Thought for the Day -

We can all make ourselves understood across the language barrier when ordering a meal abroad, but try and apply the same tactics to ordering a haircut. There doesn’t seem to be a section in my phrasebook for this.

I walked out from a Portuguese barber’s shop today looking decidedly less hairy than when I went in. I don’t blame the barber, I blame my girlfriend. I can’t speak enough Portuguese to risk instructing my own haircut, and she is fluent so did it for me. The problem was we had been arguing for half an hour beforehand and she was pretty damn pissed off with me by this point. She gave some instructions to Pepe the barber and walked off leaving me in the chair to await my fate. She obviously said something along the lines of – ‘make him look like the wanker he’s been acting like all morning’ – because no sooner had she left, Pepe fired up the clippers and went to work on my perfectly coffered curtains, reducing them to little dolls house version of their former selves … Stop, stop… arrêt, anschlag …what’s the friggin word for stop in Portuguese?!

If you are ever in Portugal, apparently squirming like a worm under a spotlamp whilst screaming stop in half a dozen languages means ‘carry on, you’re doing a great job’ in Portuguese.

If it’s possible for a haircut to have a weggie, then I’ve just had one.

DT