Why is it women are obsessed with the way things look?

This broad, blatantly sexist assumption is bought to you today by Merriol's long-running campaign of gentle, not so gentle, and downright blatant hints - in earlier, less enlightened days it would have been called 'nagging' - that I should get my hair cut for some baffling reason. Why? I have no idea why she wants me to get my hair cut. It doesn't need cutting - I had it cut last year - sometime - I think - and it's been doing an admirable job recently of keeping my head warm during some of the coldest weather we've had around here for years - and I do like having a warm head. Okay, I may look like a Muppet having ECT but that doesn't seem to bother anyone else. The only reason I could get out of her for why I should get my hair cut is that she thinks it would 'look nice'. I'm not sure I want to 'look nice'.

Damn! I just did a bit of fact-checking - I stuck my head around the door and asked her why I should get a haircut, just so I couldn't be accused of misquoting her - and she changed her tack:

"Because you look gorgeous with it short."

Damn! 'Gorgeous' I could live with. 'Gorgeous' is tempting. In Merriol's books 'gorgeous' Puts me up there with Johnny Depp, Robert Downey Jr., and that bloke from ER (not George Clooney, the other one).

Damn!