We baldies can still take a joke – even one as lame as Lineker’s

Ever since Gary Lineker stopped being a brilliant England striker and became a megasmug TV presenter, I haven’t liked him. I don’t care for his sanctimonious opinions, the artful facial hair and the huge overpayment by the BBC which has made him their highest-paid presenter, on £1.75 million a year.

But, even as a bald man, I didn’t bat an eyelid when the over-indulged crisp salesman said on Match of the Day: “It’s a strong start to the Premier League season. Real hair-raising stuff at times… unless you’re Alan Shearer and Danny Murphy.” The former footballers Shearer and Murphy are, needless to say, bald.

As a result, the BBC received complaints from members of the public. The corporation’s official policy means that it has no choice but to respond to them. Has modern Britain, with its massive oversensitivity, really sunk this low?

It isn’t a good joke – although it is just the sort of low-grade dressing-room banter Lineker exchanges for his ludicrous salary. But it’s certainly not offensive. It’s the sort of gag you might expect from the Bash Street Kids in The Beano in 1978, back in the glorious preoffence days when people didn’t gather themselves into little protest groups to pounce on any passing comedian making a slightly off-colour joke.

It’s great that we don’t make nasty jokes about gay people or ethnic minorities any more, but baldness as a protected characteristic? You’re having a laugh – or not, if you’re one of the new British humourless brigade.

When you lose your hair, you don’t lose your sense of humour or your ability to be teased. People often make quips about my baldness – and I do, too. Whenever hairdressers come up in conversation, someone is bound to say: “Not that you need to worry about that sort of thing!” And they’re right. I

haven’t been to a hairdresser since 2005, when I first realised I was going bald, at the age of 33. I promptly started shaving my head with an electric razor – it never takes more than five minutes.

Other sympathetic souls are keen on telling me baldness is a sign of increased testosterone, as if I hadn’t heard it a thousand times before. I’d prefer ultra-low testosterone and Brad Pitt’s hair, thank you very much.

It isn’t that I didn’t mind losing my hair. I hated it: the sudden glimpse of my monk’s tonsure in a changing-room mirror; the gleaming dome bouncing back the flashlight in indoor photos. I still examine men’s hairlines in the streets. “You lucky so-and-so,” I think, as I spot a homeless man with thickly matted hair.

But, ultimately, I know it doesn’t matter in the wider scheme of things. I know that other people couldn’t care less about my baldness and I hardly ever think about it now. The good thing about being bald is that it’s all going on above your eyeline; I have never directly seen my baldness and never will. Fortunately, I’ve never liked looking in the mirror and I loathe selfies.

I do know it’s a significant characteristic. When I agree to meet a stranger, I’ll always tell them: “I’m the bald one in the blue jacket.” But I know that it’s also a harmless feature, one that has held me back in no way whatsoever. I’ve never suffered from baldism the way gay people have suffered from homophobia or minorities have suffered from racism, which makes me fair game for jokes – even if they’re Gary Lineker’s bargainbasement gags.