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Alex B Cann column: Hair we go everyone...

Tameside Radio Breakfast presenter Alex B Cann picks out three things he's learned in the news this week and looks forward to his long-awaited haircut...

I started last week’s column with a comment on the blazing sunshine, as we came to the end of a ‘Spanish plume’, turning Stalybridge into Skiathos. What a difference a week makes, as I look out of my living room window and witness another snow globe style shower!

I'm now a mere few days away from a visit to my usual barber shop on King Street in Dukinfield. It was booked on the day the roadmap dates were first announced, with more than a dollop of optimism and hope. 

Just as I did before Christmas when I last visited, I’ll wear one of my collection of jaunty face coverings and chat about work, the weather and topical events as my unwieldy curls are tamed.

It will be a welcome slice of normal life, and it’s these little moments which I hope we never take for granted again.

Similarly, I’m really looking forward to a meander around Ashton Market Hall next week and seeing it fully open again. Local shops will be crying out for your custom, and the power is in all our hands to support them. It requires a little more effort than shopping online, but I for one can’t wait for an aimless wander around some retail premises.

It’s been a strange old week of news. I’m going to use the rule of three, and cover a trio of things in this week’s column:

1) Zoom Fatigue is now a thing. According to Psychology Today, it is defined as “the tiredness, anxiety or worry resulting from overusing virtual platforms”. 

I’d never even really heard of the platform a year ago. If you’d said “zoom” to me, I’d have thought of a Fat Larry’s Band 80s song or a rocket shaped lolly from my childhood which used cost 8p from the ice cream van. 

Perhaps even worse, “Zoom dysmorphia” has apparently caused more people to enquire about cosmetic procedures. Put simply, we are seeing too much of our own faces. Whether it’s fixing our teeth, making our nose smaller or making our eyes larger, front facing cameras are giving us a warped sense of our own reality. 

Thank goodness on Tameside Radio we don’t have a studio webcam, and I don’t have to look at my face for radio all morning!

2) After making tea for most of my adult life (I was more into Newcastle Brown Ale and alcopops at University), I’ve apparently been doing it wrong. 

If you live in a hard water area, Leeds University eggheads have found you should pour milk onto your tea bag before adding the hot water, not afterwards. The rationale is that the proteins in the dairy product can help protect the flavour of your brew, whilst doing things the other way round can have the opposite effect. 

Reassuringly, 79 per cent do their cuppa my way, so I’m not going to change my habits on this one. I also ignore the advice on most herbal tea to brew for three minutes and leave the tea bag in. I find it enhances the flavour, and particularly recommend Teapigs hot cross bun tea if you can still find it.

3) From cuppas to roast dinners...cooking one is all about the timing, or so I’m told by people who cook (I have never attempted anything this elaborate). An essential item on the plate is the roast potato. Or so I thought, until I saw this week that 40 per cent would replace them with mashed potatoes. 

I’m fine with both, and even chips if you like, but the roasties are as essential as the meat / non meat main event.

Apparently us northerners are more pro roast potato than most, but I’m amazed anyone would swap them for the infinitely inferior mash option. 

I’d also argue gravy is mandatory. I do miss the art of assembling a Toby Carvery dinner plate and getting it back to the table without losing a single item. My plate was once so full it drew an audible gasp from one of the other tables in the place. I’m not sure if it was the sound of admiration or shock though.

As I dream of binning off Zoom calls forever, a mug of proper builder’s strength tea (milk last) and a roast dinner (with plentiful roasties), I hope you manage to get your hair cut soon. I won’t be in the beer garden just yet, but I’ll shout you a shandy in the sunshine when it gets a bit warmer. Cheers!

You can listen to Alex every weekday from 7am to 11am and on the 'Super Scoreboard' show on Saturdays from 3pm to 7pm, on Tameside Radio 103.6FM. 

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