Richard Cobb

'It's no secret that some humans mature quicker than others. Some could have full beards, a child, or a mortgage by the age of eighteen; other unnamed individuals could have been trying throughout their twenties to desperately shepherd some hair onto their cheeks to no avail in a windowless broom cupboard on Leith Walk.

When I was eighteen and at University I was listening to bands like My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Placebo and The Horrors, many of whom had members with immaculate jet black hair which in the hallowed pages of NME and Q looked the business. Now I was living away from home it felt like the perfect opportunity to experiment with my style a bit to see what happened.

Without much thought or deliberation, I bought some black hair dye from Boots and hot-footed it back to the flat to begin the process of transforming myself into a moody music magazine cover star. I went all-in with the permanent stuff too, wash in wash out seemed like a pointless venture. As far as I was concerned, it was permanent or nothing. The instructions on the box seemed a bit excessive, so I read the first few lines and felt I had a good enough grasp to be able to ignore the rest of their advice. It was apparent incredibly early into proceedings that not reading the instructions fully was a terrible decision. My scalp looked like a goth's ice cream on a warm day with dye rapidly abseiling down to my neck from all angles. Trying to stop it was a futile task, so I did what I could and then reverted to the now caked in black instructions to finish my self-administered makeover. Washing the dye over the shower, I wrote off a towel and then inspected the damage in the bathroom mirror. There were still clear streaks of black cascading down my forehead and diagonally across my neck. The first glance wasn't promising. I didn't look like any of my idols from the music magazines. Instead, I resembled a sad duck covered in oil from an RSPCA advert.'

A cautionary sequel to 2019's Richard Cobb: Part One: The easier to digest years.