I’ve done it. I’ve taken the Tash. I have joined the ranks of men that use the month of November as an excuse to grow a moustache.
Movember started in Australia as a way of raising awareness of men’s health issues, particularly prostate and testicular cancer.
The act of allowing hair growth on a previously clean-shaven top lip became a 30-day reminder that there were health issues for men out there we are all too keen to ignore.
The kind of things we hope will go away.
And that fits beautifully because a moustache is one of the dangers of not shaving and hoping that the bristles will just go away.
A beard is another of those dangers but Bearvember doesn’t really work, not as well as it would work for Carlsberg anyway.
But Movember has become yet another licence for infant daughters who always get there own way to bully their helpess dads into doing something, and yes, that is why I am grudgingly growing mine.
Some faces can take a moustache. Robert Redford pulled it off (left it on in fact) with his seminal 1970s lip fringe.
The Battle of Britain pilots managed to get away with moustaches but that was more a statement of how they could get away with anything.
Their contribution to national pride in the dark days of World War Two was such that they could have climbed into their planes in chicken suits and they still would have been heroes.
But deep down I know mine isn’t a face suited to having a hairy stripe growing across it.
Even after just a few days growth I can tell how it’s going to turn out and it’s going to be more like a blackmarket egg-burglar than Battle of Britain pilot.
Every time I catch sight of myself in a mirror I think I’m about to hear the words: “Oi, pssst, over ’ere mate, wanna buy some fresh eggs? Silk stockings for the wife?”
I should probably be trying to channel some wolfish or lionine pride in the masculinity of facial hair but to be honest I think my mussy makes me look shifty.
On top of that I am beginning to realise that you don’t just let a moustache grow.
It needs sculpting.
There is no way of moustaching yourself up that doesn’t involve making a choice about how you present yourself to the world.
At the moment I am shifty, I would like to change that but I’m worried that if I mess with it I could end up looking maniacal, or worse than that, French.
I’ll be tweeting my progress on twitter.com/stevescoles and my Movember web page is here mobro.co/stevescoles.
Labour’s favoured candidate for police commissioner has dropped out because of a teenaged conviction for obstructing the police after an England World Cup match.
The Labour Party issued a statement that made it clear he was being dropped.
Lee Barron issued a statement that made it sound like he was falling on his sword for the greater good.
Around the country other candidates have had to pull out after long forgotten misdemeanours came to light.
It would be interesting to know what proportion of the population end up being excluded from the role of police commissioner because of past convictions like these.
Of course not everyone’s children get into trouble like this and that is why they grow up to take on positions of power and responsbility.
The trouble is it seems it is a lot easier to pick up these kinds of convictions when you come from certain sections of society. Any section of society that has to fight for its rights is likely to be involved in more “misunderstandings” with the law: the poor, ethnic minorities, union members . . .
Rules like this smack of petty bureaucracy and we tend to roll our eyes and wish they would just be sensible about it.
But the overall effect of these rules can be real discrimination and exclusion from the process. Are we going to be wondering one day why most police commissioners and white, wealthy, middle-aged men?
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