Stitched Up For Charity

18 Nov 2006

November 17th started and finished badly. Rachael stubbed her toe in the shower. Now she thinks it's broken.

Went into the office to find the latest copy of GamesMaster had arrived, with lots of lovely stuff inside, including an ok review. So I sent an email round to the marketing department, to big up the review, but to also manage expectations on how unlikely it was that the game would score that well elsewhere. So unlikely in fact, that I said I'd shave my head if it scored better elsewhere. That would drive the point home, I thought. Wasn't I clever.

A split-second later I realised that I'd made a mistake, and tried to combat it but sending another email round to whole of the marketing department saying that I was only actually refering to the games press. Not including the kids press.

What followed was the most monumental stitchup that I have every encountered. The first email I got in response was from the company president.

"Too late," it said. Next was the proof of a much higher review elsewhere.

Some idiot then decided to pledge £20 for Children in Need if I went through with it. Then everyone else, like the baying herd they are, stuck up their hands and shouted "me too! me too! I'll give £20 to make McGarry look like a muppet!"

I left the office at £650 and counting. Bastards.

Considering the 10k run I did in July only raised £150, I had mixed feelings that all these people suddenly decided to become extremely generous when they realised I'd have to look like a plump faced hairless baby.

To cut a long story short, excluding the severe grief I got from Rachael, last night, I got out the beard trimmer and asked her to have a go.

So I sat facing the nonsense on TV in the centre of the living room. I could hear the steady hum of the trimmer as it tore up the back of my head.

"It's not working," she said. "There's not enough coming off," she said, adjusting the trimmer's attachment to 'way too short.'

So I had to walk through Farnham town centre this morning, with a massive short patch cut into my overgrown curly mullet.

So today I did it. Not quite the Duncan Goodhew effort some might have been expecting, but it's been shaved to a mixture of grade 2 on the sides, with grade 4 on top - which is still far too short. I told the hairdresser why I was doing it, and she gave it to me for free, proving that people still did nice things for the RIGHT reasons.