Derek J enters the pantheon of greats

Just saw Chris Rock's new film, Good Hair, at the Brixton Ritzy. It's all about black women's hair and how they spend loads of time and money getting themselves looking good.

He visits a hair big hair jamboree, the conclusion to which is a Hair Battle, with five stylists putting together shows featuring their finest haircuts. The sort of thing Louis Theroux spends his time attending.

The king stylist was my new favourite short man: a cross-dressing hairdresser called Derek J (pictured above) who is like the Little Richard of hair. His shameless posing in his high-heeled knee-length boots and jewel-encrusted cane was one of the most brilliant things captured on film in a long while.

Rock showed up at the Ritzy to do a Q&A but unfortunately the questions focussed on the contentious Weave V Locks debate, rather than the star of the show, Derek J.

Argentina for the World Cup: The short man's choice

For the short man, there are only really three choices on who to back at the upcoming World Cup.
In height terms, it's really a toss-up between Argentina, North Korea and Spain.

Consulting my Panini World Cup 2010 sticker album which happily gives all the players' heights, Spain have a bunch of good short players, including David Silva, Iniesta and Xavi.

North Korea have the shortest squad overall. It is a moot point whether the North Koreans are short per se or if it is their Communist diet that is restricting their growth. Still, I for one will be looking out for Mun In-Guk, their striker who measure 5ft 6ins.

But the short man with a rational bone in his body must back the Argie.

There are many, many reasons for this. They have three great small (under 5ft 9ins) players: Mascherano, Tevez and Messi.

I love Mascherano, despite him playing for Liverpoo. He is entirely cynical in the tackle, gets booked virtually every game and enjoys suggesting a player dived when he has just placed six studs in their knee. He is the archetypal Dirty Argie and I suspect he has a visceral hatred of lanky footballers. If I was a professional footballer I would be Mascherano.

Tevez is your typical try-too-hard short man. He never knows when to stop, which is why he scores so many goals in the last ten minutes of games.

And then there is Messi: the best player in the world at the moment who has scored four hat-tricks in this calendar year, including four goals against Arsenal.

But the main reason to back them is their manager: Diego Armando Maradona. A man who gives your Carling drinking divvy doughnut England fan nightmares due to the Hand of God goal in 1986. That he mentally and physically destroyed Terry Butcher and Peter Shilton was bad enough. But the fact he effectively said God was Argentinian is something your England fan can't handle.

Apparently his tactics are to have a back four who never cross the half-way line, Mascherano snapping into the tackle and then passing it to Messi to do something genius.

Here's to 1986 all over again.

Julian Lloyd Webber assuages his lack of talent with short man sniping

I noticed in the Standard that Julian Lloyd Webber maintains his own sense of self-worth by insulting his more talented and successful brother on matters of height.

Julian, who is quite good at cello, is in the shadow of his older - and smaller - brother Andrew, who is the most successful songwriter this country has ever produced.

Here's what the cretinous Julian has to say:

"I'm poorer and not so famous as Andrew, this is true. But I'm about a foot taller than the man. It means I could easily take him out in a fight if I needed to, and we all know that, as men, this is all that counts...it's good to know I have the upper hand."

Poor old Julian. He might have had the pleasure of doing the 'sticking your hand on the little boy's forehead to stopping them making a swing for you' when he was younger, but he fundamentally minunderstands, and underestimates, the short man if he thinks height gives him the necessary advantage in a fight.

It might help in the boxing ring, but in reality, not really.

Here's why:

1. The short man is far more volatile and aggressive than his mediocre-sized male equivalent. We just are. We're angry. Think Joe Pesci in Goodfellas. We've all got a bit of that smash-you-over-the-head-with-a-telephone devil in us. And we never know when to stop.

2. If we think we might lose a fight, we would simply deploy some double-hard psycho to sort it out for us. I spent my school years carefully aligning myself with boys who liked to fight given the slightest excuse, and therefore rarely worried about the consequences of insulting someone.

There's a magnificent moment in the Ian Dury biopic Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll which exemplifies this point. Dury, who was half-paralysed by childhood polio, insults a bouncer. The bouncer attempts to attack him, only for the rest of Dury's band to pile in and give him a pasting.

So, while it is unlikely that the assorted cast of Cats and Phantom have quite got the fighting spirit of Ian Dury's men, I'm sure they'd be more than enough to swat Julian.

