Читать книгу More Moaning - Karl Pilkington - Страница 9

Perfectionist

Caring

Stubborn

Funny

Hard-working

Loyal

THIS IS HOW Suzanne described me yesterday when I asked her to list my characteristics. I was pretty pleased with that review. I come across as quite a catch, and would happily have that stamped on my gravestone. I doubt I would have come up with a list as good as that on my own as I struggle bigging myself up. I’ve never got a job through an interview because of this, and have always relied on someone putting a word in, or I’ve worked for free for a few days to show them what I can offer. I’m like a toilet brush – not the most exciting thing to have in the home, but you’d be lost without it.

The thing is, I’m human and have more than these six aspects to my character.

I asked Suzanne to do a new list today, and I got this:

Rude

Disregard other people’s feelings

Uncompromising

Shouty

You see, today started with a call to a furniture shop where I wanted to order two items. The delivery charge was £40 but the fella on the end of the phone wanted to charge me £80 as there were two items. I didn’t see why he was charging me twice. He was coming to our address with the first item anyway, and the website suggested buying the items together, so why am I being charged twice?!

‘That’s the way it is,’ he said.

‘Okay, I’ll order the two items and pay the delivery charge twice, but I want each item delivered on separate days, seeing as I’m paying twice.’

‘Now you’re just being silly,’ he said.

‘You’re being a cheeky bastard!’ I said.

He hung up. This is what got me the ‘rude’ and ‘uncompromising’ from Suzanne.

Later on, we went out for a walk before deciding to go for something to eat. The first place I suggested was shut, so that annoyed me, and then the second place was full, so by the time we got to the third place I was starving. Suzanne was on the phone trying her luck with the furniture company, seeing as I didn’t get anywhere, so I picked a table that I thought was fine. Once she was off the phone she started moaning that the table was in the shade and it was too cold (even though I said she should have brought a coat with her) so wanted to move to a sunny table. I got arsey and said it’s like going out with bleeding Goldilocks. So now I was the ‘shouty’ one with ‘disregard for her feelings’.

I’m always being told off for shouting. People think I’m joking if I say I’m not happy with something, and I find it’s only when I shout that I’m taken seriously.

Suzanne said I even shout when I write as I do everything in capitals. She said her Valentine card messages look like ransom notes. But that’s just because I’ve never got into doing joined-up writing. I think it’s a selfish way to write. It might be faster for you to do it but you’re taking up more time of the person who has to try and read it.

The other problem I have with it is it uses up more ink as the pen never leaves the paper.

Anyway, once I’d had a bellyful of food and ordered pudding I calmed down and apologised. Suzanne had also managed to talk the furniture bloke round so the ‘cheeky bastard’ was only going to charge us for one delivery. All’s well that ends well.

I think a big part of your identity is how people see you rather than how you see yourself. Another way to get an idea of what you’re really like is to look at your internet history. Sometimes I look at mine and wonder what I’m doing with my life. Currently my searches show I’ve been looking at pressure washers, I’ve watched the Um Bongo TV advert from the ’80s as I used to like rapping along to it as a kid and I wanted to see if I could still remember it (I couldn’t), I’ve been looking at images of sheepshead fish, I’ve been on my fantasy football league and watched another YouTube favourite of a gorilla on a BMX. I’m not sure what all that says about me.

A NEW HEAD OF HAIR

The plan during this trip was for me to look at myself and my identity, which began with me gozzing into a small test tube and rubbing a cotton bud-type stick on the inside of my cheek to collect some saliva to post off for a DNA test. Apparently my saliva knows more about me than I know about myself. From that, the experts can gather information on relatives I’ve not met and data about my ancestral origins, which is impressive, as the only thing it generally links me to is my pillow. Even though the duvet and pillows are thrown from the bed when Suzanne is changing the bedding, I still know which are my pillows due to the saliva stains. Yellow circles of goz cover seventy per cent of the pillows – it looks like giraffe skin. I don’t know why I churn out so much. Science says we produce two to four pints every day, but I reckon I’ve got loads more than that. A few years back I sat in the garden and dribbled to see if it would eventually stop, but believe it or not I got bored before the supply came to an end. I reckon I could water the garden with myself.

