Triumphant return of the hairband

One cause of dissatisfaction has now been eliminated. I've bought a fresh collection of black hairbands, at Boots in Barnstaple. Flyaway hair? No longer. It's back under control.

Boots had three kinds of hairband that I thought worth buying. First, this, actually a pair of black and brown all-plastic bands with curves ends that I'd been using in the past, before experimentally giving them up in early August:

Next, by the same manufacturer, a band with a rubber comfort lining and the ability to mould itself to the exact shape of one's head:

And finally, a band by Boots itself, also with a rubber comfort lining though without that moulding ability:

All three kinds are nice to wear, but already I'm tending to favour the Boots own-brand.

It's good to be wearing a band again. Quite apart from its obvious functional use in keeping the Melford hairstyle in order, I have always felt that the visible line of the band on the top of my head has helped to 'frame' my face, and make the most of whatever appearance assets are still there. Sheer vanity? Well, I'm not wearing a jewelled tiara, am I? It's a plain black band, and not in any way cool and trendy. It's as stylish as a hair clip would be. Or indeed anything popped into or onto the hair to fix it into place. I could be a little more chic by wearing sunglasses as a hairband of sorts; but that would look strange, as I need to wear ordinary glasses all the time, and a pair of sunglasses perched above the regular specs would look ridiculous. 'Four-eyes', you know.

What about the band looking childish? Again, it's a plain black accessory. A grown-up colour. It's not pink or turquoise, with little ponies or fairies on it. OK, these things are known as 'Alice bands', but that's no reason to dismiss them with a snigger. Do I look like a child? I think not. Decidedly not. Nor do I go about dressed in pretty-pretty attire, sporting waist-length hair and a winsome expression.

So I have now renounced looking like this when out of doors:

And instead have returned to this:

I know which look I vastly prefer. The bottommost shot shows the hair being gently taken by a breeze coming in through the caravan doorway. That's an acceptable displacement.

It's a terrible nuisance, though, when the hair scatters in all directions, flopping around, and you see the world through a cascade of pearl-white strands, and you look generally bedraggled.

I can't think why I was ever so strongly urged to 'give up the hairband' in the first place. If I'd had thick, heavy, lustrous hair, and plenty of it, well, going bandless might have worked. If I'd been happy to smother it with creams or mousse or wax, which I wasn't, that too might have worked. If I'd used a packetful of pins and clips that also could have been an answer. Or maybe a hat - a beret, for instance. But none of those last alternatives were appealing. Freedom of choice matters. And although I respect my friends' views, and their own preferences, and their well-developed sense of style, I will always in the end do what I feel happiest with.

Dissatisfactions 1 - Hair and weight

There are things niggling me. Let's begin with my appearance: my hair and my weight loss.

Hair first. On 5th August I wrote a post titled The Hairband which went into why I'd stopped wearing one. Under some urging from local friends, I'd agreed to go hairbandless for a little while, as a trial, and I've stuck with it. But never without reservation. Out in the wind, my unrestrained hair instantly flies about and looks a mess. The old hairband hadn't prevented the wind ruffling my hair, but there was a definite limit to the damage that could occur; and once indoors, or in the car, order was very quickly restored. And the old hairband always preserved the fringe, no matter how strong the breeze, but without it the fringe disappears, exposing an unlovely forehead that I'd rather keep concealed.

Where now is the semblance of shape and style that my hair used to possess? As I said in that earlier post, untidy hair can look flattering, even sexy: but I think this works best with thick hair and a younger face. At my age, I can't really get away with anything too casual. Frankly, not looking well-groomed north of my eyes is undermining my self-esteem.

I admit that there was nothing cool about the hairband. But it did its job effectively most of the time. I'm now in blustery North Devon, with the Appledore Book Festival imminent, and I want to look presentable - and not like a bag lady. There are events to attend in smart clothes, and I want my hair to look decently tidy. So this afternoon I'm popping into Barnstaple, and I'll buy a new hairband to wear. My friends back in the village won't like it, but it's my hair, and I want to restore an appearance that seemed to work well.

Next, weight loss. This is coming along pretty nicely. I haven't found it very easy to shed my exceess weight, but when weighed two evenings ago at Slimming World I'd managed to throw off two stones and three pounds since starting last November. That's thirty-one pounds, or fourteen kilograms. I'm happy with that kind of progress, slow though it is.

