The Ginger Files - Part I
Now it's a little odd to Americans, but anyone who's spent time in the U.K. can attest to the fact that the British have a peculiar fascination with ginger hair - or red hair, as it's known elsewhere. I don't know if it's something to do with their antagonistic attitude towards Celts or what, but in the U.K. it's perfectly acceptable to criticize, ridicule and otherwise demean someone for being a ginger. In an effort to keep track of some of those instances of criticism, I've arranged it so that once a day, a line of code somewhere deep within the bowels of the algorithmic mass that is Google generates a command to e-mail me with any news stories that contain the words "ginger" and "hair."
Here's the first good example of how ginger hair can get you in trouble: the BBC reported Monday that a fellow was " stabbed in the back after an argument over his ginger hair. " Elaborating on the crime without really shedding light on it, the BBC quoted a West Yorkshire Police spokeswoman as saying, "There was a minor altercation earlier in the evening in the wine bar when comments were made about his ginger hair."
I can imagine this "argument" quite realistically, since I've been in involved in similar ones (I've got brown hair, but I was constantly accused of being a "closet ginger" by a friend from Newcastle - a scouser - called Alistair, which has its own irony.) Anyway, it goes like this:
"Oi - look at that fellow. Look at the ginger hair on him! Silly hair! Silly ginger. Silly ginger git. Oi! Ginger!"
"Look - leave it out mate."
"Oooooohhhh - silly ginger git's a mouthy one, eh? Mouthy git. Silly mouthy ginger git."
And so on. Anyway, as I write this, the only surprise is that it's the ginger-haired fellow who got stabbed, rather than the antagonist. Silly ginger git wasn't fast enough, I guess.
(UPDATE: Alistair's response to the story above? Noting that the BBC report said the victim was "comfortable" in the hospital, he writes, "The victim was comfortable, but ashamed of his still-copper-topped crop." Which largely proves my point about the British attitude towards the gingers.)
