Rich's mullet from the back.

I've always been a bit of a joker - and one of my favourite moments from a rich back catalogue of pranks took place at a French restaurant a
couple of years ago.

Out for a meal with some friends, I'd decided to order Saint-Louis stuffed
mullet as my main course.

So good was the dish, I found myself wanting to tell the world... and so I duly rattled off a text message to a number of friends announcing that I'd just "got myself a mullet"!

My choice of words was, of course, deliberately ambiguous - and needless to say, some of the replies I got were priceless.

In good company : Latvia's Mihails Zemlinskis.

Generally, it was howls of derision and disgust - with EVERYONE having taken my message as meaning I'd adopted the heroically ridiculous hairstyle beloved of all country and western singers and people in the audience on
Jerry Springer.

Not ONE person had come to the correct conclusion - that I had, in fact, merely been indulging in my love of seafood.

And this got me wondering: what would it be like to actually try and grow a mullet?!

This year, I decided to take the plunge and find out - and so from around January, all my trips to the barbers' were marked by a simple but ominous set of instructions capable of bringing a chill to the spine of any hairdresser who takes pride in their work.

"Short on the top and sides please," I would utter, "but leave it at the back."

Of course, I perhaps didn't pick a bad time to carry out this experiment, as mullets seem to have acquired a certain 'ironic' status among the
fashionistas in the last year or so. If you're out in Nottingham of an evening, pop into the Social or the Rescue Rooms - you'll see exactly what I
mean.

In good company : Spain's Fernando Torres.

But whereas fads and trends come and go quicker than some people change their kecks, I discovered that growing a mullet actually requires
the sort of steady, long-term commitment that you really wouldn't expect from the fickle fashionistas.

Indeed, three months in, mine was still so embryonic that you couldn't even notice it. And frankly, I was starting to get
frustrated.

Happily though, as with all things, persistence paid off... and while I still have a long way to go before I can compete with the luxuriant 'Kentucky waterfall' famously sported by Billy Ray Cyrus, my 'breakthrough' came five months in in early June when a family member heckled me with a cry of "Hey, it's Nik Kershaw!"

Of course, where I go with the mullet from here remains to be seen. Even at the modest length that it is, it already looks fairly ridiculous, and causes untold mirth among my friends. And unlike Samson in the Bible, it doesn't seem to have given me any special powers.

But it has certainly been an interesting learning experience. Indeed, whereas I previously smirked whenever I saw a mullet, I shall now afford a
bit more reverence. For as I have discovered, growing even the puniest 'Mississippi mudflap' is an enormous commitment - and one that frankly
deserves a great deal of respect.

Interview with a hairdresser >>