There it was, running down the drain, my youthful exuberance. I watched it disappear; my hair was deserting me in what seemed like a million strands at a time.

I did all I could, the lotions and potions, the occasional prayer, even the mini comb over. It was all for nothing, I was still in denial. I got it streaked, trying to shock it into regrowth, nope that didn’t work either.

I was in Singapore one year, it was time for action. I went short, crew cut short. But that wasn’t enough, finally I took the plunge and shaved it all off, it was liberating. Now anyone could truly call me chrome dome, cue ball, baldy or the love child of Telly Savalas, who loves ya baby.

At some point the baldness became in vogue, not necessarily for me, The Rock, Vin Diesel and Patrick Stewart were dare I say it classed as ‘sex symbols’, now we’re getting somewhere.

Even Andre Agassi was embracing the chrome dome; waving goodbye to the wig as he got off a flight in Adelaide one summer with a buzzed head, the great man saw the light, then went on to beat Sampras and win the Australian Open weeks later. You go baldy!

The Government though has it in for the baldies. The other day at the Post Office the lovely staff had to take 3 lots of passport photos because the light shinning off my bald head didn’t clear the passport photo rules, no smiling and no shine off your bald head.

So there we were, stuck in a corner of the post office, one lady taking photos, the other lady holding an umbrella over my head to stop the lights above creating ‘shine’ off my melon. The next move we laughed was putting ‘make up’ on to cover the shine.

The umbrella wasn’t enough, so they had to turn most of the lights off in the Post Office amongst amused customers, it worked; my baldness finally triumphed.

Of course now I embrace the bald, I have for years, I think I’d look weird with hair, like putting fuzz on a golf ball, no thanks, I’ll be going out as I came in, bald.