Tag: beards

Guest Post: 7 Reasons To Grow A Beard This Winter

The full beard, like many types of groomed facial hair, is a beautiful thing. But it’s also one that appears to fallen by the wayside of popular fashion. That is not a trend that Tommy George of www.idealo.co.uk wants to see continue. Here are seven reasons why.

Canada's Adam Kleeberger Keeps His Face Warm During The Rugby World Cup

1. Cost. Razors are expensive. Hair grows for free. You do the math(s). Nowadays, sixteen bladed, all singing, all dancing razor blades that not only scratch your face off but also sing the national anthem of Tonga are all the rage. However, they are REALLY expensive. Expensive enough that if a chap were to stop buying razor blades for an entire month, he could afford a whole set of Lego. Now would you rather have a sore face and no distraction or look cool AND have a ton of bricks to play with?

2. Competition. Men love a competition. Particularly competitions to judge who is most manly. In the animal kingdom, lions, tigers and bears fight and kill for this privilege – all you have to do is grow the best beard amongst your rosy-chopped and clean-shaven peers. All of the bragging rights in the pub – and with it all of the women – will be yours. Sort of like Rasputin, but with an even more mythical effect.

3. Fish Fingers. For gentleman of a more distinguished grey persuasion, it is possible that after several hard months of beard growing, people will mistake you for Captain Birdseye (particularly if you should choose to wear a naval uniform and wink a lot.). Upon realising this, total strangers will offer you the delicious fishy snacks out of pure courtesy. Another saving – and fish fingers don’t come cheap.

4. Fear. No man really likes children. Children are loud, small and, most importantly, banned from the pub – if you’re pub isn’t a swanky gastro-pub with tablecloths and disinfectant in the lager that is. So what better way to scare off little Jonny than to grow an enormous, terrifying beard and mutter under your breath? There is a reason children always cry when sitting on Santa Claus’ knee at Christmas. Use it to your advantage. Or alternatively buy a clown suit.

5. Loss. You will find after your beard advances past a stubbly stage and beyond the echelons of bumfluff, that one can grow quite attached to the looming dark mass upon ones cheeks and become used to the endless compliments that one receives on its behalf. So, when the beard is finally hacked off, the flow of niceties dries up and eventually a feeling of longing for the first follicles of re-growth. They say it is better to have loved and lost – but where beards are concerned, the loss can be simply avoided. With a beard, love and never lose!

6. Food. Beards are a useful source of food. Eating off the beard of a rival (which you may have to do if your rival has read reason two) will give you those much needed calories due to the left over food that can be stored up over a period of time. Either intentionally or not. The smart man with the beard will never go hungry. Whats better than a twelve ounce, juicy, tender, sirloin steak? Finding a twelve ounce, juicy, sirloin steak in your beard two hours later! That’s what.

7. Stroking. Dogs, cats, parrots and, to a lesser extent, crocodiles and tarantulas, all like to be stroked. It is surprising in this age of instant gratification that humans haven’t followed down a similar path to chin tickling heaven. Well children, let me let you in on a little secret, being stroked is great! However, the opportunities for being stroked are considerably limited, but when one arises it is always prudent to be in possession of a long, sleek elegant beard. Then, who knows where the night will take you!

So, gentleman, cast aside your razors and join us in our quest for a simpler, hairier life.

September 17, 2011
7 Reasons You Don’t Feel Like a Real Man

Society has a very rigid idea of what constitutes masculinity. Often, our definitions of what is masculine are rooted in the conventions and gender roles of the past, something which makes them unachievable ideals rather than anything tangible, or real, to aspire too. Despite knowing this though, sometimes you feel that you don’t quite measure up. Here are seven reasons that you don’t feel like a real man.

1. You use moisturiser. Using moisturiser doesn’t feel manly. It’s very good at keeping your skin soft and preventing the premature aging of the skin, but it’s not manly. I once moisturised my face, exited the bathroom (which my wife then entered) and tried to open the bedroom door. I couldn’t, as my hands were slick from the moisturiser and I couldn’t grip the doorknob. I was trapped outside the bedroom for five minutes. “This never happened to the captain of the Titanic”, I remember thinking, as I waited for my wife to rescue me. Real men don’t use moisturiser.

2. Facial hair. Real men – Victorian men – sported impressive and elaborate facial hair. Who, apart from Daniel Day-Lewis and Sebastien Chabal, can even grow such magnificent face furniture today? Certainly no one at this website – the best we can manage are a sparse ginger moustache and a slightly less sparse – but still bloody ginger – beard. Modern men also trim their facial hair too much. Real men have natural and wild facial hair – not prissy, neat goatees (and you should never, ever trust a man with a neat beard. Noel Edmonds has a neat beard). Real men do not have neat beards. Real men have substantial, flowing beards that are the same colour as their head-hair. Real men probably don’t even have scissors. In fact, real men probably eat scissors.

3. Coffee. Coffee is an amazing beverage and real men drink it. What real men don’t do, however, is go into Starbucks and order a venti soy-hazelnut-vanilla-cinnamon-white-mocha-choca-latte with caramel and an extra shot of espresso. Real men drink their coffee black, from tin mugs around a fire – or some sort of black-lead-coal-stove-thing with flames and a chimney – and the stronger and viler tasting the coffee is, the better. Also, real men don’t drink their coffee from cups – even if that is the only receptacle that fits into their espresso maker properly – and they don’t have a muffin with it. Not blueberry; not zucchini-walnut. Real men have no muffin.

