The former king of spin has delivered a wrong 'un. Not content with his own physical makeover, Shane Warne is bullying baldies to get a mop on top. It has our carefree, hair-free columnist stumped.

When I agreed to write this column I also agreed not to offend anyone (other than my mother-in-law.)

But if someone offends me, surely I should have right of reply.

Shane Warne was without doubt one of the best cricketers of all time.

Love him or hate him, when he was at the wicket the game was never dull.

I used to suspend my dislike of his personality and concentrate on his prodigious talent. I miss him playing the game. Cricket is a lesser sport without him.

I saw Warnie, at least I think it was Warnie, on telly the other day doing an advertisement for Advanced Hair Studio. Despite the fact he looked like Madame Tussauds’ take on Dr Spock with jaundice, the former genius spin bowler was telling others how they should look.

I have lost my hair. Warne has lost his sense of irony.

More impudently, during his plug for the rug he was wearing a T-shirt with the words "NO HAIR NO LIFE" emblazoned across his belly, or what used to be his belly.

Make no mistake – I’m happy for Warne to lose weight. Whatever bowls him over. I couldn’t care less if he’s had surgery. Now that he’s left the wicket it seems he doesn’t want a single crease. And he’s free to transform himself into whichever Thunderbird he chooses.

However, speaking as a man with a head so shiny I can get Austar for free, I object to Warne’s endorsement of the less than subtle suggestion that NO HAIR = NO LIFE. Subliminal advertising this ain’t. More like sledgehammer advertising.

Okay, I hear you. Despite being the former king of subtle variation, be it his arm ball, flipper or googly, away from the wicket Warne was never one to mince his words.

But to bully people into signing up for a hair transplant? Now that is a wrong ’un.

Oh, and I’m not just an ambassador for I MIGHT BE BALD BUT I’M STILL AS NATURE INTENDED. I’m a client.

I’m sure I’m coming across as precious, as someone who worries about their appearance, as someone with whom Warnie the larrikin leg spinner would never have had anything in common.

Err, hang on a manicured
moment.

I might be splitting hairs but, speaking as a bald man with a life, I find Warnie’s T-shirt to be false advertising and wish to beg every baldy out there not to fret or be fooled.

There is life after baldness. It doesn’t involve shampoo but that doesn’t make it unconditional.

I’m the proudest baldy you could find. And I’m extremely easy to find because my head is shinier than a disco ball. But it wasn’t always thus.

Going bald was worse than being bald. When I realised I was losing my hair (I can’t remember the precise date off the top of my head) I must confess I did keep a casual eye on my options. This was around the time another former Australian spinner, Greg Matthews, was hawking fake hair. (What is it with Advanced Hair Studio and spin bowlers? Is it that spinners shun shine?)

Not that I was truly considering an implant, or transplant, or any kind of plant, but I ruled out surgical intervention for good when I heard that Matthews had to go back to the factory every so often to have the mould cleaned out from under the carpet.

Alternative remedies were even less enticing.

My former music teacher had a comb-over which used to flap about when he conducted the school orchestra and confuse the string section no end. I was the pimply percussionist. Hardly a sex-cymbal.

A former colleague used black boot polish to fill in the blanks. His Hush Puppies were scuffed and dying of thirst but his head was as black as the bottom of a saucepan when it’s my turn to cook, and just as unsavoury.

Another follicularly challenged friend discovered a freak cow in Venezuela which, for $10 a time, licked the afflicted scalp.

Apparently its bovine saliva contained some baldness-curing enzyme. It sounded like hogwash to me but the owner of the cow was milking it for all it was worth.

Animals invariably feature in bizarre cures for baldness. Chinese herbalists suggest a snake ground into a paste and mixed with fo-ti root should do the trick, but my personal favourite is the ancient Egyptian elixir of honey, beer and goat dung. Apparently they believed baldness was heaven-sent and that if the gods mistook you for a goat they would choose another "victim".

I’d feel a bit of a goat in more ways than one.

If none of the above remedies appeal, you could do what a British friend of mine suggested and tattoo rabbits on your scalp so that from a distance they look like hares.

Or you could do what I eventually did: embrace your baldness, purchase a set of clippers and lop off what’s left of your locks.

And take heart from the impromptu survey I conducted in the newsroom during the week.

Ten out of 10 women said that bald men can be attractive and it’s the face that captures attention rather than whether it’s got hair above it or not.

None were bowled over by Warnie’s current incarnation and fired off insults which dignity dictates I don’t print here.

And besides, I’m getting a T-shirt made up.

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