Over on Enidd, there has been much discussion about hairdressers, good, bad and indifferent. It seems everybody finds it difficult to get their hair done as they would like it, for a price that seems reasonable, without being made to feel that the salon was too good for them.
It seems I must tell you about our Greek hairdresser. We had lots of Eastern European experience, where the only thing you could say in favour was that it was cheap and at least you could see again under your fringe. The only style I could ever get was Dusty Springfield bouffant and kiss curls, or in Lithuania a style I associated with a woman politician whose values I did not admire (a bit like Margaret Thatcher). Then we found our Greek salon.
For some reason, it was situated in Maroussi, the northern suburb of Athens where we lived, although the prices they charged were surely centre of Athens. We didn't mind that, since it saved a one hour hot and smelly journey on the train to get to the centre. It was populated by three gay guys plus a woman manageress who tried to keep the peace.
The first guy was the colourist but also the communicator. He spoke excellent English and had a thorough knowledge of London, probably better than mine these days. He obviously went there often, for shopping, as he put it, though this might well have had a wider range than usual. After successful colouring, you were taken downstairs for a cut. The choice was between an older rather hunchbacked and shifty character or (when we there) a transient French guy. The choice was not made by you, since hunchback was a rather jealous and fickle sort. If you were booked in with the French, suddenly space would appear in the hunchback's appointments and he would ask how you liked your cut last time and should he do it again. Even if you accepted the inevitable and were booked in with the hunchback he might suddenly decide to steal other customers from the French guy and make you wait. Since neither the hunchback or the French guy spoke much English, it was hard to work out exactly what was going on. The French guy didn't seem to speak much Greek either. The scope for misunderstanding, was huge, deliberate or not. The manageress had to spend a lot of time soothing tempers and decreasing the volume of shouting that always occurs with disagreements in Greece. After one particularly long wait, where sulks seemed to have set in all round, I explained to the manageress that we actually came for the theatre as much as the hairdressing. She looked at me blankly until the penny dropped.
You may ask why we accepted all this. The three of us agreed that we always came out looking much better than when we went in, our hair was more or less how we wanted, we had been pampered, and we had enjoyed the floor show. What more could you want!
