Polyvinyl Pyrrolidone

This was thrown into sharp relief last night when I stood too close to a mantlepiece candle at a party last night and my hair caught fire.

The first I knew of it was a wild buzzing coming from the back of my head. My initial thought was that a cicada or locust or (I’m clearly not much of an entomologist) similar critter had landed on me. Thankfully, the chums I was talking to by the fireplace realised that I was not, in fact, dealing with an arthropod interloper, but a follicular conflagration, and exercised a measure of haste in dealing with the burning PVP.

A lesson learnt. Or something.