The sort where little men from outer space come and steal all the hair pins out of the shops, for some sinister alien purpose? I waltzed into Boots, confident of buying a pack of hair pins to replace the ones I have just thrown out because they are too feeble to hold DD's hair. Nowt. Nicht. Nada. Not a single hair pin in the place. Literally 20+ different types of bobby pin, but no hair pins for buns. So I went to Superdrug. Same thing. A stupid variety of bobby pins - thick ones, thin ones, wavy ones, matt ones, glittery ones, technicolour ones, you name it. No hair pins. Found a hairdresser's supplies shop. They had one sad packet of black hairpins (black is no use to us) languishing in a dark corner, and no plans to buy more. What the very chuff is going on? Has there been some sort of announcement rendering hairpins illegal, and I missed it?