Pogonophilia is for everyone, even the young.

Let me start by saying... You probably read the title wrong the first time.  Your mind is so used to seeing that other 'philia' that starts with the letter 'P' and has an 'o' in it that it just automatically fills it in, especially if you read the Daily Express.

Pogonophilia is the state of admiring, being fond of or having a fetish for... People who have beards - You see I said people, not men because there are ladies who wear full beards proudly.  But in fairness, I am actually going to just be talking about men, because: ewww.

I've lost track of the number of posts I've seen on twitter and other blogs and Facebook that start with things like 'Oh, I saw this guy with this completely lush beard at the Railway station this morning and I just wanted to rush up to him and run my fingers through it and get naked and have his babies right there outside WHSmiths.' or 'I'm sitting in Costa and there's a guy sitting opposite me with a Brad Pitt beard and a sharp suit, reading Dostoevsky's treatise on the vagaries of the human condition and I'd go over and jam my tongue in his ear but I seem to be temporarily stuck to the chair by my own lady-juices.'

What is it that's suddenly made beards fashionable and/or desirous?

Ok, so Brad Pitt seems to have gone a bit Worzel Gummidge, and La Depp seems to be hanging on to a watered down version of the Jack Sparrow goatee, George Clooney is rocking the Silver Fox look, Mel Gibson looks like a boggle-eyed anti-semetic musketeer, Colin Farrel, Billy Connolly, Daniel Craig, Viggo Mortenson, Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale - All of these guys currently sport, or have sported in the recent past facial hair.

In the past, (like, 50-60 years ago, not prehistoric times - where beard wearing wasn't a lifestyle choice, it was a neccesity) - Beards were the preserve of Fishermen and members of The Royal Navy (Yes, I know there's a salty seaman joke in there - feel free to fill it in yourself - I can't be bothered) Then if we move forward slightly you get everyone being clean-shaven except for the Hippies and Beatniks, From then until 2010 it was just Bikers, Tramps and Santa.

Look, here's an example... This was me in about 1994.

Calm down ladies... I know... 26 years old, full of beans and brimming with so much rebellion that I should be driving James Dean's Silver Porsche.  A veritable love machine of the old school (Ignore the washing machines... Long story).

*cough*

So, why did I grow a beard originally? Well apart from the whole motorcycling thing?  It's because I'm a mutant - It's all my Mother's fault you see, she had a freakishly small womb (Obviously, this was whilst she was still alive.) and I spent a significant portion of my gestation period with my forearm jammed into my chin causing a certain lack of mandibular development, making me look a little bit like Beaker, off of the Muppets when I shave my beard off. (Which is why I don't, ever, not even to go to a Muppet themed fancy dress party - I go as Sam, the American Eagle - Gives me the opportunity to paint myself blue... again)

While we're on the subject, did you know that the only animal other than humans to actually have a chin is the elephant? - Which is strange, because scientist believe that the chin's job is to support the muscles required to move the lips well enough to enable us to speak.

But over the years, I've developed my hirsuteness from full Captain Birdseye (You should never go full Captain Birdseye) to the interesting Goatee/Walrus moustache with disconnected sideburns combo that I'm rocking here - I have stuck with this style as it seems to work for me:

That's the MicroDandy by the way - Yes, he was cute wasn't he - You'll also note that my hairline has... Retracted slightly from its position in the previous picture.  I think it makes me look distinguished - And I lie to myself regularly about other things too.

I would have used a current picture, but I'm growing my hair at the moment and it's in that difficult 'In between short and long' stage that makes me look like a startled clown.

That's why I have a beard, but why do I think women like men with beards?  I think it's part of a cycle.  The late 70's / Early 80's were the golden age of 'The Man', the one who'd jump from a helicopter, scale your trellis (ooh-err) and deliver you a box of chocolates.  Hard drinking, Hard fighting, Hard loving men who made women feel like women and misogyny was a normal and expected part of everyday life.  Then, as the 80's turned into the 90's and political correctness and sexual equality became increasingly popularised, Men (not men... But Men) started to be regarded as anachronistic, overly neanderthal buckets of testosterone who, if anyone ever invented a cucumber that could mow the lawn, would be consigned to the cupboard and only brought out for the process of procreation.  Thus causing the Golden Age of the metro-sexual - These chaps were characterised by their fantastically quaffed hair, Gucci manbags, colour co-ordinated silk ties, socks and pants and legendarily low sperm counts.

These amazingly successful subspecies dominated advertising and finance for many years until everything went a bit pear-shaped. Benetton and Gap spiraled out of control and became satires of themselves, the stock market and banks followed suit and every news report seemed to show slightly effeminate males running around trying to grab the last few lettuce and watercress sandwiches after there'd been a run on Pret-a-Manger and having a bit of a cry.

It was time for a change, someone needed to take charge and steer the ship towards land, who were those people? Who could emerge from a cloud of dry-ice wearing just fireman's trousers or a kilt with a good quarter pint of baby-oil smothered over their pecs? Who could we trust to buy their food from a roadside greasy spoon which only sells thick slices of bacon, sausages with indeterminate contents and pasties that just have meat and potato in them?

