Well I tried. All last week it was there on my face, this kind of ginger shadow. I had been cultivating that beard since last Friday, massaging it, loving it, putting up with the incessant itching.Why? Because everyone's doing it, that's why. Everywhere I look I see blokes sporting sizeable thatches in the jaw area. Growing a beard has regained a popularity not seen since the Seventies. After decades of living in the shadows, its memory barely kept alive by farmers and Richard Branson, the beard has returned.
Beards can now be seen on everyone from sharp suited businessmen to lumberjack shirted hip types on their fixed gear bikes. These days, if you are a resident of Shoreditch, and you are a man, beard wearing is virtually law. Facial hair, and that means real growth, not some clipped little Brazilian-for-your-face goatee, is once again cool.
So the razor was left alone. Ten days I went without shaving, as whiskers sprouted in little patches all over my chin. For some reason my moustache took on a life of its own while you could barely notice any growth at all on my cheeks. I developed a rash on my neck.
I'd had visions of growing this handsome beard with a decent, uniform coverage. I was expecting to have transformed into this rugged chap and developed a fondness for a pipe and a cable knit cardie.
What I actually looked like was unshaven. Rather than belonging on me, that growth looked like it was trying to escape. I took on the appearance of someone who had been sleeping under a railway arch for a week.
I decided it might look better if I tidied it up. As I possess no beard trimmer I set about it with a pair of Lizzie's hairdressing scissors. This is the facial equivalent of taking a scythe to your lawn. The beard was decimated. clumps of whisker hung off in lumps. There was a bald patch directly under my chin.
So it had to go. I have come to the conclusion that not all men are supposed to wear beards.
I expect someone like me must have invented shaving.
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