A man’s hair is a touchy subject. Take Donald Trump, who has gone to great lengths to prove his straw-coloured bouffant is all his own, even letting a talk-show host humiliatingly ruffle it during a previous election campaign. Baldness is of course natural but, as 1843, The Economist’s sister publication, wrote in April, it can have a destructive effect on the male psyche. Thousands of men have turned to finasteride, a hair-regrowth treatment, and in doing so claim to have suffered devastating psychological and physical side-effects.

Baldness is one of the least grisly outcomes for which my sex is a predictor: think suicide and certain types of cancer. But far too much is made of the difficulties of being born a man. It is still undoubtedly (and lamentably) to win life’s lottery. That said, around this time of year I am forced to confront my own follicular inadequacy. While hundreds of thousands of usually clean-shaven men around the world sprout caterpillars under their noses for “Movember”, a juggernaut of a charitable campaign, I struggle to grow more than patchy fuzz. As I said, a touchy subject.