Men, that's who... Men with beards... Beards that say 'Yes, I can both change a plug, spatchcock a donkey and make love to a beautiful woman until she is incapable of anything other than lying there shaking whilst muttering "thank you, please sir can I have another?" over and over again.'

Beards!

The Mark of a Man.

Steve the Hedge

Kids are great, aren't they though? I like kids so much that I went and got some of my own.  I decided to get one of each, you know, so I could experience both sides of the coin as it were.

I know that a few of you out there in the Blogosphere have children. I mean, I've accidentally read... Oh, I don't know... Literally tens of Blogs that say things like:

'And this is little Clinton taking his first steps, we bought a new deep-pile carpet for the whole house in case he falls over.'

'Jocasta looks absolutely scrummy in this Anne Geddes original Bumblebee costume that I bought from Fortnum & Mason (in the sale, Tarquin tells me that he's not made of money, hahahaha!)'

'We took the BMW so that Phillipe and Hermione could have enough room for all of their imaginary friends'

And I suppose I can sympathise to a degree, net-savvy Yummy-Mummies spending their time between glasses of Veuve Clicquot filling the empty void left in their lives after they gave up their full time job as a Business Analyst or Advertising Executive to be a real woman, just like their own Mothers', by telling their equally vacuous friends how their offspring regularly exceeds the targets that some book or other has set for them, whilst they're trying to re-invent the non-existant neon coloured school satchel market in their spare time.

But for every one of those, I have five, or maybe ten people who I follow via Twitter or Facebook that regularly say things like:

'Oh for God's sake, my idiot offspring has crapped in the bath... AGAIN! And he's NINE!'

'Well, I'd told her not to lick her fingers and put them in the socket, then there was the bang, but I knew she was OK because she was crying.'

'So, I got a call from the school and this very nice lady told me that HellChild had said "That's not a willy... THIS is a willy!" which it seems is frowned upon in a mixed ability PSHE lesson nowadays.'

See if you can guess which of the people I count amongst my friends? I'll give you two guesses, but the first one doesn't count.

Anywho, back to my own little bundles of joy... As I said, there are two of them.  The MiniDandy is a teenager, who writes a Blog (very) occasionally, that some of you even follow.  She's the thinly veiled heroine of the Edward Teach stories and is quite odd, in an individualistic, original way.  She gets her sense of humour, irony, fair play and indignation from me.  Her mood swings, irrational behaviour, clothes sense and general female-ality are all from her dear Mother.

My Son, who despises being referred to as The MicroDandy, so I won't, except just then, which he won't see so it doesn't matter.  Is a completely different tray of spiced giraffe tongues.  He's also odd, don't get me wrong, sometimes supremely odd.  I mean, you'll often wake up after having a bit of a snooze on the couch and he'll be standing there, staring at you, just about breaking a smile, then turn around and walk out of the room.  He's got a mind like a steel trap, and can find a hole in any argument faster than a Teflon stoat in a greasy Swiss cheese factory.

He's logical, calculating and almost autistically anal about things.  Which is great if you need him to remember something, I mean, he can quite honestly quote chapter and verse things that he finds interesting that have happened over the past five years.  But ask him what he had for lunch of course and he looks at you as if you're an idiot and says 'Can't remember.'  He's also the basis for the Ice-Demon killing, Pig Exploding hero, Mal Ak'hai the Hunter

But he's not one for whimsy, which can be a bit of a handicap in the Dandy household... Or at least he wasn't, until last night... He came into the living room and said,

'Dad, I've written a story, do you want to hear it?'

Being a kind and loving parent, I ignored the obvious, intuitive answer and replied;

'Yes, I'd love to hear your story.' And you know, I'm glad that I did - It's a gem.  I present it below, I have taken the liberty of correcting his spelling and punctuation, for clarity's sake.

Steve the hedge lives in fire hydrant land.
Steve is always watered, because of the fire hydrants.
But if you dig a trench, from the lake to Steve, it would make Steve very happy.

It's a thing of beauty, I'm sure you'll all agree.  It's got everything, whimsy, abstraction, nonsense, descriptiveness, at the end - fatalism bordering on the Dadaist.  I loved it. I've had it framed and I keep it on my desk.

(And yes, for the eagle eyed, that is a whiteboard with a picture of a squid on it behind the frame - What of it?)

I was slightly worried about him, in a John Wyndham, Midwich Cuckoos kinda way, but now I'm not.  He's one of the Firm now, definitely  100% on target to be a gen-u-wine, solid gold, stone cold, thousand yard staring, klaxon blaring, Dandy of the old skool...

Maybe of the new school...

Maybe that's even better...

But more likely, very much worse! - MuahahahahahaahahahahahahHAHAHAAHAHhahah!

I think we should all beware, just in case, start stocking up on tins, maybe dig a fallout shelter.  Because if either of the smaller Dandies ever makes a bid for global domination, the chances are that it's going to be him.

Yet another reason I'm sinking all of my spare cash into the space program.