Day 9. This moustache mathematics malarky...

I went to an after hours lecture today to listen to Professor Marcus du Sautoy talk about mathematics, which was great although it would've been a faux pas if I had bumped into him with a hot coffee due to my teenage like reaction when I saw him. What wasn't great was the woman who sat on my left in the lecture. She was perched on the edge of her seat and spent most of the time enthusiastically nodding and shaking her head like a woodpecker with epilepsy, while saying ''yes, yes, yes..... no, noo, yes!'' in response to any statement Prof Marcus made as though we were watching an episode of Playschool. This woman was a pharmacologist, she proudly told us, although I kept my feelings on those who don't do engineering/maths/physics quiet to prevent a scene, unlike her excessive muttering later on. He was talking about the fusion of maths and art, and it reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine several weeks ago. She is training to be a teacher and one of her projects is to 'design a school'. Her group is lead by somebody who has a degree in expressive arts, and wanted to include 'expressive arts' as a core subject for thier school. Which made the people in the group with science degrees, like my friend the physicist, snort with derision. When my friend told me about this I replied that ''I have never been asked to solve an equation using the medium of dance on an exam before'' and cue much laughing. Fast forward to tonight and I had the pleasure of watching a video of Marcus du Sautoy dancing like an ill advised love child of Louis Walsh and Kate Bush, expressing prime numbers with the medium of dance. In your face Paul, you maths snob.

Every day is now a milestone, each day is one day closer to getting over the incessant itching and irritation and one day closer to follicular glory. Although I am dangerously close to being classified as having a 'porno' tache, here what do you think?

Personally I think it looks like a proud and noble beast sat on my face, like a third eyebrow, majestic in stature and not at all like a 'porno' tache. Although the quizzical pose looks a bit weird, note to self - must improve my camera posing.

Day 8, The Itchy and Scratchy Show!

Apologies for not posting over the weekend, but a combination of driving Aerospace girlfriend about, Uni work and sheer laziness had kept me busy all weekend.

The itching has grown worse, so much so that I considered rubbing my face on the pavement. God only knows what horrors are stored for those who grow full beards. Another true story, in about 2004 I shaved my ahem 'gentlemans area'. Yes that's right everything went, no trimming, no pubic topiary, nothing left... Wow, the freedom, I felt like I was in a Bodyform advert, and if there had been sand dunes around, I would've run through them with a kite. Ahh, I thought, this is what the freedom to run about while unfettered in the nether regions feels like!  But that freedom was short lived, approximately two days later I was in perpetual agony when my body took it's revenge for all the abuse I had given it over the years by giving me stubble. It wasn't until over a week later that I felt comfortable enough to sit down again without looking like I had hemorrhoids. I had put that episode behind me and never thought about it again until today. Every word, twitch, sip from a cup is uncomfortable but I will not back down to my ginger stubble, just hurry up and grow!

One last word, thanks for all the donations!!! Our team at Movember

Day 5. Treasure Hunt!

It itches, just like that crap 90's film The Field Of Dreams with its almost Hippy like mantra 'if you build it, they will come' well I have decided facial hair should come with the caveat of "if you grow one, you will itch". It wouldn't be so bad, but its something that is constantly there, like X factor or Dancing on ice. Highly annoying but not offensive.

Keeping on the theme of hairy things, myself and Aerospace girlfriend were watching Autumn Watch, as opposed to watching Kate Humble's Badger. For those who don't watch this, you should, listening to Chris Packham say ''hoaaiiiii'' then watch him sniff a poo. Highly entertaining. Before I carry on with my ramble on the evenings televisual wonders, let me tell you a story....................... When I was a youngling, about twelve years of age I went into the garden armed with a small beach spade and began the 1992 summer search for treasure having been inspired by Time Team. I dug little holes here and there until I could resist no more and started 'the hole'. Deciding where to dig the hole was a task in itself, too near the house and I'd surely be seen by my mother and grounded as usual, too close to the mental neighbours and I'd be found out. Couldn't dig up the few patches of grass that I hadn't yet set fire too, previously dug up or destroyed with paint. Location found I started to dig, I found small bones buried by a long gone dog, interesting rocks and small pieces of brick. I carried on regardless and still the treasure eluded me. The next day I returned to my hole and carried on digging, and the next. The small beach spade was useless for the large scale excavation I was doing but my hole was soon as deep and wide as I was tall. I spent all summer digging in one form or another in the garden and I didn't find shit, and neither was there any in Autumn Watch tonight, Chris Packham you let me down!

I have also been told not to call She Who Must Not Be Named, Aerospace girlfriend. I did offer the following choices 'Fish wife', 'Shoe girl', 'Crazy cat lady' but all were met with a look that had my testicles running for the hills. So while I dwell on that let me remind you of Movember and to not only donate your hard earned cash, (or easy earned student loans) but to check your balls!

Day 4... Its a moustache Jim, but not as we know it...

