It started with the ears, when a female of my acquaintance remarked in what I thought was a somewhat cavalier fashion that I had pig's ears. Rushing to the nearest mirror, I examined them and told her forcefully that I thought she had been rather harsh in her judgement. "Not the shape of them, you narcissist," she sneered. "The bristles growing on them. Pigs have bristles like that on their ears." I was tempted to suggest that she obviously spent more time in the company of pigs than I did but was too busy peering in the mirror.

She was right! My ears were bristling.

I have never regarded hairy ears as being a particularly attractive feature. There may be some who think them to be a sign of masculinity, but I do not see them replacing hairy chests in popular macho male culture any time soon. So I shaved them. I felt stupid doing it but when vanity rules, all other consideration pale.

Weeks passed and then, one morning as I peered into the mirror, I noticed an alarming development - the bristles had returned, their growth more luxuriant than before. Since then, ear shaving has become a regular part of my toiletry, having realised that failure to do so gives you the appearance of a man with a paint brush strapped to each ear.

I accepted this as the price one paid for being a bloke and would have happily gone on shaving had I not fallen into the hands of Carole Haddad, the hairdresser who some months ago removed, with a minimum of consultation, a moustache I nurtured for many months.

I was relaxing in her South Bank salon last week, enjoying the best part of any haircut which is the scalp massage and shampoo, when she appeared with a steaming bowl of what looked like purple porridge.

"Some horribly expensive beauty treatment for some poor, gullible woman who thinks it will deliver unto her eternal youth," I thought to myself as I closed my eyes and stretched back in the chair.

   "It's your ears," she said, and half raising one eyelid I saw that she was standing beside me and still holding the bowl.
   "What's wrong with them?" I asked, for ever since the loss of the moustache I have come to regard her and her formidable personality with guarded respect.
   "You shave them, don't you," she accused.
   "I might," I said.
   "They'll just keep growing back," she said. "This will fix it for six weeks," and dipping a spatula into the porridge, slapped a dollop of it on one ear and then the other.

It was pleasantly warm and for a second I was lulled by the sensation.

   "What is it?" I asked.
   "Wax," she said.

I had heard tell of the agonies endured by women undergoing Brazilian bikini waxes but this, surely, was different.

   "Same stuff," she said in answer to my small-voiced query.
   "And how does it work?" I asked.
   "I pull it off and the hairs come out by the roots."
   "Does it hurt?" I asked.
   "A bit," she said lying, grabbing my left ear and pulled at it.

Apart from one staff member, I was the only male in a salon full of women. I wanted to cry with the pain but was acutely aware that if I did, mobile phones would appear in every hand and the story of the whimpering, blubbering male would be all over the city.

I felt as if someone had just dipped my ear in boiling oil. "Look at that!" cried Haddad triumphantly, holding what appeared to be a piece of my ear in front of me but which, thankfully, turned out to be a lump of wax. Fighting back the tears, I nodded wordlessly at her trophy. "And now for the other one," she cried and I barely had time to grab the sides of the chair before she ripped the wax off the other ear as a silent scream echoed in my brain.

   "I'm not finished yet. I'm going to give you what we call the Male Brazilian," she said.
   "No!" I shrieked, clutching at my trousers. Had the woman no shame!
   "Breathe through your mouth," she commanded and the next moment, a large blob of wax moulded itself to my nose.
   "Whatffaryuthdointh," I gasped, forgetting to breathe through my mouth and all but choking on the words.
   "It's the nose hairs," she said. "All the men are having it done. You'll feel like a new person. It gets rid of them for months."

"This might hurt," she said. I clenched my teeth and gripped the armrests as she grabbed my nose and pulled on the wax, doing a fair imitation of a person trying to start a lawnmower. I levitated several centimetres off the chair and had I not had a vice-like grip on the armrests, would probably have been catapulted through the shop front and into the street.

I left the salon in a daze, eyes watering, ears ringing and my nose feeling as if it was the size of a cabbage.