What a great way to start the day - opening the morning paper to discover you're boring.

Or thought of as such, at any rate. Strange, I always believed redheads were seen as fiery, temperamental, passionate, volatile...adjectives with a kick.

But, no. Apparently the public's perception of flame-haired females is decidedly run-of-the-mill. In the eyes of others, red locks mean steady, average, mediocre. We are seen as people with no outstanding personality traits. In other words, deadly dull.

I suppose we should be grateful for small mercies. A survey by top psychologists confirmed the stereotypical image of blondes as bimbos - particularly when it's out of a bottle.

I dread to think how I came across in the late 1970s when I paid vast sums to have my hair streaked blonde. Not only was I seen as completely dreary and predictable, but dumb as well. And to think I did it to solely to attract members of the opposite sex.

Now I'm simply dull. As the survey - in which people with different coloured hair were rated for intelligence, shyness, aggressiveness, temperament and popularity - concluded: "Redheads are said not to excel in any category."

It's a terrible indictment, but now I know how others see me, my life is beginning to make sense. Now I know why I've never been invited on to the panel of "Any Questions," why I've never been either coy or confident, why I quake at the thought of taking goods back to shops (although Anne Robinson seems to do okay in that department), why my husband says he can't understand me and why it takes me less than ten minutes to draw up my Christmas card list.

It's all down to my hair colour. I should have guessed. All those nights when I was young, free and single, standing around in ultra-trendy London clubs, wearing dark eye-liner and a slinky black dress. I imagined myself a sultry, red-haired temptress, the object of many a man's desire.

I always thought blokes were too nervous to talk to me, when in reality they were thinking: "Oh dear, who let her in - with all that red hair, better steer clear, she's bound to be dull."

And I've lost count of the number of job interviews where I've been asked: "Now what, exactly, ARE your strengths?" Until now I've failed to detect the sarcastic overtones which, looking back, will almost certainly have been there..

My hair, and not my personality, has been my downfall. Oh, I can't bear to think what might have been had my crowning glory been a different colour. I might have married a rich man with a fast car, I might have secured a top job where you earn heaps of cash and don't have to do much.

It's fate that drew me to that newspaper article. It was trying to tell me it's time for a change.

But to what? Natural blondes are seen as popular - but bimbos all the same (would I really want to attract men like Rod Stewart?), and brunettes are thought of as shy - though Joan Collins and Ruby Wax break that mould ever so slightly. Black hair doesn't get a mention - must be something sinister behind that.

So what's it to be? Do you know, I quite fancy getting my head shaved.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.