Is Santa Claus a Tramp?

An Enquiry into Tolerance,

 

With Special Reference to

 

The Hirsute

 

'He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man'

 - The Bard

 

Author's Note

All anecdotes herein are genuine and factual. I report them as faithfully as memory permits.

 

 

 

1.        The Defining Characteristic

A beard is an adult male's defining characteristic; yet unmanly faces outnumber the manly, because men succumb with slavish servitude to an unnatural practice; and, if I may so say, they make a grievous spectacle.

 

Even so, beards, as my barber repeatedly assures me, are 'coming back into fashion'. (I mean the genuine article, not the stubbly manqué). But these few - these fratres barbate - are mostly composed of younger men, judging from what I see in the street. This is a natural process in which an emerging generation discards (and rebels against) the practises of a passing one. Grey beards, on the other hand, more usually signify racial, ethnic or religious differences; for they remain exceedingly rare among Caucasians.

 

I've had a beard myself for thirty years, because, as I say, I believe shaving to be a questionable custom. My beard was fairly close-cropped - the grade that barbers call 'two' - until my late forties, when I put the trimmer to one side for a while longer. Why did I do this? You might say that I'm conducting a kind of experiment - for example, adolescents experiment with their appearances; I guess that I'm now entering on a second adolescence. After all, I worked hard for my mid-life crisis, and I will not be denied it. Or you might say that I'm experimenting on the society in which I live, insofar as my unusual profile has incited certain . . . well, reactions. As I will show, a large, grey beard is a bottomless fund of entertainment for celebrated wits and humorists - celebrated that is, for their asinine repartee. It is also, I am sure, safe to infer that a large, grey beard makes the hackles rise, and is even seen by some as a sign of moral degeneracy.

 

Please note, I report as faithfully as memory permits i.e., there is no embroidery of any sort: these incidents really did happen to me as I describe them. Clearly they say plenty about me - but I think they say rather more about others.

 

2.        Women Don't Like Beards

Now and then I'm given advice - by men, actually - that 'women don't like beards'. These words are uttered as if they're inscribed on tablets of stone: 'Thou shalt not leave thy chin unrazored'. I wonder that my advisors (they were all bare-faced) don't see what they're implying. Thou shalt not speak on behalf of all menfolk; still less, on behalf of all womenfolk.

 

I'm standing in the pub, minding my own business, drinking a pint while reading the newspaper. To my right, two women are seated. Each time I look up, to think about what I'm reading, while taking another sup, I'm aware they're looking at me, and it seems that I'm the subject of their conversation. Presently they feel a need to explain their scrutiny. I brace myself for the usual imbecilities, but I'm pleasantly surprised - I learn that they were admiring my beard. Their word, 'distinguished', astonishes me.

 

As my reader will shortly appreciate, I am not herein documenting approbatory remarks; otherwise, I might close here. I include this anecdote because, although I cannot say whether these women like beards generally, they at least liked mine. I also knew another woman who liked my beard, during the time it was brown. She would rub her cheek against it, take its hairs between her front teeth, and tug them. Dein Bard is Wonderschön, she would say; for she was German. But that is another story. Anyway, I know of three women who have liked my beard, leaving the other three billion five hundred million four hundred and ninety nine million nine hundred and ninety nine thousand nine hundred and ninety seven unaccounted for.

Let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that most women don't like beards. Why? During intimacy, beards may cause rashes on the female epithelium, and in various places. The prevalence of stubbly pseudo-beards in contemporary society argues against this; indeed, stubble is more problematical than the manly beard, insofar as the hairs jab directly outwards. With the genuine article, the hairs curve round and hang under their own weight, allowing them to approach the inamorata, starboard and port. What other evidence is there, that women don't like beards? In some countries, the proliferation of the hirsute male argues for widespread female approbation. It's just a coincidence I know, but such countries are not renowned for encouraging their womenfolk to have independent opinions about anything, let alone beards. This evidence is therefore inconclusive.

Let's address this from the opposite perspective: women complain, do they not, that men judge them by their bodies, rather than their personalities. In my opinion there is much here to complain about. I wonder though whether attitudes are wholly consistent. Dating websites are quite revealing here. 'I'm looking for a tall man, over six feet, good-looking with nice teeth and definitely no facial hair of any type whatsoever. And he must like me for the kind of person I am.' Men are dreadful body fascists aren't they.