4. Pain. Real men shrug off pain. Pain isn’t good – it’s er…well…painful – and it can be undignified. It especially hurts when you’re plucking the middle of your eyebrow to pluralise it. That sort of pain is reasonably manageable though. Real pain, however, can only dealt with by real men. I injured my knee last year (in a very manly way – up a mountain). The next day, when I woke up, it really hurt. As I climbed out of bed and put weight on it I suddenly – and quite unexpectedly – shrieked “I yi yi yi yi”, in the manner of Carmen Miranda. Real men don’t react that way to pain; Sir Ranulph Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes chopped his own fingers off with a fretsaw in his shed to save himself a six-thousand pound surgeons bill. I bet he didn’t shriek “I yi yi yi yi” like Carmen Miranda – or like anyone else. Never mind exhorting men complaining of pain to “man-up”, they should be told to Fiennes-up (I’m really hoping that will catch on).

5. Décor. You actually care about what the inside of your own home looks like and have an opinion about it too. You have even bought Laura Ashley toile-patterned sheets in both red and blue, because they look nice. Do real men care about soft-furnishings? Did Douglas Bader rearrange the cushions on his sofa and extinguish the scented candles before going off to beat the Germans without his legs? No he bloody didn’t. Real men don’t spend their time cocking about with flock-wallpaper and vases. Nor do they have a set of Le Creuset pans. Real men don’t even need legs.

6. Pets. Real men have real pets – parrots, cats or reasonably-sized dogs. What they don’t have are little dogs that you can put in a bag or rodents, budgies, rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas, snakes or fish. They certainly don’t have fish. You can tell a real man by the way he interacts with his pet. No real man names his pet Fluffykins or Pookles. Real men give their pets sensible names. Real men also address their pets properly, rather than clicking at them or making baby-noises. They address them as if they were a visiting chum:

“So Mr Prendegast, the sun has just passed the yard-arm, what would you say to a spot of brandy? What’s that Mr Prendegast? You’re a cat and you don’t drink brandy? Oh I see. Would you settle for some biscuits and a rub under the chin? I’m glad. There’s a good chap.”

That’s how a real man talks to a pet – like an equal. Real men don’t address pets as if they were idiots, or children. They don’t dress them up in clothes or put them in bags. The only time a real man carries a pet is when he wants to put it outside so that it can chase something. He certainly doesn’t give his pet chocolate-drops or a hug. Or give anyone a hug, for that matter.

7. You are a woman. Women don’t feel like real men. They don’t even feel like pretend men. They feel warm and soft. They sound like this:

March 17, 2010
7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Shave (for men).

Thinking of shaving? Don’t bother, it’s a pointless waste of time and your life will be improved by not doing it. Here’s why:

1. You are on the run. No one that goes on the run shaves. Saddam Hussein – Beard. Radovan Karadzic – Beard. Harrison Ford in The Fugitive – Beard. I don’t know why the authorities don’t draw beards on wanted posters. Fugitives always stop shaving. Why not just round up all bearded men? They did it.

2. Christmas. You are a portly man with white facial hair. Of course you shouldn’t shave before playing Santa. Children will inevitably pull your beard. If your beard should come off in a child’s hand, they will learn in a shocking and traumatic manner that Father Christmas isn’t real. Not only will you have ruined Christmas for them, you will have broken the sacred bond of trust between a young child and society. Eventually, disillusioned, the child will withdraw from society, becoming a loner, a sociopath and, in adulthood, a criminal. Their criminality will escalate until they commit a crime so heinous that they will be forced to become a fugitive and stop shaving. This will be your fault. All because you shaved. You bastard, Santa!

3. Skinny jeans. You wear skinny jeans and a plaid shirt. No one that wears skinny jeans and a plaid shirt shaves.

4. You are a Nazi. None of the crew of a U-boat shave at sea, so they end up with beards at a similar stage of development. We have learned from movies that the more ardent a Nazi the submarine’s Political Officer is, the poorer and sparser his beard growth is. This makes him appear less masculine than the rest of the crew and marks him out for ridicule. Not shaving helps fight Fascism.

5. Turkish barber. You shouldn’t shave if you live near a Turkish barber. If you did, you miss out on the pleasure of having someone else shave you. Who’d want to forgo the experience of having a middle-aged man – shaking and hyperactive from far too much strong coffee – holding a cut-throat razor to your jugular and gesticulating wildly, millimetres from your face, while he asks you where you’re going on holiday this year? Then he sets your ears on fire. You’d miss that if you shaved.

6. Shaving is boring. Scraping your face every day is mind-numbingly tedious, in fact, shaving is the second dullest experience known to man. Why not stop? Then you’d have more time to paint that fence or read this website. The dullest experience known to man is thinking about Celine Dion while shaving, in case you were wondering.

7. Stubble. If you don’t shave, you get stubble. Stubble is brilliant. Stubble is manly. Stubble makes a noise when you scratch it – a noise! How cool is that? Stubble makes you look like Don Johnson. Stubble irritates your wife. Stubble is a facial badge of freedom. Stubble is a bridge between your hair and your face. Stubble prevents you from resembling an accountant. Don’t shave. Get stubble.

November 17, 2009