Tim Dowling: the dog needs a haircut, and I’m next in line

I'm a dab hand with the dog clippers, but no one's touching my new top knot

In the last month I've acquired an absent-minded habit: gathering my hair in a balled-up fist at the crown of my head, to see if I have enough for a top-knot. Not quite.

I'm not the only one in the house who needs a haircut; everyone does apart from the middle one, who came back from America looking as if he'd had a quick trim at the airport. But so far the only efforts towards a solution have been directed at the dog.