Veteran BBC broadcaster Robert Robinson dies

[oldironside]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/news/veteran-bbc-broadcaster-robert-robinson-dies-2337091.html

Oh well, another piece of my childhood gone. Quintessential English gentleman with a fascinating comb over.

http://youtu.be/w1WZpTSNEfA

(I resisted the temptation to use Griff Rhys-Jones' parody)

[non sociopath skin]

1. Yes. The man had a rare wit. I liked him ...

... though neither he nor Bobby Charlton ever persuaded me to foresake the electric razor for the comb when the tonsorial challenges of middle age loomed.

The Skin

[oldironside]

2. The real king of the comb-over...

... was Ralph Coates.

[dipsydoodle]

4. No - Gregor Fisher.

Hamlet cigars - photobooth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0SbVFxl64A

:rofl:

[oldironside]

5. There is a crucial diffference.

The baldy man was done for purely comedic purposes. Mr Coates obviously thought he was fooling someone. Not quite sure who. Maybe a passed out drunk or an alien who'd never encountered humans before.

[fedsron2us]

7. Dupe

[fedsron2us]

8. Well I think I can top that in this Robert Robinson Memorial Comb Over Stakes

How about this truly appalling comb over from John Dempsey the former Chelsea player.

Accurately described as 'Epic' by the man at whoateallthepies

http://www.whoateallthepies.tv/chelsea/47079/retro-horror-hair-john-dempsey-chelsea-aka-the-combover-king.html

[oldironside]

9. I think Dempsey and Coates tie.

A quick google got me a page devoted entirely to... I was going to say bad comb-overs, but I can't think of a good one.



For sheer effort this is the winner.

http://www.oddee.com/item_97315.aspx

[fedsron2us]

10. Simply appalling comb overs on that link

I had to look away from the horror

As Skin said why not just set the Hair Trimmer to No 1 or No 2 and admit the truth

[oldironside]

12. Ah, the 70s

:eyes:

The decade when this was cool.



And this.


(Looks like a comb-over but isn't)

And this



If you'd turned up looking like this...
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_rdyuJIuL86s/Sf5Sv8GdFyI/AAAAAAAAARU/8CfV5lDmLQo/s400/david_beckham+shaved+head.jpg
... they would assume you'd just got out of Wormwood Scrubs.

I will confess that in 1974 my hair wasn't a million miles from the Billy Bonds above.

[fedsron2us]

13. I went to University in the mid 1970s and at first tried to grow my hair long

Sadly I was martyr to split ends and ended up looking like some eastern potentates favourite catamite.

Thankfully punk came along and it was fashionable to wear your hair short again so I was able to have it cut without seeming hopelessly uncool. I imagine many young males heaved a huge sigh of relief when that happened since they no longer had to spend hours washing and drying their hair before going on the town.

Now of course I am old, balding and grey.

This has rendered me so completely invisible to anyone under 30 that one might imagine I had donned Harry Potters famous magic cloak.

[oldironside]

14. I can relate to the grey thing.

My old man went grey in his mid-20s and the gene refused to jump over me. Such is life. A trip to the barber is now a reason to ignore what's landing in my lap.


I was sixteen in 1982, so I basically went from Brian Jones

to Hugh Cornwall overnight.


Rejected that and went back to being a hippy. But that was the point. It was around that time you could choose the haircut you wanted. Maybe that was the true Thatcher revolution, and maybe that was what liberated potential comb-over victims. After that they could have a crew cut without looking like a thug (I still think Phil Collins is a female organ, whatever his haircut).

I lived in Sicily (Catania) in 2002-3 and have to say that I have never seen so many bad suits and evil comb overs as I saw there. Not the Mafia. They were all impecable in their Mercedes SUVs. But the guys who worked in the bank I used...

[dipsydoodle]

15. #1 haircuts are cool

Trust me on that. :)

[non sociopath skin]

11. Surely a homage to the late great Max Wall?

The Skin

[fedsron2us]

3. Sad day

A broadcaster and radio host from an era when they did not automatically assume they were the star of the show.

I always liked his admission that when playing golf he picked up the ball as soon as he got it on the green since he felt it unfair that a short put had the same cost on the score as a 200 yard drive.

[LeftishBrit]

6. RIP

That's a real shock, especially as I had no idea that he was quite that old. He will be missed.