Day 14: Shakespeare’s favourite mo

As I type these words, it’s Day 14 of Movember and my upper lip has got its own winter coat. For those of you who’ve only just tuned in, I’m taking part in a campaign to raise money for research into prostate and testicular cancer. This involves growing and grooming a moustache, which I have been dutifully doing since the 1st of this month. The alarming mask you see in the picture above is part of an insane attempt to reconcile my desire for internet privacy with a wish to show you the fruits of my hairy endeavours… although there’s a part of me that thinks I’ve been clinging onto the privacy thing long enough now, and that I should unmask myself at the end of the month.

In the 7 years of its existence, Movember has raised over £106 million for medical research. Some of these funds have been used to provide trained, specialist nurses to talk to anyone newly diagnosed, affected or living with prostate cancer. According to the Movember site, this “heavily utilised National Helpline is a vital service and is one of the significant support aspects of The Prostate Cancer Charity. These nurses are able to give one-to-one support for men dealing with complex questions and difficult issues.” It’s an excellent cause, so if you’d like to make a donation, please visit my Mo Space.

On a more humorous note, it’s been fascinating to watch the different ways in which relatives, friends and colleagues have responded to my growing ‘tache. I have to confess that no-one has told me I ought to consider keeping it after the end of the month. Some have said that I now look like a South American pimp. Some have claimed that the mo has brought out my Middle Eastern side; others reckon it has brought out my Eastern European heritage. Some have told me I could pull off a passable Freddie Mercury; others have suggested Clark Gable. Regardless of the merits of all these observations, they certainly prove that the ‘tache has become a talking point, which just goes to show how fixed we become in the ways we perceive the people around us.

Here’s a question for you: if you could alter your appearance in some way (be it radical or subtle) what would you do and why?

Persolaise.


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6 thought on “Queen Mobeth I”
  1. It's coming along really well!

    Oh, I've tried plenty of physical alterations already, with makeup, hair, clothes, weight-loss (deliberate) and -gain (not so deliberate…. *sigh*). But I do wish I could wear heels without falling over. The extra height, the posture change, the overall glamour…. Ok, maybe it wouldn't make me more glam. But taller might be nice.

    By the way, I managed to return that perfume! I went back, saw the SA who had served me, and had a refund in minutes. So the other SA had given me the runaround for no reason. Humph.
    But on that note, I was told in TKMaxx that perfumes cannot be returned. ???
    Their policy is that cosmetics can't be returned for hygiene reasons. Ok, I get that. If you have opened it, no return. But have you seen how they package their perfumes? Those hard plastic boxes? Airtight, watertight, can't be opened without a sharp tool, can't be resealed. But nope, we are not allowed to return an unopened one of those. Cause it's unhygienic.
    Clearly, their logic is not like our Earth logic, Captain….

  2. Tania, thanks very much.

    I've always thought glamour is a state of mind. But I must say that whenever I've seen you, I haven't noticed a shortage of glam.

    Thanks for the perfume update. I should think they DID take it back. And yes, the TK Maxx thing is weird. Most of their customers must have very grubby paws.

  3. Thanks, that's very nice of you. 🙂

    Indeed they must. But it seems they have changed their rules. It's irritating, because I used to impulse-buy unfamiliar scents at bargain prices at TKM, then look up online reviews, and return the scent if it didn't seem to be my type of thing. But no longer. Ah well, their loss!

  4. Tania, exactly: their loss. It's a silly policy.

    And I know a few TK Maxx-es which don't use those hermetically sealed plastic prisons. Instead, they have soft plastic pouches… from which they extract the perfume package, so you go home without the pouch! Talk about consistency.

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