Andrew Kay: Yak Yak Yak
And now for the science bit
As you might have guessed, I have no brain for science. It simply bores me now and even though I was quite good at chemistry at school, I hated it. Which is just as well as my teacher banned me from his lab claiming that my long hair was a fire hazard. He did hate me but rest assured I got my own back on him a few years later and saw him publicly humiliated as he had humiliated me.
I can see that science plays a part in my life, by which I mean my immediate life. I’m not in denial about how the world works and I am far from being a creationist, heaven forfend, not that I believe there is a heaven (other than a box of Macaron from Julien Plumart). Which neatly gets me back to the science in my life which is baking cakes, surely the best use of chemistry known to man?
One thing that really offends me though is the use of cod science in advertising. I simply hate it when a pretty model swishes her hair and flirts with the camera before the screen fades to a shot of someone in a white lab-coat followed by a close up of a microscope and then a single strand of hair being magically repaired by the product being advertised.
Oh I’m not in denial that labs are involved in creating a wide range of products, they must be, before being sent of to be tested on bunnies and beagles! It’s the cod terminology that grates, the silly invented words that are spouted to hopefully impress us.
It does not stop me buying hair products either, with crazy “fly-away” hair like mine, help is definitely needed and I am a slave to my Malin & Goetz. I remember clearly though the days before the arrival on the supermarket shelves of hair conditioner. My hair was long, very long and very curly. To keep it in order I had to wash it every day, but that took its toll and after a few days it would become a bush of frizz that made me look like Jimi Hendrix’s pale brother – when the desired look was of course Marc Bolan.
It was not a good look for a grammar school boy, especially when I was required to perch the school cap on top. You can only imagine how ridiculous that looked.
A lovely aunt tried to come to my rescue and gave me for Christmas a can of gentleman’s hair spray. A kind thought if somewhat misguided as keeping my wiry curls still was seldom a problem, even in a gale my hair was a stable tonsorial edifice.
I struggled on with my unruly locks, a cause of further grief for the chemistry teacher, but I was lucky enough to have a rather forward-minded headmaster who declared that my hair, rather than being too long was merely wide – and indeed it was, at least as wide as my shoulders on a really unruly day. In fact it only ever looked long when I went to the swimming baths. There you could see that my sodden curls reached half way down my chest and trailed behind me as I gracefully swam up and down the ancient pool avoiding the usual Elastoplasts. Why did swimming pools aways have sticking plasters lurking in their depths? And yes I was once graceful in the water and not the beached whale that I have sadly become.
I then read in a magazine that oil, eggs and vinegar were all great aids to shiny and manageable hair. Can you see where I am going with this? Yes, you got it, mayonnaise. And yes, we did have mayonnaise in Lancashire in the 1960s.
I made the switch from Silvikrin and Vosene to salad at I rinsed thoroughly dressing in one easy move and providing that I rinsed thoroughly I don’t think I ever smelled like hirsute coleslaw.
Of course it was only a matter of days before mum spotted the rapidly depleted jar of Hellman’s and started to ask questions. I fessed up and it became the subject of much mirth across the entire family. Mum did however admit that the mayo had worked and that my hair had never looked better. She did buy conditioner very soon after that and we both had lovely “manageable” and shiny curls from that point on.
Working in the media makes me very conscious of how we manipulate language. Only the other day I caught an ad for an oven that used “hide and slide technology”. Well the door does slide, and in doing so it does become hidden and I guess that mechanism that affords this miracle is clever, but is the word “technology” over egging things just as I was over egging my hair?
