Dodgy haircut and English embarrassment avoidance tactics

Is there anything more frightening than a hairdresser that can't speak English? I mean, I'm quite used to hairdressers being chatty and this puts me at my ease. After all, I'm entrusting them with quite a big responsibility; there's nothing worse than getting a haircut akin to Rod Stewart... But having to explain what haircut you want using the international language of hand gestures is quite a nerve-racking experience.

This is exactly what happened to me this week (well I'm not looking too Rod Stewartesque but I do look a little lopsided).What made it worse was she was also a student hairdresser. A student hairdresser that can't speak English = any girl's nightmare.

All I wanted was a trim and I was trying to stay calm, but she kept saying “You keep changing your mind!” I honestly wasn't, it was just that my voice was getting higher and more hysterical every time she asked me what to do, until I could only let out a frightened squeak when she approached me with the scissors. I think we might have been making each other a little nervous....

Am I foolhardy to use the college hairdressers? It's hard to say, but can a strapped-for-cash journo really resist a haircut for 6 quid? Even if it did take 2 hours and cause me to break out in a stress rash....

In non-dodgy haircut news, I had a college trip to London on Friday, which was very fun. We went with the purpose of seeing the new Supreme Court, but that was pretty boring so it quickly turned into a shopping trip.

On the packed train on the way back, half our class (including me) were forced to sit on the-much-coveted fold-out chairs where your nose is pretty much pressed against the toilet door.

I don't know if you've seen them, but it was one of the the train toilets that's sort of circular shaped and has an automatic door that open and closes with the touch of a button.

Well we were innocently observing the train toilet-traffic and trying to breathe through out mouths when one man went into the toilet and forgot to do one very important thing; lock the door.

After a short time had passed, a woman came to use the toilet and before any of us had really realised what was happening, she had pressed the automatic door open button and the door was sliding back to reveal the man, desperately trying to shut the door again with one hand and covering his *ahem* 'shame' with the other... And I've got to say, once those toilet doors have decided to open, it's not so easy to get them to close again.

Cue carriage's incredibly English reaction to situation:

- Anyone not right in front of the door pretended that they hadn't realised anything was happening and either buried their heads in a broadsheet or looked determinedly out the window.
- Those directly in front of the toilet door (including me), Said 'oh dear' and 'oh my goodness', sat their stupefied for a second before trying to help caught-out man shut the door without making any eye contact whatsoever with anyone.
- Woman who had pressed the open button frantically jabbed at the close button, then realising this wasn't going to work, took a step away, disassociating herself by looking at the ceiling.
- When the man came out again we all chose a variety of poses: incredibly interested in watch, incredibly interested in floor, incredibly interested in next man's paper and incredibly interested in phone.

Luckily, no eye contact between anyone in the carriage occurred at any point during the incident and therefore, due to excellent employment of English embarrassment avoidance tactics, we can all pretend it didn't happen. Good work everyone.