Of course, they say that any publicity is good publicity, so perhaps this English hair salon has struck upon an odd (albeit potentially devastating) effort at self-promotion.

According to the new rules implemented at said hairdresser, anyone over 176 centimetres (or five foot eight inches in old money), or whose hair extends beyond ‘bra-strap length’ will incur an extra cost if they wish to get their hair cut.

I am certainly no hairdresser, and I won’t pretend to know the difference between a duck tail and a pompadour, but surely the price of your cut should have nothing to do with the length of your hair when you walk into the shop. You take a pair of scissors and snip – how that process differs for someone whose hair is cut close to their ears and for another whose locks are long enough to tickle their asshole is beyond me.

And even more oddly – why is five foot eight inches the cut off point? That’s not even an extraordinary height. Five foot eight is just a fairly standard height for a human. Now, if you were telling me that you didn’t want to cut the hair of someone who was eight foot tall… that’s at least a reason I can theoretically get behind. But truth be told, I don’t actually understand why the height of the subject is of any consequence, because surely the hair you’re cutting is attached to a head that is sitting in a seat anyway.

I’m over six foot, so I guess I won’t be going there anytime soon.