That wig absolutely has to go now

I got a bit of a shock when I saw this current photograph. The wig has been utterly ridiculous for years, but now it is quite tragic.

When a man’s face has aged to that extent, whether he is bald or not becomes irrelevant. It’s always irrelevant anyway, because it’s completely normal for men to be bald, whatever level of anxiety it creates.

It’s not at all like a woman losing her hair, which is totally abnormal and which entirely justifies the wearing of a wig if that is what she wants.

Getting a wig to age is difficult because even if men retain a full head of hair into their late 60s, the quality and texture of the hair, and not just the colour, changes. It becomes wispier, or coarser, and there is much less of it anyway.

And nobody, but nobody, stays shiny black with a few random greys into their late 60s. Into their 50s, yes – I myself am a case in point and my mother was the same, so I know through personal experience that it’s possible – but by the time you’re in your late 60s, black and shiny is pushing it a little. It simply does not exist in nature.

Our former prime minister (it’s hard to believe Malta ever voted in somebody like that, but then again, look what Malta’s done now) is looking like one of those women who keep dyeing their hair jet black into old age.

There’s a reason why you shouldn’t do that: the contrast with the face is far too severe. We all know that women in their late 60s who have black hair are dyeing it. It’s not as though they’re pretending it’s natural. It’s on the same lines as lipstick and eye-shadow. Nobody’s pretending that those are the real colours of a woman’s eyelids or lips.

But our ex prime minister is actually pretending he’s got hair. He knows nobody believes it and still he does it.

And now he’s reached that inevitable tragic stage where he’s hit a wall and can’t make the wig age with his face.

He’s ended up as one of those wizened old men with a bathmat sitting incongruously on his head.