Here's another distressing phenomenon of our times - middle-aged men who, agonisingly impaled on the horns of the beard-or-no-beard dilemma, settle for the halfway house of stubble that's a little too long to be stubble but a good deal too short to be a beard. The result, gentlemen, is that you end up looking as scruffy and suspect as Charles Clark or the BBC's head razor dodger Mark Thompson - and you just can't wear a suit when your chin's in that state, not without looking like The Defendant. Combined (as it often is) with the all too popular cropped head, the effect is still more displeasing. I know the stubbly head is supposed to disguise a follicular challenge, but, in older, greyer men I contend that it is Not a Good Look. Think Magwich.
I wonder what Selena Dreamy has to say...
Thursday, March 13, 2008
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
http://www.answers.com/topic/vincent-collateral?cat=entertainment
ReplyDeleteOn stubbly men in suits.
Stephen Spielberg, I think, qualifies for that description. Richard Dreyfuss? I think it rather depends on the type of person. Stubble may look unhygienic on some and cool on others. Charles Clark, looks like a dosser. Imagine him eating a tomato sandwich and egg stuffed with coriander. Besides I have always found a full crop of hair to be nature’s consolation for bat-wing ears. And he’s got none of that.
ReplyDeleteMark Thompson always reminds me of Tracy Emin’s unmade bed. So does the crooner (his name mercifully escapes me) who likes to get blown in public conveniences, and we suspect, wears intimate jewellery. Again, with a past like his, the stubble looks sleazy, largely by association.
Aesthetically, I rather prefer a full beard. Thomas Carlyle had the imposing look of a man hewn out of granite, or more contemporaneously perhaps, I’d go with the type of >outdoors< growth you find on our beloved naturalist Bill Oddie. Rustic, healthy, sound and virile. Although, strictly speaking, I think my personal preference would be for a clean-shave guy like Lord Adair Turner, perhaps, the aristocratic type, whose clean-shaven political schizophrenia, incidentally, will be the subject of my forthcoming post, due for release this very afternoon....
hope this helps
Dreamy
Thanks, Selena - excellent news. Bryan and I, of course, eschew facial hair of all kinds.
ReplyDeleteNo contest -- Viggo as Aragorn.
ReplyDeleteHugh Laurie as Dr. House is always stubbled, never clean-shaven, never fully bearded. He looks okay that way, but it is definitely a contemporary look.
ReplyDeleteNige wrote: Bryan and I, of course, eschew facial hair of all kinds.
ReplyDeleteHaha. As an Edwardian boulevardier you will always sport a moustache, just as Bryan, as a guru and unofficial king, will always sport a 9ft snowy-white beard. There's no getting round it. Both of you will always have luxuriant facial hair even when you don't.
Long sideburns are important. They provide welcome extra insulation and soundproofing when wearing a crash helmet, though I understand that some helmets from Schuberth GmbH are now so well designed that even this modest precaution may not be necessary. No need to shave those 'burns off, though, as they're irresistible to German and Scandinavian women - perhaps a kind of unconscious Abba thing.
You've got me, Mark - it's true, but I only use theatrical stick-on moustaches. They go so well with the top hat (a collapsible gibus), opera cloak and silver-topped ebony cane. Bryan conceals his beard most of the time in an ingeniously devised pouch inside his mouth, unfurling it on appropriate occasions.
ReplyDeleteSusan, you're so right about Hugh Laurie - but he's just so damned cool he's allowed to have stubble.
ReplyDeleteMark, that is the funniest and truest thing i've read for days. To quote from the appalling trailer for that new Elizabeth film "you are wise man."
ReplyDeleteShave once a week when the part-time job is tomorrow. Couldn't go through that rigmarole every day. Jesus! (Him neither). And when I do I feel, and look, like a startled baby. Those blue eyes behold me too nakedly, smarting, and age is cruelly contrasted on my face: the boy's cheek and chinny-chin against the wrinkly eyes and grey hair. By contrast a little hair levels the picture, brings unity, scrubs it out.
ReplyDeleteWAKE UP NARCISSUS!
Jah Wobble started it.
A little hairiness is In The World whereas none is in yer face and too much up yer arse.
ReplyDeleteIt's a strange little quandary - go scruffy, feel loose and relaxed; shave, feel clean, organized, conquering. Grow a beard, feel like N. Baker. Maybe different for different regions?
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ReplyDeleteJosh Marshall of Talking Points Memo is the worst offender on the blogosphere. Shave or don't, already!
ReplyDeleteDisagree. Middle-aged guys grow their half-beard to hide their developing jowls. It looks good. As a female in my 30s and I think I'd kill myself if I had to have sex with someone with a full on muff beard. Yeesh. It's a sex thing. The only problem is that when a guy begin to go very grey, unless it is immaculately groomed, it makes him look like a drunk.
ReplyDeleteNowt wrong wi Magwich - or Albert Steptoe. I wanna be an old man wi a head shaved for the gallows or wig and a white bristle born out of not shaving cos it's too cold and awkward to bother. Who gives a Fuck?!
ReplyDeleteExplains the Wagner beard: who'd strip off in those temperatures?! Scrape round the collar, get back too the composing, not posing!
...in his lemon silken breeches!
ReplyDelete