YOU'VE got to feel sorry for them.

How would you like it if some of your hair was stolen and then poked and prodded in a laboratory by people who hadn't even met you, who then started pontificating about it as if they knew everything about you? The presumption of these people. It's downright rude.

Those scientists on the trail of the yeti are the abominable know-alls in this story. They simply don't know they're born.

It's all very well for them to drone on about mitochondrial DNA this, mitochondrial DNA that as they sit there in their fancy white coats - the fact is, if THEY want a haircut, all they have to do is go into town or whatever and answer a few simple questions about whether they've been away and it's job done.

For the yeti - well, you try finding a barber in the high Himalayas or a salon in Bhutan (otherwise known as a 'Bhutan salon').

Being a yeti is not a piece of cake, although if you've got one to hand…Have you finished with the box? Mmmm, that's good… This tablecloth's nice too mmmm … So it's a tough life being a yeti.

They don't even have Joanna Lumley arguing their case - and they know far more about the mountains than the Gurkhas do.

People say they're uncouth, uneducated. But plenty of yetis have had interviews at university only to be told: "Freshers week stunts like this won't work, so go home, take off that ridiculous costume and work on a proper personal statement like everyone else."

Then there are the video appearances. Want to know how much money stars like Big Foot or Sasquatch receive for their moments in all those shaky videos we enjoy on YouTube? Zilcho.

This is exploitation, pure and simple. Do you think it's easy for them to walk on their hind legs like that, upright like a man, their great curved arms silhouetted against the sky to make it more dramatic?

This takes years of training at RADA (Really Abominable Drama Academy) and even after all that study, the advertising work still goes to those wretched meerkats!

So really, a little more respect for these fine creatures is called for. They exist and would greatly appreciate the return of their follicles.

And if you've got any conditioner too, that would be marvellous - the air is SO dry up here…