Short man Kebede storms to London marathon win

Pleased to report that one of my bethren, Kebede Tsegay (5ft 2ins) of Ethiopia, has just stormed to win. And the ever-lovely BBC commentators were quick to mock the man. Knuckle-headed six footer, Steve Cram, using his razor-sharp wit and expert analysis, noted that Kebede was wearing a very large watch and was surprised that such a small man could wear something of that size. His fellow commentator suggested it might be the difference between a personal best and not.

This is within seconds of Kebede wrapping the win up, and before second place had finished. This is surely a most outrageous case of what you might call large man syndrome from Cram who can't bear to see the short man win and has nothing decent to say apart from cretinous comments.

This result also leaves me to wonder whether the short man is at a natural advantage in distance running events. Kebede is very short, as is Haile Gebrsellasie, the current marathon world record holder. Perhaps there is something in the height weight distribution which does put those of us lucky enough to be under 5ft 7ins at a natural advantage.

Still doesn't mean I'm going to be taking up running any time soon - weak knees is my excuse, and the knowledge I could be an amazing distance runner if I want to demonstrate the fact.

Perfect weekend for Jermain Defoe

A perfect weekend for one of the sporting darlings of this blog. Yes, Jermain Defoe (5ft 6.5ins) got two major write-ups in this week's News of the World. He bagged the front page of the sport section with his goal for Spurs against Chelsea to raise the prospect of a top-four finish for his team.

And the predatory Defoe also made it into the news pages for a 'brazen sex act' in a car just 100 yards - that's just 100 YARDS (gasp!) - from children playing in a leafy Hertfordshire village.

http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/showbiz/786122/England-ace-Jermain-Defoe-caught-playing-foul-with-red-head-in-car.html

I think we've confirmed beyond all doubt that the genius short man has a predisposition excessive sexual encounters. But what with Defoe's red-hot form this season, allied to his almost constant presence in the celeb columns, I believe that for Defoe, the two things go hand-in-hand. Without the prowling for sexual partners, you would not have the goalscoring prowess.

What concerns me is that during the World Cup Fabio Capello might be too strict on our star man, and not allow him the attention from women he deserves, possibly hampering our striker's chances of doing his best for his country. I'm sure Fabio would allow Jermain special dispensation to roam the streets of South Africa late at night looking for women if he realised how important it was to this short man to have his manliness reaffirmed by random women before big games. I imagine Fabio, in his wisdom, has this all in hand, but it would be nice to know that he has Jermain's wellbeing is being fully considered as we approach the World Cup.

Mos Def at the Shepherds Bush Empire

Yes, it was rap night at the Shepherds Bush Empire last night with Mos Def playing (pretty good, but not great).

Anyone under six foot will know the peril that is the Empire. The combination of flat auditorium and high stage - and the recent trend of basketball players going to gigs - means that if you're not above average height you haven't got a sniff of seeing the action on stage.

I went to see Devendra Banhart there last year and spent half the gig moving through thickets of tall men before resigning myself to staring at the back of some monster in front of me for the gig's duration.

For Mos Def we got in there early, firstly in the hope of a decent support act (bunch of chaps trying and failing to be the Stereo MCs) and also to secure one of the very few vantage points to the edge of the bar. Getting there at 7.45 one of these spots was already taken with - wait for it - a couple, both of whom were over six feet. To add insult to injury, another giant in a baseball cap actually pushed past to get a vantage.

It is moments like these when the small man thinks to himself - bugger trying and failing to watch people perform, I'm going to get up there and myself. (ref: Ian Brown, Richard Ashcroft, Aston JLS, etc., etc.)

Short man Stalin makes the papers!

I was startled to see Joseph Stalin (5ft 4ins) making an appearance in today's News of the World.

Entitled Curse of Stalin, the story attempts to pin the deaths of the Polish political elite on the famously short dictator. Everyone knows Stalin racked up an horrendously large death toll in his time, including many Poles, but to say he is still up to his usual tricks is going some.

The politicians were killed in a plane crash on their way to a memorial for officers killed in an atrocity ordered by Stalin. And so, in some quasi-Dan Brown fantasy cooked up by hack Philip Whiteside, the piece tacitly suggests that the only possible culprit for this tragic event is Stalin himself.

In the fetid imagination of the Screws hack that he must see a godlike Stalin reaching beyond his grave, grabbing the plane out of the sky and saying to the Poles: "There! That's what you get for rejecting Communism! Your democratic ideals make me sick!"

And promptly slamming the plane down to earth.

Hmmm. Or perhaps the plane was just caught in some fog. It's hard to tell which is more likely.