Mr Messi and the Man in a Hat

I got my hair cut this week – rather severely so. I went to my usual barbers at the end of the road and they had a new young chap working there alongside Edward Sissorhands (I’m not sure of his real name but he is frighteningly quick fingered and doesn’t say much). The new lad was actually quite chatty and asked me about the ongoing World Cup. He had been following Argentina (presumably as neither Turkey nor Scotland had qualified) and it turned out that we are both major fans of the phenomenon that is Lionel Messi – or “Mr Messy” as my razor wielding friend referred to him.

I think the phrase “Genius” is often ineptly applied to sportsmen but in Messi’s case I think it could be quite apt if one was to believe Thomas Edison’s quote that "Genius is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration." Messi has an obvious talent for football but what really amazes me is his work-rate. Seemingly he is never still but in spite of his own incredible goal-scoring record he is constantly trying to bring his team-mates into play and create chances out of nothing. In the last game against  Belgium I saw him shrug of four fouls in succession without losing either the ball or his footing – in the end the referee intervened: presumably to prevent him from losing his shins.

Anyway, my young barber finished after seemingly endless snipping and trimming. The end result looked pretty good to me but I hadn’t realized quite how much he had taken off. It wasn’t until a day or so later when  was working in the garden that I realized that the sun was burning into the back of my head. I stuck a baseball cap on but this only helped so far. I decided that what I needed was a sun-hat of some description. I’ve had mixed luck with hats in the past. I have a few which are generally used in Winter for protection from the cold, wind, rain or a combination of all three. I also have odd baseball caps which I will begrudgingly stick on when conditions dictate – such as attending a baseball match. However, more stylized hats never seem to work that well on me.

I tried on a Fedora many years ago when I lived in Newcastle. This seemed like a good idea at the time and I thought that, combined with my trench coat, it would give me a sort of Tom Baker Doctor Who, bohemian chic look.  In fact it made me look like the local Rabbi – which wouldn’t have been so bad but he was in his late 60s and I was about 25 at the time. For the sun-hat, I had in mind either a Panama hat or some type of cricket hat which seems to do the job in countries like Australia or India (or anywhere with a climate that actually makes cricket possible). I suppose what I had in mind was looking like Pierce Brosnan in The Tailor of Panama. This is what I actually ended up looking like:

I suppose the problem is that the hat doesn’t particularly resemble a classic Panama and I don’t particularly look like Pierce Brosnan either – even if I do share the habit of squinting in bright light. Anyway, the hat does seem to serve its purpose even if it does get a bit hot and sweaty at times. I suppose I could always grow my hair a bit longer but then I was getting hot and sweaty with that. I can’t win. Maybe I should move to Greenland?