The Most Expensive Haircut in the World

My hair has been out of control recently. I am saddled with uncontrollable locks, which grow in dense curly waves and refuse to submit to brush, hairdryer or gel. I haven't had a cut in the three months that I've been here, and I knew it was time when I met up with a friend who I'd not seen for ten years.

"I'm sorry," she said, fifteen minutes into our catch-up. "I just can't stop looking at your hair. What the hell happened to you?"

So I got a trim. It's still long on top, but it's now possible to identify that I have ears, and my head no longer looks like one of those dandelion clocks before the seeds have been blown away.

As I walked out of the hairdressers, I got a call from my agency. These are the people who have been sending me on the range of humiliating and fruitless trials which pass for auditions for lucrative adverts.

"Tom," said the girl on the line. "I've got some great news for you. You got the audition you went to last week!"

I was dumbstruck. I'd forgotten all about this audition, mainly because I'd been in there for a new record time of three minutes, and had failed to come up with anything better than a grotesque leer when asked to demonstrate my range of expressions for the camera.

"You have just the right look for the brand. They like the style, the big hair, it's perfect. Well done!"

Ah, I thought. Bugger.

This advert pays €400 for my time, and the same again as a buy-out to stop me doing similar advertising for a year. After toying with all of the possible excuses for why I looked so different - "I've got sudden onset partial alopecia" - I came clean.

So I'm now waiting for the client to approve my new look. If I lose the job, my haircut costs will have soared from €25 to €825. Surely the most expensive haircut in the world?