Anyway, I read ages ago that humans share fifty per cent of the same DNA as a banana. I wasn’t too fussed about the results of this test so I had two and a half bananas for breakfast to see if I could alter my DNA and be more banana than human when the results came back in.

If I had to describe myself, I wouldn’t start with me being British, or white, or how old I am, I would begin with the fact that I am bald. I’d say it’s my most distinguishing feature. I’m sure if people were talking about me but couldn’t remember my name, they would say, ‘You know him . . . that bald bloke off the telly.’ It adds a bit of fun when I FaceTime Suzanne on my travels, as if we don’t have much to talk about we’ll kill time by having a game of ‘Head or Knee’. I show her either the top of my head or the top of my knee and she has to guess if it’s my head or knee. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

I’ve been bald since I was about twenty-two, which means I’ve been bald for almost half of my life. I’ve said before that I don’t know what to put it down to as my dad and granddad had a good head of hair, so I blame the power shower that my dad installed when I was younger – it was similar to the water cannons that police use in riots. But in all the time I’ve been bald I’ve never been tempted to wear a wig as I’ve not once seen a good one. You can spot them a mile off. They never sit properly on the head and the colour doesn’t match. To me they’re like having false cladding on the front of your house. Everyone knows it’s not real, and on top of that, it looks shit.

Today I was going to see how shit I would look wearing false hair. I was meeting a man named Curtis at his salon in Atlanta who was going to fit me with a ‘hair prosthetic’. When I got there I was taken off to a private room that was full of plastic sandwich bags full of hair and mannequin heads modelling different kinds of hair.

KARL: I mean, looking at that, that looks like real hair.

CURTIS: That’s cos it’s all real human hair.

KARL: When you say real hair, though, where’s that from?

CURTIS: Asian women grow their beautiful black hair, then they go to the temples and have it shaved off. The hair is processed, stripped of its original colour and then recoloured in every shade from black to blonde.

KARL: But hang on, say if I’m wearing one of these and then I do a murder and they find the hair, she’ll get done for it!

CURTIS: (laughs) Listen, they have proven that students react better to teachers who have hair than teachers who are bald.

They also found out that if two men are interviewed for the same job – one bald and one with hair – ninety-five per cent of the time they’re gonna hire the guy with hair. It’s not right. But it’s the way it is in this society. Children are sometimes scared of bald men. And I’ve had teachers tell me the same thing as well.

I sat down on a chair, and Curtis checked my hair shade before disappearing off into storage to get a ‘hair prosthetic’ to fit my head. At this point I thought it was merely going to be a bit of fun; he would pop it on my head, it would look like a wig, and we’d all have a laugh before shooting off to the next location. But that wasn’t the case. He placed a pile of Asian women’s hair in position and straight away I thought it made me look younger. It looked so real and wasn’t too thick like most wigs normally are, and I could see my scalp through it which gave the impression of it being my own hair.

I had a look of James McAvoy about me. Long floppy hair with a centre parting. It was amazing how each time he tweaked it, it totally changed my look. He took the hairline back a little more and I switched from James McAvoy to Richard E Grant. It definitely improved my appearance. It immediately made me look friendlier.

I suppose this is the reason they never have those weird hairless cats on the front of Christmas cards. They don’t look as cute as your normal bog-standard fluffy cat.

KARL: Have you ever had someone come back after having it done and say, ‘You know what, I don’t feel like me any more?’ Do they ever say I wanna go back to being bald?

CURTIS: No. This is like a drug, it gets very addictive. And I warn my guys, don’t get into this if you can’t afford it. Once you see yourself looking better . . .

