Lydia oh Lydia.

No, wait. She was a lady with tattoos

According to the Guardian, beards are back in fashion - for men, anyhow.

Don't quite know how to react to this. I mean, it had to happen. The eternal wheel of fashion will do its going around thing. So sometimes it must inevitably roll downhill over the pointy toes of its followers. And beards are probably better than 'burns, muttonchops or even lambchops. Because that Victorian gentleplum look was a fashion to set the world alight, or at least make a terrible smell as a set of manly sidewhiskers smouldered darkly in close proximity to a newly-installed gas chandelier or two.

The newspaper claims it's related to two seemingly contradictory trends (neither of them economic, unlike theories about hemlines):

1) Spread of "metrosexual" fashion necessitating the adoption of other indicators of masculinity to counter-act the girlifying effects of pink ties and lavender lounge suits.

(Note to self: remember the Seventies? Or at least, remember the old poster from the Seventies that was glued to my dentist's ceiling to distract his hapless patients? There is something very disconcerting about enforced study of a set of perfect gnashers gleaming whitely from a dark, hairy nest of luxuriant facial shrubbery. Particularly when said manly hirsuteness is perched on a skinny body in powder blue drainpipes and a ruffled shirt. Maybe it was the injections, but I seem to recall him sitting in a golden, hazy field of wheat above flowing letters which declared soothingly, "Love is… having regular check-ups and flossing twice daily. Use fluoride."

2) Popularity of facial fuzz and rRraaWwk (I'm never quite sure how to spell that) music go hand-in-hand. Bands do it, so fans do it.

Quick visual poll of surroundings reveals

3 undetermined (It's blonde. It may be long stubble, it may be deliberate, it may the acorns that herald future growth. It's a bit scruffy. There is no way to tell without asking the owner. They wear band t-shirts to work, if that helps.)

1 definite chin-and-moustache affair, neatly trimmed (he's French, so does that still count?).

1 goatee (in transit).

1 very heavy five-o'clock shadow, which blends imperceptibly with shaved head.

2 really long sideburns with sharply razored ends. Think they're supposed to replace cheekbones.

No bearded ladies, but I live in hope.

Interestingly, the scruffy undetermineds are scruffy all over. Where the facial fuzz seems deliberate it also appears to have migrated from forehead to chin(s). Is there a maximum possible quota for overall hair on a man's head? At what point does he reach overkill? Is that when they make you pose for dental hygeine posters of dubious taste?