Importantly, I've worked out a good personal regime that includes a wide variety of nice things to eat that are nevertheless Slimming World compliant and - if I stick to plan - will inexorably lead to gradual weight-loss. I have also worked out which 'naughty' things I can start eating again, in order to arrest the weight loss and just hover at the weight I want to be. Of course, it's impossible to get through the average week without a social life, and those things that tend to go with seeing friends (meals out, wine), which all put the brakes on anything more than very gradual weight loss. Even so, I should get to my ultimate target during the next four months. That target is now three stones - forty-two pounds, or nineteen kilograms.

What's not to like about losing weight? Well, for a start, it is ageing. I have lost that my chubby round face and neck, and gained lines and wrinkles that were there, but stretched out and not so visible. My neck doesn't look good at all. Elsewhere, however, the Melford carcass definitely looks trimmer and slimmer and because of that a bit younger.

So it's younger body, but older face. Is that what I really want? I'm not entirely sure.

I do of course look and feel healthier, more supple, and I can bend more easily. And my joints must welcome not having to cope with quite so much heft. These are very important points in favour of weight-loss. Points that will stop me backsliding and throwing away the dedication and effort needed to get so far towards my target. But I don't want to end up healthy but haggard. I'm starting to think that three stones may be just a few pounds too much.

Now there's something else. My head hair, fine not coarse, and never thickly-growing, is getting a bit thin. There are no bald patches yet, but I can see from many past photos that my hair isn't as luxuriant as it used to be. Whenever I wash it, I seem to lose quite a number of strands. More than I used to. What's changed?

I'm older, of course. How thick should a woman's hair be at sixty-five? I'm on HRT, so it's not an oestragen deficiency. It could be heredity. My Mum had thinning hair in her old age. She added volume by perming it relentlessly, something I am not going to do. Nor will I saturate my hair with goo and spray, to artificially bulk it out.

I do wonder whether my hair is missing the things I have eliminated from my diet since starting my current weight loss endeavour - things like bread, butter, and cheese. At the moment, the hair-thinning is slight, but neverthelesss concerning and I shall keep an eye on it. If necessary, I shall stop losing weight and eat some bread and cheese again.

Social networking and instant messaging

I'm starting to feel out of step with a lot of people, for not having a Facebook account. Apparently I am missing out on what's happening in other people's lives. And there's a suggestion that people are not going to send me special me-only messages if they have already posted something up on Facebook. They expect me to 'be on Facebook', and dip into what's going on, and generally be part of it all. And if I won't, then sadly I'll just have to miss out.

Well, judging from the trivia I often see when friends look up something they want to show me, I don't think I'm missing anything very important, although I do acknowledge that I'm standing apart from the rising generation of people - billions of them, I suppose - who share their lives online. For blogging isn't quite the same thing. Certainly, a lot of my life is there, in my posts, but you only get a disconnected picture, not a stream. And you don't see who all my friends and family are, and what they might be getting up to. And although the photos posted up on Flickr reveal where I've been, and what catches my attention, they share no confidences. I can inadvertently say silly or indiscreet things on the blog, but as each post has structure and has to be carefully composed, the likelihood of a slip is much smaller.

When writing about Facebook before, I've highlighted the distressing fact that its quick-fire nature promotes flippancy and encourages carelessness. Too often I see - on other phones - people I know undermining themselves with terse or stupid remarks, and offhand commentary that does them no credit. Facebook clearly has abundant potential to stir up dissent, and create disharmony and misunderstanding. A far cry from the original benign notion of linking up people, re-establishing contact, and letting them come together again. There are too many tales nowadays of damage done with hurtful or bullying messages, and untruthful rumours spread that trash reputations. Then there are all the dodgy opinions, misinformation, and gossip from people who claim some kind of peer-group connection, designed to influence or destabilise or subvert one's point of view. And Facebook's own policies on how it handles all the information fed into it by its users are open to question. It regularly changes its rules for handling sensitive data, and lets people down on protecting personal security.

I don't trust Facebook. What are its motives and intentions? It has become way too big and powerful. I have a gut feeling that it's wisest to keep a safe distance, as you would a dangerous and unpredictable beast, and not enter its cage just because most other people have. There is every good reason not to feed it with the kind of meat it wants - information about my life that it will secretly use (or misuse) for its own ends.

For similar reasons, I am most reluctant to sign up for Whatsapp - which is now of course owned by Facebook, and shares personal data with its parent company. These two apps together seem to me like overweening machines. Sign up and be bound to them, with no escape. No thanks.

If wishing to stay in touch with friends and family, I still don't see what's wrong with ordinary texting and emailing. I'm not going to abandon Gmail and Samsung's messaging app merely because some people consider them dull and untrendy.

In any case, I don't have the temperament to enjoy being part of a huge community. I hesitate to 'join in'. That's not to say that I haven't joined local real-world groups (like the pilates class, and Slimming World) to meet a definite purpose (so far, though, only a health-connected purpose), but I'm not the sort to belong to clubs, societies and hobby groups. Nor action groups and political parties. I don't want to be a member. I want to be my own person. And if that means being cut off to some extent from the mainstream, then so be it.

Penguins

An online article I noticed yesterday on TechRadar prompted me to relive the famous John Smith's Extra Smooth Bitter TV ad from July 1996. This is the one that shows comedian Jack Dee extolling the virtues of that brew against a lurid bubble-filled background inhabited by oversized flame-spouting penguins. But more on that in a moment.

The TechRadar article was bemoaning Google's decision to crack down on apps that copied videos on YouTube. I didn't know any existed. Apparently there were several. Now they are all under threat, and may shortly become unobtainable, with the result that no ordinary Internet user will be able to download and keep their very own personal copy of something shown on YouTube.

I wish I had known sooner that this had been a possibility. It always irritated me about YouTube that although you could watch, you couldn't download. Now it looks as if that's how it will be forever, as Google clearly want to make YouTube's content inaccessible except through streaming.

The article is at http://www.techradar.com/news/a-number-of-third-party-youtube-apps-and-youtube-rippers-are-closing-down. They supply instructions on how to set up - at your own risk - one of the remaining apps that will capture and download a favourite video. I don't think I will be attempting that. Even if it proves technically successful, there is the legality issue to consider. Google clearly regard such downloading as near-piracy - the video equivalent of downloading music tracks one hasn't paid for - and I wouldn't want to invite trouble. (It is however tempting to set up the app in question, and see what it can accomplish...)

Naturally I fired up YouTube and checked what I presently had in my 'favourites'. Not much, as it happens. I am not an avid watcher or collector of videos. But I did have a few items bookmarked that I would consider downloading if I had the means to do so. Among them was the 1996 Jack Dee ad with the giant flame-belching and flipper-waving penguins.

This mustn't be confused with the 1993 series of John Smith's penguin ads, in which Jack Dee would be typically propping up the bar at a very quiet and traditional spit-and-sawdust Yorkshire pub, surrounded by squeaky little penguins whom he is easily able to put down and dismiss with his dry humour. The 1996 ad might be called The Penguins' Revenge. The penguins mock and menace him, as he strolls oblivious over a vast penguin belly, through a frothy and bubbly beer-glass landscape, up through the anus of a humongous penguin, emerging from its gaping mouth, and then finally stepping over beer can lids floating over a beery void. Unaware of his bizarre surroundings, and the near-misses of projectile penguins, he maintains a cool, detached and matter-of-fact delivery. The final custard-pie in his face - and he is still oblivious of this - is to pop him into a silly penguin suit as he walks off at the end.

All the time he believes he is doing his deadpan stuff on an empty set, merely holding a pint of John Smith's Extra Smooth Bitter in his hand, and taking the odd sip. At the end he is assured that the post-production team will project him into a normal pub background. But of course we see that they have an 'action sequence' in mind that he absolutely won't like.

Jack Dee later distanced himself from the penguins. The earlier John Smith ads had helped to make him a household name, but he must have felt that his future career was being hindered by the creatures. I went to see him at the Dome in Brighton sometime late in the 1990s, and his act (and our enjoyment of the show) was ruined by a loud heckler who kept asking him where the penguins were. He had ample reason to dislike them.

By the 1990s beer was no longer my favourite drink, but I thought the 1996 John Smith's ad with Jack Dee was very amusing. It had, at the time, been possible to capture ads like this on a VHS home video recording. And no doubt the variable-quality clips from that time that you can now see on YouTube were originally saved in that way. But nobody in a home environment could then have used a computer to make and preserve a modern video file, the mp4 video format being available only from 2001. What a pity.

