Have a Hairy Christmas Everyone

So 2014 is coming to a close and it's time to execute my cunning concealment plan. Soon I will be in my new manifestation as a taxi driver called Mehmet with a plastic super hero filled with incense on the dashboard and a Persian rug in the back.

Facial hair is a funny thing and there is nothing as strange as the furry rat under the nose, otherwise known as the moustache, caterpiller, lip foliage, nose bug etc. If you think about it the moustache is a strange contradiction. Relentless warlords such as General Kitchener sported one to demonstrate his awaesome masculinity as did evil dictators Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein. However, moustaches can work both ways - there was nothing particularly dictatorlike or manly about the  guys in Village People with the handlebars and the leather hats.

My uncle who was the rebel of the family also had a moustache, as well as a bright yellow Ford Capri. Both were consigned to the 1970s.

My own experience with facial growth has been limited. I tried to grow a moustache when I was about 17 but it was a flimsy kind of half-hearted affair. It didn't help that I weighted about 120 pounds so it was shaved off when people made the inevitable comparison with Mickey in Only Fools and Horses.

I have chosen to live for the next few decades cleanly shaven - until now....