I'M dyeing to help charity this week by offering to change my hair colour for a good cause.

I will get rid of my famous grey locks if I can secure at least £500 in sponsorship pledges.

No, this isn't a midlife crisis. I've been perfectly happy with my Richard Gere look ever since the first grey hairs appeared at the age of 16. Schoolfriends used to taunt me but as most of them have now gone bald, it's me who's had the last laugh and I've never seriously considered a makeover.

However, a chance conversation with a lawyer at a function at the Compleat Angler, Marlow, last week led to us daring each other over the hair-raising stunt.

Clive Hitchen, a partner at Allan Janes in High Wycombe, was joking with me about our respective hair when somehow dye and sponsorship entered the conversation.

No sooner than I had uttered the words "yellow hair" than our advertisement manager Laura Edwards was promising to get me fixed up with a top hairdresser.

I had no choice but to agree and set myself up for ridicule.

Now lawyer Clive, seven years older than me at 49, has vowed he too will dye his hair if the sponsorship pledges reach £1,000.

We're still finalising which charity to back but I can assure you it will be a worthy appeal. So, go on, make my day, or rather make my dye, by backing us with sponsorship.

l Pledges to scohen@london.newsquest.co.uk or ring 01494 755079 Meanwhile, pigs have flown across the High Wycombe skyline.

Or rather, something more unbelievable has happened reporter Nic Brunetti has won his appeal against a parking fine.

Nic, as reported in this column, bought the wrong pay-and-display ticket in Saffron Road, High Wycombe, in July.

He purchased a Wycombe District Council one from a nearby car park machine, when he should have used a street meter run by Buckinghamshire County Council.

Nic appealed to the county council on the basis that he clearly wasn't trying to defraud anyone. But we didn't hold out much hope.

However, the journalist who covers Marlow has now received a letter back from the county.

It states the penalty ticket was legally and correctly issued within council guidelines, but adds: "You will be pleased to know that the council will, on this occasion only, cancel the requirement to pay the penalty charge."

Let's give credit where credit's due and say: bravo county council.

What me praising the authorities?

Another pig has just gone into orbit.