Wednesday, February 07, 2007

On Shaving While Driving

One would like to sympathise with Edward Hutcheson, who has been found guilty of shaving while driving. We've all been there: screaming down a motorway while consulting a map, trying to find Radio Five Live, talking on a mobile, retrieving the plastic water bottles rolling around somewhere near the brake, hurling abuse at nearby trucks and composing a sonnet. But Hutcheson escapes our sympathy because he is a 'health and safety expert'. Such people should know better, but also they have carte blanche to tell us how to behave and do so with fantastically irritating regularity. Hutcheson, the biter, has been bit. And, while I am on the subject, what sort of a freak uses an electric shaver? It is a thoroughly discredited piece of technology.
Posted by Bryan Appleyard at 8:49 am

13 comments:

  1. BritFebruary 07, 2007 9:18 am

    what sort of a freak uses an electric shaver?

    I suppose even Hutcheson draws the line at the in-car bowl-of-hot-water-and-lather method. Terrible for the upholstery.

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  2. AnonymousFebruary 07, 2007 10:50 am

    Very good, Brit. My wife got me a fairly decent electric and, while it doesn't give a close shave, it enables me to look half civilised in between proper shaves.

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  3. Big Chip DaleFebruary 07, 2007 2:46 pm

    In the world of exotic dancing, this is something of a professional hazard. I was once caught shaving myself as I was driving. I'll never know how the police managed to see what I was doing with my hand below the dashboard.

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  4. AnonymousFebruary 07, 2007 4:17 pm

    LOVE IT, Bryan. But you didn't even mention cell phones. I never talk on mine while driving, but I sure as heck see lots of terrible drivers talking on theirs -- and not paying attention to what's happening in traffic around them.

    To add a female point of view, many a car accident has occurred while one driver was applying makeup and using the rear-view mirror for that purpose. In my personal experience, pregnancy also ups one's rate of accidents. Both times I was pregnant, I had sudden ravenous moments while driving that required me to GET FOOD IMMEDIATELY. First time, while inhaling hamburger, I drove over a curb and wrecked the alignment. Second time, I drove into the back of a truck. That one resulted in a ticket and an expensive car repair....

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  5. AnonymousFebruary 07, 2007 9:12 pm

    Ah, Susan B got in with the make-up before me. My train commute has become increasingly less bearable over the years with earphoned music, phones, inane announcements et al., but I think women who plonk themselves next to you and spend the whole journey applying make-up, digging into you with their elbows, rustling around in stupid plastic pencil case thingys for endless sticks of dyed whale fat to smear on their faces--- oh the misery! Beats the lot.

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  6. AnonymousFebruary 08, 2007 12:04 am

    I never shave while driving, but then again I don't drive.

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  7. Bryan AppleyardFebruary 08, 2007 1:22 pm

    Good point, Friedrich.

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  8. AnonymousFebruary 08, 2007 3:38 pm

    My beard is a symbolic protest against the oppression of the downtrodden masses by their feudalistic overlords. My face represents the purity of the proletarian soul(that is if the soul existed, which it doesn't), and my beard its oppression. This must be shaved off by whatever means.

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  9. AnonymousFebruary 09, 2007 1:45 am

    There are beards, and then there are Beards. I married mine, but 'twas hairless Bosie I truly loved.....

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  10. AnonymousFebruary 09, 2007 1:46 am

    Albert shaves my little beard for me and oooh, what fun we have then......

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  11. AnonymousFebruary 11, 2007 6:32 pm

    If there's one thing I hate it's smut. That and the oppression of the masses. Well, yes, that's two things. Smut is the opium of the upper classes.

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  12. AnonymousFebruary 11, 2007 10:32 pm

    Pookums, snookums, Karly-Warly: don't be so serious, wearious all the time. In the soul of a prole, you'll find a hut filled with smut, where the best-laid plans of mice and men disappear into a happy oblivion. C'mere and let me show you...Bring your razor strop.

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  13. AnonymousMay 02, 2008 7:17 pm

    I like a nice rich lather when I shave behind the wheel of a moving car.

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=9Dj92W8sBUU

    I also like to brush my teeth while driving so that I can have an nice smile for the cop that pulls me over.

    http://youtube.com/watch?v=ybdwDduPuyQ

    ReplyDelete

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