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My beard isn't evil
Beards don't kill people unless provoked.
Monday, January 14, 2008
In one of those New Year reinventions that always seem
a better idea while you are still half-cut, I have been
attempting to grow a beard these last few weeks. The
result is patchy, itchy and shows an alarming tendency to
develop ginger streaks.
Nevertheless, let the word go forth from this time and place, I have
decided to keep my new homeless chic appearance. Until my friends
and loved ones stage an intervention brandishing clippers and hot
towels, I am holding on to the whiskers. I don’t know that I’ll try and
follow Bill Bailey’s dream of growing it until I can plait it into my pubes
and play it like a harp, but the chin growth stays.
This is difficult for me to admit: after all, I’ve been mocking my fellow
Lizard editor Smytho about his beardface every opportunity since I’ve
known him.
Yet the facefuzz is getting me a stimulating combination of compliments
and strange looks from those who know me. So to help justify this
vanity, I have now decided that the whiskery theme developing within
The Lizard’s cubbyhole of power is probably a public service.
Here is my defence. Beards need good men to stand up for their prickly
honour. Western civilisation is in fact knotted out of beard hair, even if
this has been brushed under the carpet recently. Philosophers in
ancient Athens hid their shame with beards when they leapt from their
baths and ran through the streets, shrieking, “Eureka!” and, “a towel!”
Socrates was addressed as magister barbatus.
That was just the warm-up act. The Romans began with beards after
the Athenian model, but started shaving after the example of Scipio
Africanus—and the Fall of the Empire became inevitable.
Beards weren’t just the colossal blocks that built ancient civilisations –
they were the fuel that powered the Industrial Revolution. Look at the
images of the period and you will plainly see that it was beards that
made Victorian Britain great (Queen Victoria’s was carefully concealed
by makeup).
Look at Charles Darwin, who was more beard than man. It is a little-
known fact that on his return from the Galapagos, he discovered a
species of miniature finch that had adapted to live entirely within his
mighty beard.
Shakespeare was bearded – and some American scholars persuasively
argue that his beard contributed several important scenes to Troilus
and Cressida.
Ant and Dec are not bearded.
So we have seen from our comprehensive survey of world history
through a bearded lens… that unshorn facial hair has been the key to
all western success without any exceptions at all.
Until today.
Today, beards are being waved like evil, hairy flags by enemies of
civilisation: monsters like Osama bin Laden, who can’t even be bothered
to get a decent dye-job on his. Instead of a well-coiffed chin leading
the charge against clean-shaven barbarians; it is the evil terrorists who
have been cutting back on their Gillette habit.
But beards don’t kill people unless provoked.
We need to show the world once more the benefits that tamed beards
can offer, and counter the shaming influence of these untrimmed
hotheads busily spoiling it for the rest of us.
In the west, we need to stand up and reclaim our sense of who we are:
people who can look bravely in the mirror and say, “I don’t have time to
shave today”.
Beards don't kill people unless provoked.
Monday, January 14, 2008
In one of those New Year reinventions that always seem
a better idea while you are still half-cut, I have been
attempting to grow a beard these last few weeks. The
result is patchy, itchy and shows an alarming tendency to
develop ginger streaks.
Nevertheless, let the word go forth from this time and place, I have
decided to keep my new homeless chic appearance. Until my friends
and loved ones stage an intervention brandishing clippers and hot
towels, I am holding on to the whiskers. I don’t know that I’ll try and
follow Bill Bailey’s dream of growing it until I can plait it into my pubes
and play it like a harp, but the chin growth stays.
This is difficult for me to admit: after all, I’ve been mocking my fellow
Lizard editor Smytho about his beardface every opportunity since I’ve
known him.
Yet the facefuzz is getting me a stimulating combination of compliments
and strange looks from those who know me. So to help justify this
vanity, I have now decided that the whiskery theme developing within
The Lizard’s cubbyhole of power is probably a public service.
Here is my defence. Beards need good men to stand up for their prickly
honour. Western civilisation is in fact knotted out of beard hair, even if
this has been brushed under the carpet recently. Philosophers in
ancient Athens hid their shame with beards when they leapt from their
baths and ran through the streets, shrieking, “Eureka!” and, “a towel!”
Socrates was addressed as magister barbatus.
That was just the warm-up act. The Romans began with beards after
the Athenian model, but started shaving after the example of Scipio
Africanus—and the Fall of the Empire became inevitable.
Beards weren’t just the colossal blocks that built ancient civilisations –
they were the fuel that powered the Industrial Revolution. Look at the
images of the period and you will plainly see that it was beards that
made Victorian Britain great (Queen Victoria’s was carefully concealed
by makeup).
Look at Charles Darwin, who was more beard than man. It is a little-
known fact that on his return from the Galapagos, he discovered a
species of miniature finch that had adapted to live entirely within his
mighty beard.
Shakespeare was bearded – and some American scholars persuasively
argue that his beard contributed several important scenes to Troilus
and Cressida.
Ant and Dec are not bearded.
So we have seen from our comprehensive survey of world history
through a bearded lens… that unshorn facial hair has been the key to
all western success without any exceptions at all.
Until today.
Today, beards are being waved like evil, hairy flags by enemies of
civilisation: monsters like Osama bin Laden, who can’t even be bothered
to get a decent dye-job on his. Instead of a well-coiffed chin leading
the charge against clean-shaven barbarians; it is the evil terrorists who
have been cutting back on their Gillette habit.
But beards don’t kill people unless provoked.
We need to show the world once more the benefits that tamed beards
can offer, and counter the shaming influence of these untrimmed
hotheads busily spoiling it for the rest of us.
In the west, we need to stand up and reclaim our sense of who we are:
people who can look bravely in the mirror and say, “I don’t have time to
shave today”.
| CONTACT THE LIZARD |
| Marc Sidwell is not joking |
© lizardmagazine.com, 2008
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