Maintaining his [razor's] edge

Around here, you couldn't throw a brick without hitting either a hair dresser or a barista, so what is it that makes Namir so special?

I have been sitting here waiting for an hour and a quarter now, and I am about to take the chair for my monthly groom; the guy before me laughed as he sat down to the sound of Namir's scissors snip-snip-snipping the air, remarking that a two hour and fifteen minute wait is definitely a record for the barber.

And so it is, on a Saturday afternoon, that if you want to get a trim from this Iraqi powerhouse, you have to wait for it.

If you weren't prepared to, you could go across the street to the fat, scowling Lebanese wannabe, or even further along to the eye-fluttering Vietnamese girls ... they're all the same price, and probably just as good as each other, but they are not Namir.

What's so good about him?  Well it could be that he's a great hairdresser, but I am hardly a reliable judge, given my sparsely tufted pate, and considering most of the guys I see waiting in here seem similarly, follicularly challenged, I don't think professional prowess is really the deciding factor.

So if not the workmanship, one can only assume it's the entertainment that keeps people waiting, and waiting, and waiting.  Namir is a performer; one of those old-style barbers who keeps his scissors snipping at the same rate as his flapping tongue, and he'll maintain the active engagement of his audience in communal conversation beyond the capacity of even the most accomplished, high-earning, business conference facilitator.

And no topic is too great for this well-read Sergeant of the Scissors; news, current affairs, world events– he'll tackle them all it all.  Namir on Libya (after a half-hour of animated, insightful diatribe);

"Anyway, I'm only Namir; I can't change the world.  [Turning to his client] But I can change your world – how'd you like it?"

He's also been known to dish-out candid marital advice to the many beefy, tight-shirted, swarthy clients who are known to frequent Namir's waiting room, and he's not averse to telling them to piss-off if they say something denigrating about their women.

Sensitive, new aged barber-man?  I'm not sure his magazine collection would quite get him across that line, but his waiting room is definitely an entertaining way to while away a Saturday afternoon – there should be more of it.

There's worse places to get a haircut.  Pic: http://www.designswan.com

What'll it be, Gents?

I'm about to head-off to the pub.  Perhaps that's not a very remarkable statement to you, and indeed, not five or six years ago, it might have been a statement I'd have uttered two or three times a day.  But at my current stage of life, visiting the pub on a Sunday afternoon is somewhat of a foreign experience ... and I'll admit to being a little nervous.

I wonder what happens at the pub these days?  Will we nonchalantly drink our beer at a ridiculous pace in order to passive-aggressively assert our manliness over our friends and their girlfriends?  Will we all fall over ourselves to reach the bar before each other in order to buy more jugs of beer before the ones we have are even empty?  Will we stand on the tables, crushing ashtrays and knocking glasses over as we shout Irish rebel songs to unknown women across the thoroughfare?  Will we spill beer all over ourselves and walk around looking as though we've wet ourselves?  Will we wet ourselves?

I really don't know what happens at the pub these days, but I am hoping that my years of training have prepared me such that I'll be able to blend right in.

This was too good to pass-up; this pic that came up on a Google Images search for 'beer'.  The source is The Tele (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au) ... need I say more?