Cue Blond Jokes

So I'm thinking of going blond. Then I would have an excuse for being ditsy and no one would mind.

Actually I've been a sort of light auburny colour for a very long time now, and am getting bored. Summer is rather a good season for doing daft things because I can blame it on the heat getting to my head, so it's the moment to do it.

When I was six I was a lovely little blond thing with greeny blue eyes. Then my hair went mousey, I ceased to be a lovely little thing and became a revolting mess of adolescent features. Not the pubescent cuteness of many young things of today for me. I had to wait another ten years or so before I became presentable.

Mind you, I'm banking on this late-arrived presentableness hanging on into decrepitude. Many cute young things go off once they hit their mid-thirties and turn into sharp-featured old bats. Maybe if you hit surface attractiveness a bit later, you can expect more mileage out of it.

Anyway, back to being blond, I thought I might go a gentle shade of honey blond. What I won't do is go platinum. I'd look a right tart and like death only just warmed up.

French women have a funny attitude to hair colour. They often go for really outlandish shades, mostly based on a colour I call virulent aubergine. The sheer unnaturalness of this on the head of a woman of a certain age (once they hit 50 it's down the coiffeur's for a perm and a nice bit a' colour) is quite stunning. To start with, it's deeply unflattering. The colour is too intense and too dark for many skin types and just drains them of their remaining life.

Of course, you won't find this colour on women like Carla Bruni. No, it's reserved for normal women in normal towns who do things like wait outside the school gates and preserve French beans in sterilized pots. These women are dressed in saggy-kneed leggings, or cheapo jeans or some other sartorially inelegant garment. A few appear in work clothes, but none turn up in Chanel suits or YSL tailored trousers.

I've made an appointment with Boris down the road for Saturday morning. My head will be in his hands, and I'm counting on him to render me blondly superb. This might be something of a tall order however. Going blond will not suddenly make my legs grow an extra 5 inches or take 15 years off my face, but you know what they say: 'a change is as good as a rest' although I am resting quite a lot at the moment what with lounging about on sunbeds for hours on end, but it's the thought that counts...

I just hope it will not all end in tears... or go green in the pool!