Due to a combination of indolence, curiosity and extravagance, I embarked on a controversial episode of beard-growth after Christmas. Five days on and the results are somewhat rudimentary and frankly ridiculous. But I shall not blame my chin for this scraggy patch of stillborn watercress, this fetid barbastelle beneath my nose, a disinterested melee of ginger, brown and silvery-grey, as I think it is the consequence of general lack of enthusiasm.
The verb 'to beard' supposedly means to brave or confront. But hirsute chins, along with moustaches, have been denuded of their grandeur and stripped of heroic aspect by the fools of our age. To some the iconic beard would belong to God, or to give him his proper name Leonardo Da Vinci, but he has been sadly absent for quite some time now and the likes of Osama Bin Laden, David Bellamy, Karl Marx have seen fit to further desecrate this once-great monolith to human civilisation.
Likewise, the once ubiquitous moustache, that second brain of Nietzsche, adopted from our Indian cousins and wielded proudly as the emblem of the British Empire, has been ripped bloodily from our lips and ground into the dust by a succession of idiotic, old-style-celebrity pedagogues: Stalin, Hitler, Freddie Mercury and of course Tom Selleck. Who shall reclaim our facial hair for a new era? Who shall lead us out of this Dark Age? Sadly, I must confess that Mister Tramp lacks both the inclination and the beard.
2007-12-30 @ 20:35