Just back from having my first haircut of 2010 and some food for thought from my haidresser Nigel Dowson.

Nigel, who works in Darlington but lives out in the County Durham wilds of Cockfield, posed the following question: "How come that because I woke up this morning as a hairdresser, I can get to work - but if I'd woken up as a teacher, I wouldn't have been able to make it?"