And it wasn't going to be possible now. I wondered whether I might instead get the gist of the thing by taking a series of still screenshots on my phone. It would certainly convey the look and development of the 43-second ad, but there wouldn't be Jack Dee's voice, nor the music. Oh well, better than nothing. See what you think.

Nearly all the above were taken as screenshots on my phone. The taller shots were screen prints on my laptop - I thought the rendition might be better, but it isn't. Clearly the YouTube video was derived from a smeary, low-resolution VHS tape! I used to have software that would stretch the narrower shots vertically, but it wasn't compatible with Windows 10, and I'm not going to spend money on having that rarely-used facility.

Gosh, didn't Jack Dee look young then? Well, it was twenty-one years ago, and he was only thirty-five.

I wonder who played the penguins? Unless, of course, they were real...

Brighton by Night

I first visited Brighton in 1975, as a stop on a long drive from Southampton (where I was still living with my parents) to South London (where I was weekending with a girl friend). We had a look at the sea front, and the still-impressive ornate West Pier, which at that time was closed but very much a candidate for a complete restoration, had the will and the money been there. It wasn't anything like the sad burnt-out skeleton (and offshore hazard) it now is!

But Brighton didn't strike me then (nor on revisits afterwards) as much of a place. It was disappointingly short on style and elegance. It seemed tired and tatty, and even sleazy. Winos and street beggars abounded. Rust, grime and peeling paint could be seen everywhere. It had the lively Palace Pier, but there was nothing very special in the way of shops or facilities. I felt it was trading way too much on its 1950s 'London-by-the-Sea' image. It was like a self-conscious Brighton Rock film set, and it was oh-so-easy to imagine illicit couples sneaking down here for a classic Dirty Weekend, with a daytime trip to the races included. You'd come here for an abortion. You'd come here to dispose of a murdered body in a suitcase.

Admittedly it was also the destination of the London-to-Brighton Vintage Car Rally each autumn, and another film, a charming one, Genevieve, sprang to mind. And there was of course the exotic and wonderful Brighton Pavilion - although the associations that went with that - the fat, petulant and spendthrift Prince Regent and his snobbish entourage, and his not-so-secret and adulterous liaison with Mrs Fitzherbert - couldn't be dismissed. Then there were the incongruous and dingy high-rise tower blocks that were to become even more sordid in later years. And associated with those, the menacing practices of landlords like Nicholas Van Hoogstraten. Brighton felt haunted by crime. You'd be careful here.

But it was still head-and-shoulders above every other South Coast resort, and a magnet for the well-off as well as the have-nothings. Plenty of people thought it an amazing place. A place where they could be free, and live as they liked. By the time I'd moved to Sussex in 1989, it was definitely on the up. Some new buildings had appeared. The Marina was fully-developed. The drunken and abusive winos had been moved on, although the sullen homeless still slept in odd corners in their malodorous sleeping bags, and begged aggressively at times. But the atmosphere wasn't dangerous any more. There was still street crime, but it was petty and not obviously organised. It had become a reasonable place for a night out, for hen parties, and tables for two in interesting restaurants. But I was glad that I didn't live there.

As the 1990s progressed, Brighton began to transform itself into a modern city with a definite appeal for the international tourist. And there was something else hitting the news. It had become the Gay Capital of the UK. And not only was it a place for gay people. There were other groups, such as Goths; and some of them were suddenly visible on the streets. If I saw any of them, I thought them very daring. Even in Brighton, it was still not quite the right time to be 'different'. And a few people did come to harm. I recall the murder of a gay man on the eastern sea front. Clearly it might still be unwise to walk alone in certain places after dark, whether gay or not. If visiting Brighton at night, one stuck to the well-lit city centre, and clearly safe places like the Pier and The Lanes.

I was still only an occasional visitor. I didn't become a regular one - using Brighton as my social and shopping hub - until late 2008. Then, with my old life disappearing, and with new friends to see, for a few years I travelled into Brighton at least once a week, sometimes three times.

