I WAS filled with the spirit of adventure after last week's extreme sports holiday, but finding myself too time and cash deprived to shoot off for a bit of heli-boarding on some Pacific island, I decided to have a radical haircut instead.

I had become really bored with my long, lank hair but clung onto the image through an irrational fear of hairdressers (this could have been aggravated by the fact that the last one gave me a mullet).

So, I found myself sitting in front of Denis, a camp Turkish guy with a strong German accent, telling him to work his art in any way he wished. As long as it's really, really short and makes me look really, really different, I don't mind, I said. I needed a haircut which would dry off quickly after all those zany surfing trips I was going to make, I thought.

He looked gravely at my face and then handed me a mirror and told me to look at my profile. "You see zat and zat?" he said, pointing to my chin and nose. "Zey are too big for short hair. They will stick out even more."

Well, I know there's nothing like a straight-talking hairdresser, but I wasn't convinced. However, he insisted that, while most punters forgot about the profile ("50 per cent of the men you meet are only going to see you in profile," he warned), it was deadly important to hairdressers.

He said he had a 'vision' for me and that it would be a wonderful surprise. "Will it look a little like that?" I said to him, pointing to Charlize Theron's lovely new bob on the front of Glamour magazine. "Not at all," he said. "It will be much more interesting."

He began snipping off inches and inches of hair and, all the while, he told me about his great passion for hairdressing. When I had phoned, I had stressed that I really wanted someone who could advise me through the haircut, so I had no reason to complain. Denis's stories were amusing, if a little outlandish. He said he used to cut hair for fashion models on stage in Moscow and that people had loved his cuts so much, they had fallen at his feet and asked for his autograph.

I found that hard to believe, especially as he was cutting my hair shorter at one side than the other. When I pointed this out, he said that was just the way he wanted it. He finally agreed on a compromise in which the two sides of my head would still remain asymetrical but not as glaringly as he would have wanted it.

By the drying stage, I looked like a cross between the Beatles in their 'bowl hair' days and Ruth Madoc in Hi-de-Hi. But amazingly, when he'd finished, it was short - really short - and beautiful. In the spirit of adventure, I had, possibly for the first time ever, got myself a haircut that I absolutely adored. I felt like falling at Denis's feet and asking for his autograph. I stopped myself though and just left him a very hefty tip.