The Moaning of Life. Karl Pilkington

      I DIDN’T WANT to celebrate my fortieth birthday. Not because I wasn’t happy about being forty; I don’t mind getting older. I’ve always been older than my years anyway. My mam said I even acted old and grumpy when I was a baby. Apparently I learnt to frown before I could walk and didn’t like having a dummy, as it got in the way of me tutting. I suppose losing my hair made me feel older too. I had a head like a wind-beaten dandelion by the time I had reached twenty-two. I don’t think stress was to blame for the baldness; it was the extra-strong ‘power shower’ my dad had bought off a mate and installed himself. It was way too powerful. Taking a shower was like doing a task in an episode of Total Wipeout. But being bald didn’t bother me, as my hair wasn’t that good anyway. Fine, flimsy stuff it was, that my barber described as the ‘hair of a Chinaman’, so I could never have had a trendy style. Wet-look hair gel was all the rage in England in the early 80s, after Michael Jackson made it popular. It was to help mould your hair, whilst making it look like you’d just stepped out of the shower. But it was never a big seller in Manchester as everybody had the wet look anyway due to the continuous, pissing-down rain.