Should I Stay or Should I Grow? (That is a awful title, sorry)

Posted by Martyn Norris on Monday, October 31, 2011 Under: General

So today is the 31^st of October, you know Halloween or the day before the beginning of “Movember” (for those who don't know what Movemeber is I have embedded a link to a website that describes it for you, all you have to do is click on the blue “Movember” and you will automatically be taken there. Basically though it's men getting sponsored to grow a moustache for the duration of the month of November, hence, “Movember”, ah I think that may have rendered the clicking on the link a little pointless as you now know what it is, blast. Someday I will get the hang of this internet thingy.)

So I come before you, the internet, with a question, should I grow a moustache?

I would like to make a few things clear before you make your decision,

1, I don't usually ask the interwebs about life decisions, no matter how small, because I'm not that sort of person, you know the type, loud as motorbike but wouldn't crush a grape in a fruit fight! Wise man that Jay-Z. I'm not the sort of person who feels that they are so important but ignored that they try to draw attention to themselves by asking what they should do with their lives on Twitter or Facebook or, in my opinion even worse, a self obsessed blogger who writes endless about themselves on such mind numbing, spirit crushing subjects haircuts or facial fungus issues whilst not having the self awareness or insight to realise that no one cares. I'm not Danny Wallace.

2, Being bought up as a member of the US Republican party by Southern Baptists*, an experience that is akin to being raised by wolves but perhaps a little more visceral with a tad less howling at the moon and a lot more adopting of a Southern accent in order to end every other sentence with “Praise the Lord!!!”, I believe that anyone who is poor has just not worked hard enough and, therefore, deserves to be poor and anyone who has an illness that they could not have possibly bought upon themselves has bought it upon themselves, I do not give money to any charity at all**. So if I do do it then it will be merely for the deep satisfaction of growing a top lip warmer.

This neatly brings me to

3, Growing facial hair is one of the few joys a middle class, white, English man still has left. In general being a man is rubbish. When god created man*** he made so many mistakes. For instance, why, as I get older, do I need more eyebrow? Or more hair in my nose? I am aware that the elderly seem to feel the cold a little more than young, spritely things like you dear reader or the stereotype of Geordie girls, but thanks to opposable thumbs and various World trade agreements that guarantee that Western companies are able to exploit the peoples of 3^rd World countries as cheap labour, old people are able to buy and wear several cheap coats at once. There is no need for all this extra hair. Also <add you own joke about the poor placement and look of the male reproductive bits and pieces>.

The list of simple pleasures that are no longer available to me is really rather long. I can no longer playful slap a female type person upon the bottom whilst saying “ooh very nice, don't mind if I do” and claim it is a motivational intervention. I can't wonder into a foreign country, infect the “natives” with some disease their immune systems have not encountered before thus wiping them all out and then steal all their pretty and valuable stuff. Although I am still allowed to claim that I will look after their old dusty stuff much better than they will, that's what the British Museum is for. What was their slogan, “Where the world comes to look at it's stuff”? Yeah and then ask for it back.

It's political correctness gone mad. I mean yes, it could be worse I suppose, I could be just about anyone else, the patriarchy is still well in place. Oh and I don't bleed once a month leaving me technically anaemic. Oh and I can vote and I'm not oppressed in anyway I suppose, I'm just being asked asked to not behave like a cock most of the time and give others a fair crack of the whip that I had previously used to subjugate them but that's not the point.

Facial hair growing is a delightful activity, it's just a shame that significant other doesn't like a beardy me.

4, What I look like is not an issue, I will look great. I did once grow a beard (which, obliviously, looked damn great) but I was forced, probably by the EU and human rights legislation, to shave it off. The joy of growing is only slight better than the joy of shaving off the fuzz into a series of amusing and, frankly, downright sexy shapes. I have some photographic evidence if you'd like to see? Of course you would, you have all the normal urges (unless you don't, in which case can we swap numbers?). Ladies and Gentlemen gird your loins and get an eyeful of these.