The Hirsute Pursuit

I've never been good at growing facial hair. When I was at university, I tried growing a beard for a play I was in. The play was a resounding success - my beard was not. Thin, straggly, patchy, and itchy.

At the aftershow party, I put the beard's fate to a vote. All the men in the cast voted to keep my rugged pursuit of manliness. All the women voted to destroy the womp-rat nestling on my face - preferably with fire. So the beard went.

I drunkenly staggered to the bathroom, drunkenly attacked my face with a razor, and drunkenly emerged as fresh faced as ever.

There was only one minor problem - I had no aftershave.

Logic dictated that we used the highest proof alcohol in the house. It turns out the best we had was peach schnapps. So I drunkenly splashed that all over my face.

Did I mention I was drunk at the time?

Well, it turns out that covering your bleeding face with cheap and nasty alcohol leads to two very different outcomes.

Firstly, your face stings like hell and you end up covered in sticky goop.

Secondly, women really like the smell and taste of peach schnapps...

Fast Forward

As I have two weeks off from work, I decided that now was the perfect time to grow out a beard. With no one other than my wife to laugh at me, I set down the razor and concentrated all my manly strength into my follicles.

This Is The Beard I Want

(Ok, ok! I just want to be Marcus from Babylon 5!)

Preparation

I gave myself a week's head start. For my last week at work I didn't shave. Well, they couldn't exactly fire me, could they! After a solid week, I look like I merely forgot to shave in the morning.

I'll freely admit that the Kashmiri Falooda from the Sagar Vegetarian Restaurant may be distracting you with its neon colour - but my beard is pathetic!

See!

This Is The Beard I Got

Behold the magnificence! Three weeks of intensive beard growing ended up like this:

Which, to put it in context, means my face looks something like this:

I have discovered several interesting things about my facial hair.

• My maternal grandfather had a red moustache. His genetic legacy to me is the occasional ginger hair cropping up randomly.
• The white streaks in my hair are no longer confined to my temples. My wife tells me I look distinguished - I think I look like a badger.
• My face itches. Constantly.
• I am approximately 42% less fun to snog.
• There's a weird gap on one side of my mouth where nothing grows.

To Lose One Beard May Be Considered Unfortunate

I sharpened me razor on the whetstone, and a scant five minutes later I was back to my handsome self.

Maybe I'll try again in another 10 years?

BONUS BEARD

This is what Evil Terence From the Darkest Timeline would look like. Yikes!