To my old eyes oddities were so prevalent in Belfast yesterday. I saw so many young men who clearly had a full head of hair, walking about in strong sunlight with their heads shaven. From a clinical point of view this was asking for skin cancer because it wouldn’t have dawned on them to replace nature’s sun-block, their hair, with a manufactured sun-block. There was one man who was obviously a bouncer, six foot four, built like an all in wrestler; his shaven head was a badge of office. I walked along comparing those still with their locks, and the skinheads, and from an aesthetic standpoint I was certain there was no justification for bald heads, unless it was that that all the barbers today are only capable of an all-off. I find it annoying to have to shave every day, the thought of having to muck about with mirrors to try and keep your head shaven back at front, is almost a music hall act.
I found it interesting when I took a train ride, an unusual event, and noticed that a high proportion of the people who got on the train, almost immediately took out a mobile phone, and either texted or talked to somebody or somebody talked to them. On the way home, while waiting for a bus, I saw school children wending their way home, and of these, about 30% of them were using their mobile phones for some reason or other. I just wonder what is so vital today it requires instant speech or a text message, when in the 20s I had no telephone even in the house, and in the 30s just one in the hall, and rarely if ever had any strong urge to seek out a call box. Finally there were four of us standing in a bus queue, one was texitng, one was playing a game or perhaps having difficulty texting because he was tapping the thing almost all the time, and the third was talking on the phone. I was standing admiring. What sadly crossed my mind was that these youngsters led such an insular life at home, that this was their method of socialising.