Notting Hill Diary

 

A fine beard that I can only aspire to

I’d never had a beard before the last couple of months, partly because I was frankly incapable of growing one, but more honestly because I thought there was something “weird” about them, as if the wearer somehow lacked confidence, or was possibly a computer programmer or archeologist.

My current crop of facial hair began as most probably do, the byproduct of sloth. I had no particular social engagements to shave for and after a couple of weeks noticed that the stubble had got past the “scruff” stage and reached “designer”.

 

A nutter

The clincher was that the following weekend, Gary and I DJ’d at something of a society wedding at the Carlton Club, a Tory hangout and the former Conservative Party HQ. The walls are adorned by portraits of prominent party members, mostly painted in the 19th Century, many of whom sported the most impressive beards (and statesmanlike guts to boot).

All of a sudden it clicked. My excuse for not shaving was now to be that it was all for the band! Rotten Hill Gang currently have this whole Dickensian thing going on you see, because of our track “Pick a Pocket”, a rap based around the late Lionel Bart’s Oliver song of the same name, so it seemed important that one of us looked the part of a .. well I’m not sure what, but something Victorian.

So for now the beard stays. It’s already been through the “uncomfortable itchy” stage and hovers between “properly trimmed” and the “difficult to eat egg mayonnaise or pizza politely” stage, having only once visited the “Sadam being pulled from the foxhole” level of dishevelment.

But the fact is, despite all evidence to the contrary (as in, my face in the mirror), I still think of myself very much as a clean shaven man.