"Something for the weekend, sir?"

And does global warming herald the end of Irish scrotum tightening?

When I was younger and still in possession of a reasonable quantity of hair atop my noggin some of the barbers who attended to its every-so-often trimming really did ask that question. “Something for the weekend, sir?” If you’re not familiar with it, I should explain that it was a euphemistic enquiry relating to the purchase of condoms.

The question seems to me to have been totally appropriate and helpful. There you are sat in a barber’s chair, helpless, while the hair trimmer, while trimming, blathers on about any old nonsense. What’s more natural than the hope that putting up with all this while undergoing the necessary personal grooming effort might at least contribute to greater success in the never-ending male quest to get laid?

But, now, I learn, the barbers and hairdressers of Ireland are being pressed into service in a far more weighty cause - the pursuance of Net Zero in the Great Climate Thingy.

The ‘A Brush With Climate’ campaign (yes, seriously!) in Ireland is being led by Dr Maria Kirrane from the Irish Office of Sustainability and Climate Action (yes, seriously!). She is working with the Research Ireland MaREI (an unwieldy initialism for Marine and Renewable Energy Ireland) Centre at University College Cork (UCC) which has been specially funded for this project.

Dr Kirrane explains:

The grant will allow for engagement and activation of an influential profession that exists within every town, but has heretofore been untapped in Ireland. Hairdressers and barbers not only provide a service for people; they are a real hub for conversation and social spaces within a community. Their reach is broad and gives the possibility of reaching a cohort of people that may not be involved in local environmental groups and the usual pathways of climate conversation and action. The relationship between client and hairdresser is a deeply personal and trusting one.

Hmm, perhaps the old enquiry will be replaced by “Something for the worldend, sir?”

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Trying to be helpful, it occurs to me that the Irish have a unique, powerful lens through which to view the Great Climate Thingy - something to which no other nation can lay claim. I refer to the author James Joyce, if his shade will tolerate my description of him as a lens.

Here’s what I mean.

In the opening pages of Joyce’s novel, Ulysses, stately, plump Buck Mulligan, while shaving, talks with Stephen Dedalus. He grabs a handkerchief from Stephen’s pocket to wipe the lather from his cutthroat razor. Holding the handkerchief aloft he declaims:

The bard’s noserag. A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen.¹

The scene takes place in a Martello Tower overlooking the sea at Sandycove, Dublin (as shown in the photograph at the top of this post, courtesy Shutterstock); one of many such towers originally built as defences against Napoleonic invasion. Looking out over the sea, Buck Mulligan goes on …

The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea …²

Aha! Scrotumtightening. What a lovely adjective. I presume it refers to the fact that the water temperature in Dublin Bay, or anywhere around Ireland, or the adjacent United Kingdom for that matter, is distinctly chilly.

Jump into these waters and the shock of the cold will cause an involuntary muscular spasm that will attempt to catapult the testes upwards into the relative warmth of the owning chap’s body.

Actually, I shouldn’t say that, should I? ‘Chap’ that is. What gall! How do I know it’s a chap?

Do you have to be a chap to have a scrotum?

You do in the United Kingdom. Mind you, we’ve only known that since about a week ago. That’s when the UK Supreme Court decreed that the concept of sex is binary. After that, even the UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, admitted it and seemed jolly grateful that the court had clarified the situation for him. Face it, it’s a tricky issue and before the judgement Sir Keir seems to have thought it quite reasonable to say that a man could be a woman and vice versa.

To be fair, he wasn’t alone in this bizarre belief. Lots of others joined the illusion, too. Take, for example, The Right Honourable David Lammy MP who now occupies the lofty office of UK Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs. In June 2024, he was asked by a radio program host, LBC’s Nick Ferrari:

Is it transphobic to say only women have a cervix, David?

To which Lammy replied:

I don't know if it's transphobic, but it's not accurate, Nick. I mean, obviously, it's probably the case that only, that trans women don't have ovaries. But a cervix, I understand, is something that you can have, following various procedures and hormone treatment and all the rest of it.³

Is that what they still think in Ireland? Quite likely, I imagine, because, so far as I know, no court has yet intervened there. Consequently, it may still be the case that all parts are interchangeable on demand. Which means, inter alia, presumably, that when talking about Ireland we have to ditch the bold assertion that it’s only a chap who can have a scrotum and, rather, refer to ‘people with scrota’.

Anyway, all that aside, what happens if climate change causes the sea temperature to rise? Would this render Joyce’s coinage of scrotumtightening obsolete?

Will future generations of pubescent people with scrota (in the Irish version) or boys (in the UK version) sit with their parents among the palm trees and bougainvilleas that presumably will flourish along the Dublin Bay shoreline (particularly with the boost provided by that extra bit of carbon dioxide) and declare, “I’ve just been in the lovely warm sea and I did not experience any spasm from my newly populated scrotum. So what was Joyce on about? I think it’s a load of old balls.”

Happy Friday. Thank you for reading.

1. James Joyce. Ulysses (1922)

2. James Joyce. Ibid.

3. https://www.ayestotheright.co.uk/labour/David-Lammy---Trans-Women-can-have-a-cervix-following-various-procedures-and-hormone-treatment.php