Today marks my first day walking amongst the public, no longer am I a hairy faced virgin. Although I felt a bit inconspicuous with my three day old 'towel fluff face', I also had trouble reading the looks of the women who serve me my daily pint of coffee in Costa's. I like to think they were feeling the power of the 'tache, in fact I can feel the power of the 'tache. I no longer walk, I strut, confident in my moustache's ever increasing power to both humble chavs and leave women lingering for more... Although I don't like to dwell on the fact I am well over 6 feet tall with a gait that any Gibbon would recognise, so strutting is technically out of the question. Despite my penchant for the joys of Oi and anarcho punk I am quite partial to a bit of Tom Jones. Aerospace girlfriend knows this only too well, when I start singing in her flat. The man can command an entire room just through his walk, I'm almost certain this is due to his impressive chest wig. I am starting to see the correlation between body hair and strutability and my analytical brain is trying to work out whether hair growth is proportional to masculinity or if it is just down to luck that certain men can carry off walking like a panther. Answers on a postcard please.

I caught myself thinking I'd look cool in a pair of aviator sunglasses while sat at the traffic lights in the car this morning. I was miles away, imaging how cool I'd look with the windows down, the soft pokey notes of saxophone jazz noodling from the radio as George Michael's 'Careless Whisper' floats through the air... Then it struck me.... A MULLET! Why had I not thought of it before! A mullet! A moustache! Awesome, awesome to the max!

So moment of truth readers, I suppose you want to me to cut to the chase and see the beast, enough of this mullet talk and walking like a panther. Here it is in all its follicular glory.

 

What do you mean you cant see it? It's there!!! 

Still cant see it, for those of you who have less than perfect looking balls, here it is in extreme close up. I estimate a good 2-3mm of growth.. Not too shabby.

I hope that I get past this '80's Footballer' style moustache fairly quickly, it is not a look that agrees with life in the 21st century. A pack of Bourbon cream biscuits should help growth along nicely. That's all for now Mo'bros and She'bros.

Day 3 In the moustache house....

The first conversation of the day went like this..

Mum:   Morning.

Me:      Morning.

Mum:   Have you been using my blue towels!!!?

Me:      kerflumph?

Mum:   You have blue fluff all over your face!

Me:      kerflumph!

Mum:   Are you growing a beard?

Me:      Humph.

I pride myself on being immature, even now when I hear somebody say 'gonads', I will stifle a little laugh. What makes it worse is that it was probably me who said it in the first place. So now when I think that other people of my age are trying to come to terms with the onset of their own 'middle age', I think maybe they are fighting through the start of a mid life crisis and hoping to finally find themselves. Me, I'm growing a moustache, wearing an offensive T-shirt and air guitaring to an old Blink song. Some may interpret this as a mid life crisis, but I have never really been mature enough to be able to regress in the first place. Here in lies my latest worry, with the new facial hair will I be expected to dress in chinos? Wear blazers? God forbid, loafers.. Arggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I'm supposed to be drawing some sketches for one of my Uni projects, but inbetween drawing undercarriage parts I also drew a robot attacking a house. That should be enough stave off maturity for at least a week. I apologise for the drawing, but I have never been much good at drawing anthropomorphic features. I once came home from work, several years ago, and started to draw a small face on one of my testicles in biro due to boredom and binging on several packets of prawn cocktail crisps. It turned out to be an excellent likness of Robocop, with some judicious stretching. Just be thankful I dont dig out that picture.

Now the exciting bit, clearly the six sausage rolls I bought from Morrison's yesterday have had the desired effect, and growth is now at a good millimetre, maybe a little more. But I hear you cry ''the Mighty Strawbridge requires at least 30mm of growth''. Which is an excellent point, since there are only thirty days in Movember, that means a maximum growth of 15mm, so efforts must be doubled. I dont really want to tarnish the name of Strawbridge with a poor Tom Selleck lookalike 'tache, that would be blasphemy. Any ideas for increasing growth rate? I could do with a bottle of Dimoxinil!

I'll be sure to post a picture of my new fuzz later..

Day 2.... Scruffy sheek...

So the day has dawned, the first day of my new tash and first day of Movember (Please go, donate, even if its only 50p!!!)

It's strangely like puberty all over again, excitement at the new growth of bumfluff appearing on your top lip. Running to the bathroom, your feet dancing on the stairs, the rushing to the mirror.... Has it grown?.. Except this time its a gingery, browny stubble that usually annoys me after two days of no shaving and brings no end of complaints from she who must not be named, who I shall refer to from now on as aerospace girlfriend. 

So here is a pic of me at about 11pm last night just after mowing the old chops with the rubbish old electric shaver..

Hopefully I will go from that clean shaven, baby face to this....

...This is of course, the man.. The legend... That mustachioed hunk of beef, Dick Strawbridge.. That moustache makes me want to stand up straight. Stand up straight and sing him the full national anthem while giving him the full Rimmer salute..

I have no idea what aerospace girl sees in me, but when I look at that picture up there all it does is remind me of a mushroom face... The resemblance is uncanny.

But I digress, you're not here to read about my self loathing but to get your fix on the growth of my facial hair!!! Some educated guess work with a mirror and some serious eyeballing has it at around... Drum roll please.. Bbrbbrbrbbbbbrbrbrbbrbrbrbrbrbrbrbbrbrbrbrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrpppp 0.5mm. Not much, but enough to look even more scruffy than I usually do, maybe the tash will bring me an air of authority and respect, instead of having to elbow my way around the old dears and chavs at Morrison's. At any rate the frequency of being asked to prove I'm over 18 should drop in proportion to the growth of my tash!

I'm sure my daily intake of sausage rolls, coffee and cheese will increase my growth rate. I am on a strict diet of brown, so Gregg's baked goods are in, flaming sambuccas are out.. I can almost feel my follicles flexing, or possibly my arteries furring, either way somethings stirring in my face...