A few days ago I pulled the following citation out of the OED; can someone from the British contingent explain who or what "Scared Hair" refers to in this context?

"Many times in history we get this type of phonus bolonus from Scared Hair, so we give him the razz and go back to minding our own business."
- Sunday Telegraph, 18 Feb. 1990

It doesn't mean anything to me. As it is a report that goes back 17 years it is probably a reference to someone who was important back then and who is now forgotten.

More context might help - if it's political it might refer to Michael Heseltine.

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More context might help

yeah, if I had more context...

Nice to see you again, Tsuwm.

While this is most likely not related because the phrase wasn't capitalized, I did find this definition of "sacred hair" in a blog discussion of Allusion in Neoclassical Poetry: "'Sacred hair' recalls the forbidden fruit which causes the fall of humanity 'forever, and forever!'"

It sounds to me like an allusion to the old Our Gang comedies which occasionaly would depict one of the kids with hair standing straight up while being frightened - especially Buckwheat or Stymie, the two black kids. (They never tossed any dwarfs, though)

Interesting, tsuwm.

The Telegraph's on-line archives don't go that far back. (But knowing you, you'd already checked there!) My thought was that since Scared Hair is capitalized, it might be a name, as of a rock group. But any well-known name would certainly appear in the news, and there was nothing of the sort in Google's News-archives. Nor in an Amazon search, for that matter

Wonder if it could be a misquote or a typo?

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a misquote or a typo?

e.g., Sacred Hair?

Scared Hair looks like a nickname for someone, possibly the writer's own. The reference to phonus bolonus might indicate a politician, since that is what they tend to produce. The hair reference could well be to Michael Heseltine.

So sorry...I had misread it as sacred hair. I sure found some interesting articles looking for it, though!

Now "scared hare" will get you about 500 Google hits which is surprisingly about half as many as you get for "scared hair".

Searching Google for "scared hair" (with quotes) and specifying UK-only pages, I get only ten hits, none of which is useful.

Richard and arnie seem to have come up with the most likely suggestion in the politico with the unruly coif; but it does seem odd that there is no confirmation to be had online.

does the Telegraph have an ombudsman, or the like, to whom I could email an inquiry?

Michael Heseltine looks extremely scary to me, so I'm not surprised his hair is afraid of him too!

Wordmatic