DIARY
Preparing to leave for Seville, I am filled with foreboding. I have to chair a small conference but the foreboding is nothing to do with that. My fear is that I shall have to have another haircut and I have had two already in the last week. It is difficult these days to find a proper gentleman's barber; they are being increasingly replaced by hairdressers or, worse, hair-stylists. The old barber's was staffed by, well, a barber. The new ones are staffed by either ladies or young men of questionable sexuality whose prime aim in life is to move your parting. If it has been on the left, they put it on the right; if in the centre, they abolish it alto- gether. Having moved it, they encourage it to stay in its new home by sticking it down with scented lacquer and blowing it with a Hoover. As soon as you leave the shop, it rebels and tries to go back to its former site but can't find it. The lady hairdressers and homosexuals take too long and make too much fuss. And they talk about the wrong things. That's difficult, since only one topic of conversation is unacceptable in the bar- bers: anything to do with hair. Nor does one wish to be shown photographs of the heads and hair of, to me, unknown person- alities and asked which one would I like to be made to look like. My favourite male barber, Mr Austin, talks about his seedlings. I don't care much for seedlings but I'm happy enough for him to go on about them. The weather is the right topic. With luck, seedling talk tends to lead to weather talk. Last time he told me how his bonfire had given him a cough. In Seville I meet a friend from Barcelona who tells me of an excellent barber there who offers his customers a verbal menu for conversation, `Women, football, bullfighting, politics or silence, sir?' Since four of these are contro- versial, he then asks which side you would like him to support.
roper barbers are rare; all the more so because they are cheap. The more you have to pay the worse the place will be. This means that the best barbers often have a queue, sitting, reading, staring and avoiding contact with each other. Gentlemen don't queue. So I made a resolution. Instead of seeking out a barber's every month when I needed one, I would go into one whenever I found one old-fashioned enough, empty and open, regardless of current need; what will, no doubt, be known as 'preventive bar- bering'. Since the resolution last week I have found two and Seville is bound to be full of them. Eventually the resolution will have to be abandoned. In the meantime I suppose I could ration out my hairs among the possible barbers. I could let one do the eyebrows, another the ears, another the nose and only one the head itself. DIGBY ANDERSON Seville meant Iberia, the only direct flight at the right times. It is usually pretty awful, reminding one of what UK airlines were like before privatisation. Not only the actual service but the demeanour shouts to the skies that the airline is for the benefit of its employees. I once went on it when they were striking and asking the customers whose business appointments and holidays they were destroying to support them in their 'struggle'. Is Iberia worse than Virgin? That's a tough one, since Virgin is especial- ly bad when it achieves the standards it sets itself. I recently broke another resolution and went to Brussels on Virgin-Sabena. It was awful; the self-proclaimed express flights were a total of two hours late and the better-class seats more or less indistin- guishable from the lower-class. The food was dire; one steward said it embarrassed him to serve it. But the worst things were the matiness, the sloppy behaviour and dress of the aggressively young staff and the compulsory lower-class music. These are things of which Virgin appears to be proud. However, I would not have Virgin change. What has happened in the com- petition between Virgin and BA is that they cater for different sorts of people. Virgin caters for young people, YPs, who like noise and scruffy clothes. BA caters for older, more civilised people. The arrangement usually works well since what the two sorts of people like best is being apart. Long may Virgin continue to keep YPs off BA flights. Iberia was full of them. One even squatted in the aisle to paw his girlfriend, who had been separat- ed from him.
The barbers did not turn out to be a problem in Seville. You can see them coming, and take one of the many little back streets to go round them, avoiding both temptation and obligation. Instead I was knocked over in the middle of the road. The attack came from behind and there is doubt about the nature of the vehicle. I maintain, though I did not see it, that it was a mobilette. A witness said it was a bicycle. But a bicycle could not send me flying, could it? No one disputes that the rider, who yelled abuse at me as I lay sprawled on the pedestrian crossing, was a YP.
Seville's cathedral is one of the most beautiful in the world. It has a tower, La Giralda, which one may ascend. One goes up not by steps but by a slope. The story is that this was done so that important chaps could go up on horseback. That is obviously a fabrication for the more impressionable of tourists. The tower with the slope is clearly the first politically correct disabled access monument in Christendom. This was borne out in the cathedral itself, which at the weekend was closed and turned over to a sale of left-wing books with lots of YPs clutching clipboards parading around tem- porary modern stages.
Iwonder what future generations both in Spain and England will make of dis- abled ramps, parking spaces and lavato- ries. I see them in shopping centres, sta- tions, monuments, everywhere — but I have never seen a disabled person use one. They stand empty. Future historians will of course find official documents stating that there were huge numbers of disabled persons with unmet access needs, but they will not trust such official sources. Advanced scientific research on the park- ing spaces, ramps and lavatories them- selves will show they have never bee.,1! used. Like the slope inthe tower, they va" baffle generations to come.
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