B en’s barber was the first person to notice he was losing his hair. After that it wasn’t long until everyone else noticed too. He was a postgraduate student in his 20s, tall and attractive in an equine way. But soon his receding hairline became an obsession. It was the last thing he thought about when he went to bed, and the first thing he thought about in the morning, when he would wake to find dark hairs scattered on his pillow.