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Posted: 04-03-2013 19:52 Post subject:

Neil Kinnock? Sir Clive Sinclair?

Posted: 04-03-2013 20:35 Post subject:

Posted: 04-03-2013 22:22 Post subject:

Robin Cook's another one. He lost quite a lot of hair.

Posted: 05-03-2013 08:40 Post subject:

Obviously, all this stereotyping is nonsense. Any genetic predisposition towards certain kinds of behaviour common in those with certain hair shades would contain such great overlaps as to be meaningless. However...

My only real experience of the stereotype proving true was with a ginger haired young lady I was very close to many years ago. Frankly, temperamental hardly covers it! You could ride this girl's mood swings to the Moon and back.

Regarding the effect different female hair colours have on us blokeys, an the whole I tend to be more attracted to brunettes than blondes, and more attracted to redheads than either (even though I'm red-green colourblind!). Women with proper, carrot-top ginger hair have some completely disproportionate effect on me that I've even described as a "ginger fetish" in the past. I can't really explain it, but when it kicks in it feels quite primeval. Shocked

I was brown haired, but what's left, which isn't much, is a mixture of brown and grey.

Posted: 07-03-2013 11:50 Post subject:

I must recuse myself on the grounds that my first wife was a redhead. Irish. With freckles.

Posted: 10-08-2013 19:45 Post subject:

Seeing red: Does 'gingerism' really exist?
By Emma Ailes, BBC Scotland

If you, like me, were born with red hair, the chances are you grew up experiencing all manner of creative name-calling.
"Irn Bru! Carrot top! Ginger minger! Duracell!"
Even former equalities minister Harriet Harman got in on the act in 2011, when she called Lib Dem MP Danny Alexander a "ginger rodent". Shocked

Now Edinburgh's copper tops have decided enough is enough, and taken to the streets to march for Ginger Pride.

But is "gingerism" really that serious?
Among the hundred or so red heads at the march was Fiona Inglis from Edinburgh.
She loves her ginger hair now - but says school was a different matter.
"You don't want to be singled out, and having bright orange hair you definitely feel different," she said.
"That Prodigy song Fire Starter was a nightmare! I remember at school walking into the library and all the sixth years bursting into song with 'I'm a fire starter, twisted fire starter'.
"It's almost like ginger is a bad word. It's like any discrimination really. It's just picking on people, and it's not right."

Laura-Ann Horne from Stirling said she came to the march because her nine-month-old daughter Ivy has red hair.
She said: "My experience growing up was horrible. As a teenager, it was quite hard to live with - the names you get are things too rude to say.
"I do worry about it for my children. Hopefully by the time Ivy goes to school it will be less of a problem."

According to the ScotlandsDNA project, only about 0.6% of the world's population has red hair.
In Scotland, the figure is thought to be about 13% - approximately 650,000 people.

The Edinburgh Ginger Pride rally was organised by Canadian comedian Shawn Hitchins, who is performing his show, Ginger Nation, at the Edinburgh Festival.
There's no doubt it has generated valuable publicity for him: a large gaggle of photographers and journalists turned up for the march. Gingers make good pictures.
And he's not the only one cashing in on the ginger gene.
Later this month dozens of gingers will take to the skies as Flybe attempts to break an unofficial record for "most redheads on a plane". Even the crew will be redheads. Cool

Irn Bru have run a series of ginger-themed advertising campaigns.

But Hitchins insisted there was a serious message behind his stunt.
"Gingerism does exist, people do experience bullying, and people do feel discriminated against," he said.

"They are very few and far between in Canada, so for me it was one more thing that added to my sense of isolation as a gay kid.
"It was that one more thing where I felt I just don't belong."
And there have been reports of incidents where "gingerism" has gone beyond a bit of name-calling.

In 2007, a family from Newcastle said they were forced to move home by a gang who targeted them over their ginger hair.
Kevin and Barbara Chapman said they and their four children endured more than three years of taunts, smashed windows, graffiti and violence.
"The abuse we get is unbelievable," Mr Chapman said at the time.
"They've been punched and kicked and thrown over a hedge. Every time they go out these gangs get to them."

But not everyone with red hair has had such a bad experience.
Back at the march, crowds of tourists gathered to take photographs of the flame-haired procession up the Royal Mile.
Heather Hughes from Paisley was among those waving a Ginger and Proud banner. She said she has always loved having red hair.
"My family were always saying 'your hair's fantastic', or you'd get little old ladies coming up to you in the street, so I've always loved it.
"There was picking on, but I think it makes you tough. If I was a brunette, I'd probably be a very shy brunette, as opposed to a very loud ginger. Twisted Evil

"I'll definitely be here again, it was fantastic."

Next year, Hitchins promises the march will be even bigger - and even redder.

--------------------------------

Ginger stats

Red hair is the result of a mutation in the MC1R protein on chromosome-16.
Even if parents do not have red hair themselves, if both are carriers for the gene they can have a red headed child.
At least 1.8 million Scots carry a red head gene variant - although most are unaware that they do.
Alastair Moffat, managing director, believes the abundance of red-heads in Scotland is partly down to the climate: "We have an Atlantic climate and we need light skin to get as much vitamin D from the sun as possible."

ScotlandsDNA

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-23648041

Posted: 10-08-2013 20:28 Post subject:

My sister has an unusual hair colour - strawberry blonde.
She was always getting complimented by people about her hair, and never bullied.

Nobody else in my family has that colour of hair, so the milkman has some explaining to do... Smile

Posted: 10-08-2013 21:09 Post subject:

Yup, our Escet (the physicist) has that colour. He sometimes grows it long. We were once pulled over by the California Highway Patrol (proper CHiPs, on a motorbike an' everything) and the officer called Escet 'Miss' because of the hair! Laughing

Escet got off with a warning because the patrolman had already written out a ticket addressed to 'Ms'. We were pathetically grateful. Laughing

Posted: 10-08-2013 21:41 Post subject: