Bold facts and a few batty remedies

In fairness to Baldwin, he's done a pretty thorough job of researching the topic. There can't be a single joke about baldness that hasn't been shoehorned into this book. But I found the unrelentingly jaunty tone wearing after 200 pages. He seems determined to be cheerful in the face of condition that he, too, regards as a bit of a disaster, almost as if going bald was on a par with testicular cancer.

Baldness, for the author, is an unwelcome reminder of our mortality.

Clearly, this book is aimed at bald men - or rather: women, who don't know what to buy their bald partners for Christmas - but I'm not sure whether it will appeal to them. As a member of this demographic, I would have preferred a less defensive book on the subject. The author doesn't disclose whether he is bald, but I suspect since he's so lacking in testosterone.

True, he includes a chapter on the 40 Advantages of Alopecia, but where is the chapter on the appalling disadvantages of having a full head of hair?

Let's look at the facts: it stains your shirt collars; it makes you sweat; it gets caught in machinery; it creates dandruff; it gets in your eyes; it's expensive to maintain; it clogs up in the plughole in the bath; it attracts unpleasant odours; it gets in spaces between the keys on your computer keyboard; it's a breeding ground for lice; it gets in your food; it gets stuck in your throat; it makes you look like a girl; it gets pulled - the list is endless.

What the author hasn't grasped is the level of animosity that bald men feel towards those not so afflicted. When we see someone with a ponytail our first impulse is to reach for the scissors. We regard men with hair as the blondes of the male population: they may get invited to a lot of parties, but no one expects them to have read A Critique of Pure Reason. (Think Tim Jefferies.=

We like to remind people of the terrible fate of the Mexican werewolf family who suffered from a rare genetic disorder that caused thick, dark hair to grow all over their faces. They were shunned by polite society and forced to join a circus.

Contrary to Kevin Balswin's view, there is a cure for baldness, and that is to regard it as a blessing rather than a cure.