Adventures In Millinery

I've just done something I thought I have never done before in my adult life, and thought I would never ever do.

I have bought myself a hat.

Now for most people this isn't a big thing, but for me it's akin to taking up religion or giving up porn: it goes totally against my grain. I've opted for one of those black military-style hats a Cuban revolutionary might wear. Which means if New Zealand's society ever crumbles, and I have to lead a band of freedom fighters across the land, at least I'll look the part.

For many years, I've hated the sight of anyboy wearing a hat (which is completely at odds with my love of Hitchcock films, where hat-wearing is key). However, girls can get away with wearing hats. Especially if said hat comprises 50% - or more - of their total clothing. Here's a good example:

Here's another example, just in case I didn't get my point across the first time:





















I still hate those fashionable trilbys that they sell to pubescent males in clothes shops. It should be a law that if a guy ever puts one of those on his head duing the 21st century, the nearest bystander should be obliged to flip it off his head as though it was a wild animal ready to attack. If you do, for some reason, choose to wear one of those, you're in danger of being mistaken for that cunt from the band Orson:

Now this guy has forged a career, not out of the music his band has written, but because of the fact he wears a hat whilst performing. Take a look at him above - it's almost as if one of the mannequins in the show window of Top Man has magically come alive and started taking over the world through the might of kareoke. At least The Edge had the decency to wait for a couple of albums - and a rapidly receding hairline - before he started wearing stetsons.

Which brings me to question why I have bought a hat. Is it because the southern hemisphere summer is heating up my head more than usual? Is it to cover up my own receding hairline (which I like to refer, hopingly, as my "receded" hairline)? Is it the start of a mid-life crisis?

Who knows.

Maybe I should just write to this guy and ask him: