The GHD factor...

Back home in the fair land of Eng-er-land, I know most of me chums and colleagues will be spending their summers larding up on kebabs, avoiding the marking and watching 'Celebrity Big Brother' and 'The X Factor'. I only really know this because comments about these things appear on my facebook stream and BSFB keep banging on about what a pile of dog CBB is. I have no personal experience of it naturally because in a world of KTV, erratic reception and a total absence of 'Born Survivor' I see no reason for a TV. Not that I haven't got one you understand. The doyen of Food Tech and Beef Maestro sorted it for me, but I haven't got that INVOLVED. It is nice to have a telly - otherwise that unit just looks empty and weird in the corner and people who visit Blenheim will probably erroneously come to the conclusion that I am an aesthetic or Jehovah's Witness or something.

However, I have no need for The X Factor, because here in Stanley I have discovered The GHD factor. Oh Yes,

The Laydeez and I went out for an evening of erudite conversation this evening. Naturally enough us being women, this required careful consideration of outfit, hair and toilette. There is nary a woman on the planet who hasn't spent several hours and the GNP of a small African nation on products to prepare for an evening larking about only to find herself at three a.m looking like a badly coiffured rhodedrendren, but this is normally down to drink. I think it fair to say that the laydeez and I are above such nonsense being for the most part mature women with a fairly high 'I'm not impressed' ceiling. Notwithstanding, by 11pm we all looked like we'd been involved in some form of horrible incident.

People who know me will sign legal documentation to the effect that I never knowingly turn down an evening which includes alcohol, but they may also probably state that not since 1989 have I fallen off a bridge, gone home in one pop sock or locked myself irrevocably in the lavatory. Not that I wish to suggest that the average Saturday night pub crawl in Stanley contains all these elements, but it's a good job I'm advanced in years and corrosive liver damge or else I can imagine all three would have occurred.

Saturday night in Stanley requires commitment. The cocktails can clean your drains, the shorts are served in tiny paper cups and every pub contains a leery selection of service personel who will quite happily indulge a woman's need for whisky shots. Which I say is no bad thing!

What is bad is that after 4 hours of meritorious straightening, we all arrived in the Narrows looking smooth sleek and in control. After 20 minutes getting our thing on to The Quo in our second bar stop, we were beginning to look alightly askew. Not 20 minutes later in The Victory bar, all of our hair appeared to have been in a fight to the death with an otter.

A heavy sea fret, wind and the necessity of wearing a hat to nip for a fag does not make for neat hair. In fairness I probably didn't help myself by insisting on wearing my wolly hat on the dance floor. I maintain this was because Bear Grylls swears by a hat - even if it is fashioned out of his own underpants. My constitution is so brittle I cannot deal with any loss of heat from the scalp, therefore the hat stays on.

The GHD factor was in effect. Reletively sober, despite the best efforts of Stanley's hostelries and the benificence of gentlemen from Her Majesty's Royal Navy and Air Force, we still looked like the average 17 year old after 16 pints of cheeky vimto and a good cry in the bogs. With GHDs costing over a tonne, it would be reasonable to feel a tad cheated - like Jamie Afro when that tool Joe McEldry took the X Factor crown. Shocking

Of course my straighteners cost £4.99 from Wilko so I cannot complain and as I was wearing an outfit that made me a dead ringer for Hattie Jaques it would be churlish of me to only moan about my hair. And I did hear a very funny story about an international incident that led one gentlemen to be barred from Bahrain. All about a camel - you can imagine. I've only ever been barred from a fun pub in Burton and I still maintain that was a terrible misunderstanding...

Might have to book in for a perm though....


Borah out