Uncle Dysfunctional. AA Gill

baldness. My mates call me Wills. I laugh it off and pretend I don’t care, but I do. It’s so unfair. It saps my confidence. I laugh at men with comb-overs, but I’m beginning to brush my hair forward and wear little hats. Please, please tell me something useful, and don’t mention Yul Brynner. My stepmum and all her friends always say, “Look at Yul Brynner!” I’ve no idea who he is.

       Francis, by email

      Yul Brynner, 1920–1985. Film actor who pretended to be a Mongol. Was in fact a Swiss-Russian gypsy, most famous for being bald. He is a terrible eggsample of a man whose life was defined by what he wasn’t: hairy. Baldness is a bugger, because it’s obvious and it’s obviously not that serious. It’s not going to kill you. It’s only follicle-deep. Loads of people are bald, and it’s what’s in your head that’s more important than what’s on it, etc., etc. But we all know it is important. I’ve just asked five girls under 30 if they minded bald men. Four of them said it was a deal-breaker. The fifth said she didn’t mind, but between you and me she’s a bit of a spoon-faced dog. So there you have it. Best to learn this lesson early. Everyone in the world would rather have lots of hair on themselves and their partners than none at all. And you’ll get no sympathy. Being bald isn’t like being ethnic or disabled. Everyone can and will make jokes about it and expect you to laugh good-naturedly, which you will. You will also buy all the lotions, drops, creams and patent cures that you know are humiliating rip-offs. You will spend years looking in mirrors, flicking your fingers through your spindly temples. You will try a ponytail on holiday. And finally you will have implants that look like a dollhouse’s Italian garden. You’ll marry a girl who pretends not to mind your pate because you pretend not to mind her facial warts. Toughen up. There’s still 40 years to go before the inescapable slip into Bruce Forsyth’s syrup. Oh, the other thing that Yul Brynner was famous for was having a humongous cock. His head looked like his bell-end, only smaller. I’m guessing this isn’t your compensation.

       Mr Gill,

       I’m marrying my long-term girlfriend next summer and already there’s a major family row. Sara comes from a Pakistani family. While she’s pretty much agnostic (no veil, bit of drink and blow, lots of sex, no pork), her family are quite old-fashioned and observant. They’ve always been very hospitable to me. I get on with her brothers, and her mum’s really nice because I don’t see mine much. In the house they’re traditional, which I like. I’m Irish. My parents are divorced. My mum lives in Australia. The thing is my dad is a transvestite called Petra. Sara and she get on really well. They talk about shoes and make-up, they go out for drinks and to see her Shirley Bassey karaoke. Sara’s family wants to have a dinner at their house for my family. It’s important to them. The thing is, men and women eat separately. They all know about my dad and say he’s welcome. She says she shouldn’t be welcome, she should sit in the room with the women and children, and that not being treated as a second-class woman is an infringement of her human rights, and discrimination. And anyway, she says, she’s already bought a burka. Sara says she’s got a point and if it’s that important to Dad, then her family should just accept it as being part of living in a Western godless society. On the other hand I think that Dad should stop being such a big girl’s blouse about it, man up and put on a suit for the evening, if only for my sake. Sara and I are having a running row. When I try to point out the irony of an Irish lapsed Catholic bloke defending a Muslim man, and a Pakistani lapsed Muslim sticking up for an old Paddy hod-carrier in a sparkly frock, she says this is serious, because it’s a test of my behaviour and fundamental understanding of women. What if our son wants to dress up as Britney Spears, like his granddad? Sort this out.

       Dermot, London

      First, good question. OK, here’s the answer. Tell your dad that of course she must come as Petra, but what they’d really like is if she could do her act, so why doesn’t she take a course in belly dancing and come and do the Dance of the Seven Veils for the men? They’ll love it (who wouldn’t?), Sara is placated because you’re encouraging your father’s transgender self-determination, her family will think that your lot are as mad as the Middle East with heatstroke – but then they think that anyway – and they’ll be touched at the cultural effort that Petra’s made. And of course you’ll probably be mortified with embarrassment, but then you’re used to that, aren’t you? And like you said, it’s only for one night. So that’s sorted. But Sara does have a point. What would you do if your son wanted to dress up like Alice in Alice in Wonderland? I sense that you’re not quite as culturally cool as you’d like us to think. You’re happiest when everyone agrees not to believe anything very much or very strongly. It’s nice when everything is relative and polite and disposable. I expect the thing you like most about Sara’s family is that they have a strong set of values. Make a list of everyone you wouldn’t sit down at dinner with out of principle. If it’s shorter than the list of your friends or if there’s no one on it at all, you need to do a lot of thinking, a lot of manning up, a lot of big-girl’s-blouse work before you get married.

       Sir,

       My girlfriend has a really angry vagina. The rest of her is kind and gentle and really into me. From the waist up she couldn’t be more loving. But her front bottom hates me. Sometimes I catch it scowling, giving me the evils. Have you noticed they follow you round the room with a death stare? I’ve mentioned it to the girlfriend. She just laughs and says why don’t we kiss and make up? I did but it just lay there without even making an effort. And then it whispered to me that I was a twat-hating prick and it was going to suffocate me in the night. So I said, “Did you hear that?” And the girlfriend just gave me a weird smile and said I was so funny. So now I’ve noticed things are going missing. A cuff link. Some malaria pills. A chess set. And I know it’s that lippy minge.

       Steve, by email

      You’re right. So few men really look at vaginas. They’ve all got their own personalities. The good, the bad and the ugly. You need to be very careful. Never turn your back on a psycho clunge. When good beaver goes bad it’s usually because they’ve been abused in the past, let down, laughed at. Lots of vaginas just nag. What time do you call this? You’re drunk again. What do you think I am, a hotel? Clean up after yourself! You need to show the little lady hole you can be trusted. You’re not like all the others.

       Dear Mr Gill,

       I don’t read your magazine. I’m writing to you because I found it in my son’s room. And I thought, rather desperately, that you might have some insight into the state of mind of your customers. Frankly I’m at the end of my tether. My boy Percival is a complete stranger to me. He doesn’t appear to share a single one of my or his mother’s values. It is as if our whole lives were a weathervane for him to set his face against. I feel like the anti-life. I can’t understand how we can have had him in our care for 16 years yet so completely failed to inculcate a single civilised cultural or humane value in him. Percival regards us with an unveiled contempt. Barely utters a polite sentence. He would rather sit alone in the rain than share a meal with his mother and me. I sound angry, and I suppose I am. But really, I’m sad. He was such a beautiful little boy, such a joy for both of us. I had so many hopes and dreams for him. We were going to accomplish so much together. I miss him.

       William, Gloucestershire

      William. Come closer. Closer! Put your ear to the page. Hear that? That’s the Esquire pity orchestra playing 100 sobbing violins. You bring up children and everything is for them: the house, the holidays. You put in the time and the money, you worry and you work, you stand on the touchline and you keep your fingers crossed, all for them. And then suddenly they hit puberty and it’s all about you. Oh, the lack of gratitude, the undeserved contempt, the smelly ugliness of it all. It’s as if you’d lovingly spent a decade and a half