If he wasn't insecure when he started then he sure will be now

In Mark Oaten's Sunday Times write-up he complained that:

“I was turning 40 and I really felt that I was losing my youth. The problem was undoubtedly compounded by my dramatic loss of hair in my late thirties... This really knocked me for six. Any television appearance would result in a barrage of e-mails, not about issues I’d raised, but about my lack of hair. Whether supportive or not, they all asked what had happened to my hair. It’s perhaps not surprising that I became more and more obsessed by its disappearance. For me it was a public sign that my youth had ended.”

If he were insufficiently insecure about his hair then over the last two days almost every news source on the planet (well, maybe not Al-Jazeera) have printed articles about whether mid-life crises are triggered by baldness, whether mid-life crises are triggered by baldness, whether Mark Oaten might be gay rather than just bald (clock the Dr Who references), someone's opinion of their own baldness and the link of baldness to self-esteem. The Grauniad especially seems to be having a field-day; maybe sour grapes. It's at moments like this that I'm glad I'm a woman... although I suppose if Mark Oaten were a woman in public life and had been forced to worry about his dress code (see Pauline Prescott and Cherie Blair) and weight (Cherie Blair) as well as his hairstyle then perish the thought what sort of things he might have got up to.