross between a minimalist art gallery and an aquarium. While I waited for my shampoo and scalp massage, I noted that I was two decades older than everyone else there. Furthermore, all the staff wore black from head to toe and something terrible (or radical) had been done to their hair.

I declined coffee. I don't go to a hairdressing salon for the coffee any more than I go for the conversation. The young woman who was to cut my hair appeared; hers was a space-age blend of silver and pink held in place by a leopardskin-print headband. Not wanting to get our relationship off on the wrong foot, I agreed to have a coffee. I requested a short black. I received a goldfish bowl full of a substance that may very well have been coffee in the broad, technical sense of the term. It didn't matter. I didn't want it anyway.

She was briskly pleasant. If she felt that my middle-aged hair and mundane requirements were beneath her, she certainly didn't show it. On the contrary, she was a study in concentration. She didn't talk about herself. She didn't want to know about my work, or star sign, or Christmas holiday plans. I was, I felt, in the hands of a professional who took pride in her work.

The haircut cost me twice as much as the suburban version but my stylist, as I now like to think of her, had spent four times as long on it. Without a trace of hard sell, she suggested that if I wanted another cut before Christmas, I might want to book soon. I believed her.

I beat the parking wardens back to my car and drove home past the local hair salon where a nascent curmudgeon was probably finding out how the citizens of Vladivostok heat their homes. Like Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep, I was neat, clean, shaved and sober, and I didn't care who knew it.