[FuzzyUK (OP)]

Why does hair grow from the center of the crown in a spiral like manner? Does it always spin out in catharine wheel fashion in a clockwise direction and if so, why not anticlockwise?

[evan_au]

If you were going to look for exceptions, I would start here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situs_inversus

...because the mirror-image of clockwise is counterclockwise.

Correction: It appears that genes controlling hair orientation are different from the genes controlling orientation of internal organs (see URL from RD, below)

[RD]

8.4% of right handed people and 45% of left handed people have counterclockwise hair-whorls. His research indicates that a single gene may control both handedness and hair-whorl direction

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_whorl