Strange Thoughts of a Strange Man

Labels: Beard, Moustache, Movember

When I was a teenager, there was a period drama on television called “The Mallens” which was adapted from a book called “The Mallen Streak”. All that I remember of this show was that members of the Mallen family all had characteristic black hair with a white streak running up from the forehead. This was the Mallen Streak.

I have a Mallen Patch. It grows in my beard on the left hand side of my face and is an almost exact square with each side about an inch and a half in length. This has troubled me for a while. What should I do with it?

For a time, I tried trimming the top edge down so that I just had the bit along the jaw. I wasn’t keen on that. For one thing it is a terrible job to keep the beard symmetrical and for another if made me look like I was a used-car salesman who’d just escaped from 1978.

So I decided to grow the sides back a couple of weeks ago. The memory of my Mallen Patch had faded and I thought that it couldn’t really be as bad as I thought.

Wrong! It was worse. Amidst the darker hair the white square loomed like a beacon.

I don’t mind going grey. I have a lot of grey and white scattered around my beard as it is. I think though, that having a white square on my cheek looks a bit silly. So for the moment I have a goatee again.

That will remain until I get bored with it, get irritated with shaving, make a mistake with the trimming or forget how bad my Mallen Patch looks.

Labels: Beard, Goatee, Shaving

According to StatCounter, someone found my website by Googling "Rob is fat".

I tried it out. Not only does "Rob is fat" find my website but the site is the top of the list.

"Rob is 40" gets the same result but "Rob is bald" has my site as number 2. "Rob is gay" doesn't have my site anywhere in the first two pages.

And "beard scotland" in an image search still brings my site out as the first one.

Labels: Age, Bald, Beard, Fame, Fat, gay, Google, Site, Web

Years ago, I had a moustache. I loved it. I loved it way it felt and I loved the way it looked on me.

I always used to fancy men with moustaches and they used to be incredibly fashionable. Look back at pictures from the early 20th century and you'd hardly see a man without one.

Even back in the early eighties they were still popular but then the straight world saw them as "gay" and the gay world saw them as "so last week" and they died out in much of the western world.

The exception seems to be New York and isolated parts of the UK but no-one knows why.

When I had one, they were already unpopular and I got stick from all of my friends, my family and even my boyfriend about it. I stuck with it though for a few months until one of my many trimming accidents had me shave it off and since then I have either been clean-shaven or had a beard or a goatee.

Yesterday, however, I had a haircut and beard-trim. It was rather more severe than I was expecting and my beard has largely disappeared. During the cut, the barber left trimming the hair under my nose until last and so for a very brief time I had a moustache once more.

It was so tempting to just stop her at that point and leave it on. In many ways I wish I had. It's been a long while since I even thought about having one and I didn't realise how much I missed it.

The question remains as to whether I miss it enough to fly against the opposition of everyone in my life.

Labels: Barber, Beard, Facial hair, Moustache

1. Lose weight. I weigh sixteen stone and wear trousers with a 40-inch waist. A year ago I used to be fifteen stone and wear trousers a size smaller and even then I thought I was overweight. David's mother's first words to me on Christmas day were "you've put on weight". This has got to stop.
   My Dad was fat and, as I have mentioned before, both he and my grandfather died of heart disease. I would like to delay that for as long as possible. My goal therefore, is to lose at least a stone by the end of the year. Preferably three. Probably this is immensely unrealistic and I'd do well just to keep my weight from increasing further but I need tell the world though this blog and therefore give myself a feeling of commitment.


2. Regrow my beard. Big deal. I lose and grow beards all the time. However I think I'm a bit too old for that. I should either have a beard for a decent period of time or be clean-shaven for a decent period of time. I should not cycle through beard and goatee twice in three months as I have done recently.
   I would prefer to have just a moustache but (a) I am too lazy to shave every day and (b) they just aren't that good a look these days.


3. Finish my novel. Yes, I know. I have been writing the bloody thing for nearly three years and if I'd really wanted to get it finished then I would have by now, right? Well, not quite. It's true that I allow myself to be distracted but I have been working on my first three chapters and I am very close to having them in a form that I will feel happy sending them out to a publisher. My friends in the writing group liked the improvements I'd made. I just need to do a little polishing and write a decent synopsis. Then I will send it out. I also need to integrate the new chapters into the rest of the novel but that will come a little later. My immediate goal is to send the chapters out. I will do that before the three year anniversary of the start of the novel has passed.


4. Finances. I like my current job but I know, at 43, that I cannot remain a programmer forever. I am terrible at keeping up with new trends in technology and I am beginning to feel out of date and stupid at work. I need to start investigating other ways of making a living. That might require changing my life in other significant ways to reduce my outgoings. Spending less on stuff I don't need, for instance, or maybe getting a smaller house.

Labels: Beard, Health, Keepsake, Money, Novel, Resolutions, weight loss

• The spot on my chin is so big, I should probably start calling myself Jupiter


• I sniff irritatingly when I am hot


• My beard has become so grey that I am seriously thinking of shaving again. If I do that my hair is likely to go as well. My visits to the barber and his numerous mirrors have shown me the true size of the rather large expanse of skin on my head. It makes the presence of hair seem a little ludicrous.

Labels: Beard, Grey, St Christopher's Hospice, Walk