My weeks as Evelyn Glennie

It started the day after the opening ceremony. Wild-eyed children staring at me. Parents telling their kids not to stare at me. Visitors asking if they could take a photo of me. Kids hugging me. And people in the street asking if it was ME. 

My hair has always announced me – advertised me. Wherever I go strangers stop me to tell me they love it. Men and women of all ages and younger girls who want to know who dyes it or where I get my extensions done. Neither is applicable, and I let them feel to prove that I do not speak with Clariol / salon forked-toungue.

My hair brands me. It's what some of our distant cousins call my EVP or personal brand. It's why others (the Jeremy Kyle fraternity) call me a witch. I thought I was a one-off and so it seems did everyone else until that day. Even I had to look twice. "What the feck are you doing there?" "I didn't know you could play the drums." And so on. The texts came thick and fast. They still are.

It was Evelyn, and the resemblance hair-wise was uncanny. Same cut, length and natural colour. We could have been twins except for the fact that I bang-on about everything and she bangs on drums etc, she being a master percussionist.

In certain places, companies – countries even – there is an overwhelming pressure to fit in, assimilate, be the same. Big mistake. Product / personality / presentation - each being crotched together. 

I'll never be ignored. My hair, mouth and output ensures that I have something to sell. I love Shaun the Sheep but I don't want to be him. 

Acknowledge the similarities and celebrate the differences. Just like Evelyn.