Scrape

I hate shaving.

For many years I hid behind facial hair, worried lest my boyish good looks somehow diminished my professional gravitas. Not only did this give passers-by the (entirely spurious) impression that I was someone of depth and probity like Grizzly Adams or Bakelite Smith's Uncle Arthur, it also spared me the daily morning ritual of leaving half my face and a good deal of blood in the sink before staggering out to work.

All good things must come to an end, alas. Overnight my beard went from dark, burnished splendour to tortoiseshell ginger and white. Colleagues at work sent me job adverts for Santa Claus at Xmas and one of the Branch Managers made a convincing case for my having been Edward VII's auntie. The facial hair had to go and I had to start shaving again.

Every so often I try to get away with it for a day or two. It's no use: you can't get away with designer stubble when your beard goes white. In the past, a bit of growth could lend me the rugged air of a Dickie Attenborough or Anna Neagle. Nowadays it just looks like my face has gone mouldy.