The Bearded Wonder

When I was a student, I used to regularly watch Neighbours. It was on a comfortable period after I’d got home and afterwards I could cook my pizza and eat at a decent time.

While watching this, a friend of mine pointed out than one of the characters was “consumed by angst” as a result of becoming separated from his significant other. The way the show elected to show this was by having him apparently forgetting to shave for a few days.

I thought this was amusing at first but then realised it was true. This was clearly what the producers were trying to do: people consumed by angst need an outward sign so that we all know about it and what better way than for them to allow facial hair to grow unabated by shaving?

Does this mean that everyone with a beard is consumed by terrible mental angst? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

There were other example of this, I forget the details exactly, but the whole thing came up again when I was watching 24.

At the start of the third series, Jack Bauer, presumably consumed with guilt over the death of his wife and totally strung out on heroin, had apparently forgotten to shave. For a moment, I got excited and wondered if the whole series would feature a bearded Jack, but he quickly recovered, shaved and got back to torturing suspected terrorists and whatever else it is that he does.

And then the whole thing came again not so long ago, in the second series of Heroes. Nathan Petrelli, consumed with guilt about causing the death of his brother and taking solace in whiskey seemed to have a beard too.

Anyway, this whole beard thing seems to have been a bit of a recurring conversation for me this week. Corin hasn’t shaved properly for yonks and I was trying to advise him to trim the old facial hair a bit and go for a more interesting beard.

Usually when people come to me for beard advice I suggest a 19th century Russian anarchist, but personally I think a beard in the style of Edward Lear-loving, Essex boy hip-hopper Scroobius Pip would be good.

So I’d like to turn this over to you, my readers. Are beards a good thing, are there exceptions?

I’m going to have a bath and then a shave. I’m just not in the mood for growing beards at this time.