But life moves on, and nowadays I don't socialise in Brighton more than twice a month, and I rarely go shopping there. People I once knew have dispersed to other cities, or to other sets of friends, and most of the old bonds have slackened. There are other places to shop in Sussex just as good. Some favourite haunts of mine, such as the Museum and Art Gallery, have begun to make a steep admission charge. But it's mainly because driving into Brighton, and getting parked, has become such a hassle. The city's 'green' policies seem designed to alienate car drivers, and discourage anybody from outside the city from going there. In short, Brighton is now Too Much Trouble, and I only visit it when I really feel I want to.

But I really wanted to the other evening. It had been a very hot day. I had stayed indoors all afternoon, to keep in the shade. Now it was cooling down a bit, though still very warm. I decided to leave my evening meal until late in the evening, and meanwhile go off to catch the sunset at the Devil's Dyke on the South Downs. This done, I drove on into Brighton. I didn't expect to park - it was the Late August Bank Holiday Sunday, after all! - but as it happens, I found a space to leave Fiona quite close to the sea front. OK then: the gods have willed it that I should have a space. Let's go with that.

I turned towards the Royal Pavilion first. It was beautifully lit up with yellow and mauve lights. Out came Tigerlily: I was going to have an orgy of photography, the camera on my phone being a remarkable low-light performer. Conditions were perfect for it.

Extraordinary. Even Indian tourists, taking pictures like me, were astonished. Remarkably, no persons walked into any of my pictures. I think the Royal Pavilion looks much better at night than during the daytime. It's such a pity that the splendid interior can't be photographed. They don't allow it. So misguided.

From here I strolled to the seafront, through part of The Lanes. It was seething with people, walking around, outside restaurants, spilling out of pubs. If you love life, and love buzz, it was intoxicating.

Some shops were open, but the big-name fashion shops were now shut for the day. Their window displays still made a good picture.

Then suddenly I came out onto the sea front, with the Palace Pier to my left and the western promenade to my right. At beach level, deafening noise drifted up from a string of club-like eating places. The lights of the Pier and the fairground carousels lit up the beach and the sea.

It was fascinating to look down on the revellers.

A sobering note was struck however by two armed police officers quietly patrolling along the promenade. I say 'armed' because they were both carrying - ready for firing - two automatic machine guns. It gave me a shock, and I wondered if they were hoaxing, but I quickly dismissed the idea. It was the Bank Holiday weekend. Brighton could so easily be a terrorist target. All those crowds... I shot them in the back as they passed.

It meant a return trip of over a mile, but I saw, in the distance at Hove, the new tall tower of British Airways i360, which is a big glass pod that carries paying customers up to the top of a very high concrete observation mast.

It opened last year, but I had never seen it close-up, nor finished, nor at night. It was worth the effort to see it in action. Despite the growing darkness, Tigerlily captured some nice shots as I drew closer. The pod travels up and down only very slowly, the 'flight' apparently taking 25 minutes. It was descending as I approached.

It looked exactly like a flying saucer making a landing.

On a clear night, the view from the top of the mast must be spectacular. I looked the price up on the British Airways i360 website. A 'senior' (a person aged at least sixty - that's me!) would pay £13.50 if queuing and paying cash on the day - as you might if wanting to make absolutely certain of fine weather for your 'flight' - or £12.15 in advance online, taking a chance on the weather. Well, as a one-off, if the night were clear, I'd be prepared to shell out £12 or £13 for the ride. You could take photos. (There would have been no deal if they didn't allow it, of course) I wondered what the precise connection with British Airways the airline was. The website explained that they were an independent company, but had struck a 'partnership' agreement with British Airways for five years, which allowed them to use the name and logo.

Well, this was a venture that had been long in the planning. It was a replacement for original plans to restore the adjacent West Pier, plans that had to be abandoned after the by-then shamefully decrepit pier was wrecked by a storm in 2001, and was subsequently the victim of a fire.

Having witnessed the 'landing', I walked back towards the very-much-with-us Palace Pier. On the way, a succession of big seafront hotels.

And at beach level, plenty of beautification and smartening-up. All done in the last year or two, surely.

But I also passed an old Victorian shelter that hadn't yet been tarted up, with broken glass; and, dimly silhouetted against the light from the Grand Hotel opposite, the outline of a man with a backpack.

He wouldn't necessarily be just resting his feet. He might be planning to use the shelter as his makeshift bedroom for the night.

And so to the Palace Pier. It was packed with people. What an atmosphere.

Here in a couple of pictures is the difference between places like Mablethorpe and Brighton. Mablethorpe:

Brighton:

No contest. I definitely know where I'd like to be, were I a mermaid! With these side-by-side photo opportunities, it pays to poke your face at the right hole, otherwise the results can be hilarious. It's not intended for two girls together, as here - not that it matters one bit, if you just want a laugh:

The Pier has it all. A view back across the lit-up sea to Brighton, for one thing:

It has places to eat, brash or half-posh.

It has horses.

It has cows. All kinds!

You can get your fortune told. Though unforeseen circumstances had made the fortune-teller close up for the night.

But this chappie was available. Zoltar speaks. A good man at the Brexit Negotiation Table, I'm thinking. Especially in that snazzy yellow blouse.

You can try your hand at one-armed bandits. Three of you together. (This is 'family entertainment' again)

You can win (they say 'collect') genuine 'shimmering' unicorns, in three different varieties:

How a furry unicorn can 'shimmer' beats me, but I'm scarcely an expert.

And of course there are the rides. Dodgems, driven by people I hope never to meet on the open road.

A traditional helter-skelter.

A fairy-tale carousel.

The queue is not for the carousel, but a gut-wrenching ride called Air Race. People queue for ages, and then pay big bucks, to ride on this. They'll regret it.

And here's another ride in the same vein. The saps.

I've recently discovered (at pilates) that pronounced up-and-down movement induces nausea and dizziness in me. It's akin to sea-sickness. Clearly I'd be mad to try any of these rides, and must henceforth and forever be only a spectator. Even a comparatively gentle ride through this establishment might make me puke...

...if I don't die first of abject cold fear. I rather fancy that Brighton Pier's sophisticated Horror Hotel is way more scary than Mablethorpe's yawn-provoking House of Terror.

You just know it is.

Further rides await, each more testing (some would say 'thrilling') than the last. The roller-coaster is one.

I've never been on a roller coaster in my life, but I know that I would black out and die. And who would care?

This next ride is the worst. The Booster. Four seats at each end of a long rotating bar that swoops around in a fashion designed to spray onlookers with vomit, pee and crap. And yet, people gleefully make their wills and get strapped in. Like this girl, who is doing it alone.

The horrible thing about this one is that having filled the seats at one end of the long bar, they hoick you up into the clouds while they fill up the other end.

So you are left high up there for several terrified minutes, as if they have forgotten all about you. 'What a great view you get,' some might say. But what if, like me, you have a phobia for heights? And must have your two feet firmly on the ground to remain sane? I'd be a gibbering, wimpering jelly up there. And then, just when you might be getting accustomed to it, the arm begins to move, and gathers speed, and...

How many Gs do they subject you to? How many before your heart gives out, or you become brain-damaged? Or at any rate you suffer so much internal injury from the appalling physical stresses that you are never the same again?

I turned away. I had to. In any case, I'd remembered those armed policemen. If there was going to be a bomb, or a shooting, it would start soon. Let's get away. It was with a sense of relief that I left the Pier behind. Across the road were two clubs that I'd not been to for a very long time. One was Bar Revenge. I'm sure it was called something else when I last went in there, just the once. It had been a scary experience. Lone men in sunglasses were scattered about in the semi-darkness, drinking quietly, fiercely watching the girls. You felt their hot eyes on you. You were very, very glad to be with friends and not alone. Now it seemed to have a different clientele.

Why was it called 'Bar Revenge'? Did you take your two-timing boyfriend or girlfriend in there to extract a satisfying retribution? Did you plot a dire retaliation against a friend who had turned against you? Next door was Charles Street, which I seem to remember used to be a venue for drag acts and the like. Back in early 2009, this might greet you at the door:

Now it seemed to be just an ordinary club, although the rainbow lighting suggested that Charles Street might still be a place for Brighton's LGBTQ community to gather:

It was just gone ten, and I was getting peckish. Time to go. I was wary of passers-by as I walked back to Fiona, but made it without problems. Twenty minutes later I was home. Within half an hour I was tucking into a steak dinner.

It had been a good way to spend an evening, but I wouldn't want to repeat it in a hurry. There's something not quite right about Brighton. It can excite you, but it doesn't put you at ease.