Captain Moonlight: Hanging on for a cure

LISTEN, these things don't happen overnight. Just because Bryan Gould, MP, hangs upside-down three or four times a week doesn't mean all his hair is going to grow back just like that, even if it is called inversion therapy and lots of people swear by it. Bryan can't see it himself, because his bald patch is at the back of his head, but his wife, Gillian, as its 'chief stroker', says there are now wisps of hair all over it.

Actually, neither Bryan nor Gillian were bothered about the bald patch, but the inventor of the system, Andy Bryant, and his business partner, David Clark-Wilson, a grown-again enthusiast, offered to raise pounds 500 for Oxfam if Bryan did it. That was last summer. Actually, Bryan doesn't really like talking about it - well, would you? - but, being an honest man, he has to say it is working.

The pounds 500? Listen, these things don't happen overnight. Oxfam hasn't got it yet. It was going to be paid over when all the sponsorship was launched in Hyde Park in July. Only the park authorities wouldn't let them hang upside-down, so the event was cancelled, and, says Mr Clark-Wilson, a bit of apathy and a celebrity shortage set in. Now he's going to relaunch the campaign at the Ritz Hotel on 14 February, and that is when Oxfam will get the money. But he is still having a bit of difficulty getting other celebrities to join in, even though a lot of them are inverting in private, he says. I said that it seemed poor old Bryan had been hanging around for nothing for the last six months, but Mr Clark- Wilson wouldn't hear of it. Actually, St Valentine's Day is getting very busy. It is also National Impotence Day, I see. Did you know, by the way, that castration cures baldness?

(Photograph omitted)