KARL: Roughly what would I be looking at price-wise?

CURTIS: About $3,500 a year. But remember, you’re sleeping in this, you’re showering in this, you’re doing everything in this, Karl. We replace the adhesive once a month and the third time we just throw the piece away and get you a whole new one.

He wet the hair then and I was transformed into that Scouse comedian John Bishop. It was amazing how many different looks I could get. I was like Worzel Gummidge with his different heads. It annoyed me that I liked it as much as I did. I’ve become bored of seeing myself for the last twenty-odd years, but having hair back around my face gave me a reason to look in the mirror again. I know it’s not important but it did give my head a new lease of life. I suppose hair is like garnish on a plate of food.

Most of the stuff people stick on there like celery or cress doesn’t get eaten, it just brightens up the meal, and that is what hair does to the head.

Curtis said that if I was happy with the way it was looking now, I should definitely have it bonded to my head, as then it could be shaped properly. I didn’t need any more convincing so went through to another room where a woman called Daphne got to work on it. She spread glue on my bonce like she was buttering bread. She slid the hair into place and after a few minutes gave the hair a tug. It was stuck down tight.

KARL: What is that stuff? Shitting hell, are you sure that can come off?

DAPHNE: It’s not going anywhere. It has a twenty-four-hour curing period, so the more it cures the stronger it will get, so you don’t have to worry about it coming off.

KARL: No, I’m not worried about it coming off. I’m worrying that it’s not coming off.

DAPHNE: We can get it off, trust me.

I wasn’t worried that it wouldn’t come off cos I didn’t like it, it was because I no longer looked like the photo on my passport, which could cause problems.

Daphne got out her scissors and started to trim it and blend it into my own hair, so you couldn’t see the join from my hair to the hair that was growing on a Chinese woman’s head just a few weeks ago. This hair was a lot better than mine ever was. I had now gone from a John Bishop to a Ewan McGregor. Within fifteen minutes Daphne was done. And it looked well smart. It was really odd how she had cut it in a style that I used to have, without her knowing that’s how I had it. It was like I’d got in a time machine and gone back twenty-five years. I couldn’t help but look at myself in the mirror. It was the best hair I’ve ever had and it wasn’t even my own! It was such a novelty to have something to play with and put my hands through. I can’t do anything with the bit of hair I’ve got, it’s pointless. It’s like having curtains that don’t fit a window; it holds no heat or the privacy of my head.

KARL: Me eyes look happier and everything.

CURTIS: I didn’t notice your eyes before. It brings out your features.

KARL: Shit!

CURTIS: You look twenty-eight now. Shave that grey hair off your face and you’ll look twenty-five.

KARL: My shirt looks shit now, though, you know what I mean?

CURTIS: See what it does to you? Now you’re judging your shirt cos you love what you see from the neck up.

KARL: Most stuff below the hair, to be fair. Teeth look a bit shit as well now!

CURTIS: See, you’re looking at every component of your body. That’s why within six months I don’t recognise guys. They’ve bleached their teeth, got contacts, lost thirty pounds! This is what this hair can do to someone!

It did make me feel younger, which is weird as I don’t know why baldness represents being old. Sperm is as young as you can get and they’re hairless. I was considering keeping it for as long as I could, so much so that I left the salon and went to get a passport photo in case my new hair did cause any confusion at passport control. The man who took my photo couldn’t believe it was a toupee and said I looked more youthful with hair than I did on my old passport photo. My plan was to go shopping and pick up some hair products so I could make it look top notch before sending a photo to Suzanne. I bought a decent comb, shampoo and styling spray (£22 in total, having hair isn’t cheap). I gave it a good wash and then took advantage of the hair dryer that was in the hotel. It normally annoys me when Suzanne uses a hair dryer at home, as it seems like such a waste of power when she could just use a towel. In our old house I used to get her to dry it in the living room so at least I got some benefit when it warmed the room up a bit.