Chatting
I love the hairdresser thing, don’t you?
In a splendid return to form, Demos has silenced rumours that it is all thunk out with a proposal that hairdressers be invited to shape local government policy…”Our research has led us to conclude that hairdressers are the most authentic voice on the high street,” says Demos’s Sam Hinton-Smith, “and that they should be given a formal role in urban policy-making.” Not only that. Hairdressers “act as counsellors and social workers”.
The most authentic voice on the high street – really? More authentic than the voice of the fishmonger? The traffic warden? The shopper for dinner and a newspaper and some lightbulbs and a DVD? The panhandler? The market surveyor? The random pedestrian? The non-random pedestrian? The inebriated teenager? The vomiting inebriated teenager? Who is to say which is more authentic? Who, ah, who?
Already there have been protests from street-cleaners arguing that, being both dirtier and closer to the high street, they have a superior claim to being its “most authentic voice”.
Well exactly. And people who actually lie down in the high street and take little naps are even closer.
How authentic is a dialogue that may be inspired, principally, by a need not to offend the person standing close to your face with a pair of sharp scissors (and a disinclination to spend an hour in awkward silence)? Would the conversation remain so relaxed if clients knew their confidences about boyfriends, shoes and minor operations would be translated, come break time, into a raft of initiatives for the delivery of local services?
Oh, come on. If you look at it in the right way, a dialogue inspired by a need not to offend the person standing close to your face with a pair of sharp scissors is the most authentic kind of dialogue there can possibly be. Very existential, very coalface, very gritty and real and down to brass tacks. Not like all this artificial effete superficial dialogue we have as a matter of choice with people who don’t have sharp things in their hands – that’s for sissies.
Does local government policy really depend on if I went somewhere nice for my holidays?
Why not go the whole hog with this brilliant insight and simply have a list of hairdressers to rotate as prime minister? The money one could save on political campaigning…
To be fair, though, the people currently involved in urban policy-making should also be given a shot at coiffing their constituents.
There may actually be something to this. The detail-oriented perfectionism of the best hair stylists would be very welcome in urban policy planning and execution. They excel in making crucial and sometimes life-altering style judgments which often cannot be undone. They must not only come up with a plan, but execute it flawlessly without going over deadline or budget. Stylists already wield terrifying power over those in their care. When moving to a new place it takes months to find a good haircut. I would very gladly support my own barber for any important governmental post.
Maybe they already have too much power and this getting involved in urban policy-making will be their Enabling Act, their final step on the road to world domination.
What was the Woody Allen piece about Hitler’s barber? “The Schmeed Memoirs,” wasn’t it?