I’m going to be on the BBC World Service tomorrow at 8.20-ish. They have asked me to write a poem about beards in honour Paxman’s recent hirsute appearance on Newsnight. It lies below.
I’ve also just had a four star review from ThreeWeeks. But it reads like a five, so we’ll call if a five.
Beard
Gillette execs are clearing desks
at King of Shaves the board’s depressed
a Turkish barber closes down
as wives all over British towns
sport rashes on their rosy cheeks,
the men have gone Depressive Chic
and let their chops and chins grow long
now Britain sings a beardy song!
The old preserve of CAMRA blokes
(those connoisseurs of ale and folk)
or elbow-patch-ed academics
the muse of Clarkson’s tired polemics
the beard is now not weird but fine
first Newsnight, next it’s Question Time
cry hip-hooray for hulihees
we’ve set our inner hippies free.
We’re bringing back the seventies
defiant to the tyranny
of Mad Ad. ads and crew cut dolts
a modern Lutheran revolt
a goatee, throaty battle cry
from Paxman, Clooney, Stephen Fry
From Marx, from Engels, Mr Twit
Pognophobic? Just say “No Bic!”
Yes off you go, and you’ll go far
a jungle on your jugular
But spare a thought for blokes like me
millennia from chimpanzees
shipwrecked upon pubescent shores
Without a wisp upon our jaws
Our role in this new trend absolved
Less manly, sure but more evolved.
Excellent Luke, I really like this!