Low life | 22 June 2016

Before dashing out of the door and driving to Nice airport, I gave my eyebrows a quick trim with the electric grooming razor Father Christmas gave me. In my tearing haste, however, I forgot to clip on the length regulator and in two sweeps shaved them right off, leaving two bald white strips.

I was last to board the plane. While everyone else queued in the stifling airbridge while the plane was prepared, I had remained in my comfortable seat in the sunny departure lounge reading Sir Michael Holroyd’s hilarious life of Augustus John. Seat 9F was the aisle seat of a row of three, and the pair of chaps already belted in to seats D and E looked utterly devastated by the last-minute occupation of their empty seat by a casually late arrival with no eyebrows. The guy beside me was wearing decidedly vulgar, shiny tracksuit bottoms. His chubby pal had on short shorts and a polo shirt, and his arms and legs were coated with curling orange hairs.