I remember asking a colleague with an unusual hairstyle where he was butchered. “Singapore,” he said, “they’re all like that.” So when I was in Singapore, the first thing I did, (apart from drinking tap water and watching wrestling) was to get a trim. This had to be an improvement on the horrific tangled mess that had been living on my head for 3 months in the sun and sea, on an island where I didn’t have, or want, a mirror. The acid test was piloting the new hairstyle back to London, where the nicest adjective it has received so far is ‘unusual’.