Then there's the anthropological angle. In all apes, males rejoice in facial hair; hence, it seems certain that our nearest common ancestor, say two million years ago, similarly rejoiced. And men continue to rejoice, because, for two million years or so, women have preferred facial hair in their mating choices. Otherwise, beards would've been bred into extinction. That, as evolutionary biologists will tell you, is sexual selection - it is the predilection of the peahen that causes the peacock's encumbrance.

If any female prejudice against beards exists, therefore, it must be culturally driven: in other words, it is not a human universal. Tattoos, for example, are beautifying to the Maoris; whereas in Western culture, where they were long regarded as disfiguring, they are now establishing a large quorum. Cultural context - time and place - matters, especially among fashion victims. Or rather, this is the caprice of fashion.

 

3.        Men Don't Like Beards

I believe that it is men, rather than women, who dislike beards. Correctly, it is the practitioners of facial denudation, who dislike the manly face.

 

I'm walking along, minding my own business. On the opposite side of the road there is a café, outside of which a man is sitting, smoking a cigarette. He suddenly stands up, and starts shouting. The road is wide with heavy traffic, and I'm unsure whether he's shouting at me. I pay little attention, and some seconds pass before my ears distinguish his words from the background noise. I finally realise he is kindly offering me some grooming advice. 'Get a fucking shave!' he shouts. 'Get a fucking shave! Get a fucking shave! Get a fucking shave!' I briefly consider crossing the road, to remonstrate at close quarters, but instead I pass on, while maintaining an exquisite aplomb. I think of Noel Coward's dictum: 'Rise above it! Rise above it!'

 

'Get a fucking shave', it seems to me, puts matters beyond any reasonable doubt - some people view my large, grey beard with insuperable antipathy. As someone of a scientific bent, I must consider why.

There is of course that curious neurological disorder, Tourette's syndrome, sufferers of which blurt obscenities compulsively. There might be a plague of this incurable malady; but I think this explanation can be mostly ruled out. I propose an alternative explanation, namely, instinct. Beneath the thoughts of which we are consciously aware, at a depth inaccessible to our rational selves, our brains know far more than we are cognizant of. Our subconscious moreover tricks us; for we ascribe our decisions, quite falsely, to the conscious process of ratiocination. It is known, for example, that dancers euphemistically described as 'exotic', when at the height of their fertility cycles, receive more tips from their male punters; who are not only unaware they sense this fertility; but also unaware they are worked by the puppeteer of instinct.

 

I am standing outside the building where I work, waiting for a taxi. Another man is also waiting. He has a long, tapering beard; it is not dark-haired, but graphite-grey. I approach him, and we talk about beards. 'My wife says I look like a gnome', he says. I can see what she means, but, even so, if I passed him in the street, I'd keep the thought to myself. He admits he's mocked by strangers for his beard, and on a routine basis. I say, 'some people seem to find large beards provocative'. He nods assent.

 

Facial hair betrays, does it not, the transition from boyhood to manhood. But, once this hallmark of manhood arrives, we are told to remove it - and pronto. To shave, viewed from this primeval standpoint, is to regress to boyhood, or to cross-groom into womanhood. Now, this is unprobematical, if all men follow this strange and unnatural practice. Should, however, a transgressor appear, and parade the hallmark of a man, then the retrogressive boy, on the instinctive level at least, resents it. And so, when men enquire why I adorn my face, and they speak of 'clean shaven' - a phrase which institutionalizes a prejudice - I reply thus: 'Why do you shave? Do you model your face on that of a boy or a woman?'

 

4.        Sent Down for Wrinkles

Excepting teenagers - who wish to buy alcohol, see an 18-rated film or enter a nightclub - contemporary society worships the youthful visage, and we adopt all manner of stratagems to disguise the ageing process. If I understand the advertisements rightly, grey hairs are shameful; lined faces are egregious; and wrinkles will get you sent down three months. Is denying our mortality so important?

 

I enter the ticket office to make my usual purchase. 'Why don't you get a senior railcard?' the man-behind-the-counter asks. 'It'll work out cheaper.' I know why he says this. 'Really?' I ask with dissembled ingenuousness. 'How old are you?' asks the man-behind-the counter. This clumsiness surprises me; especially so, as many travellers are within earshot - to ask someone's age, is a worse affront than calling them a thief. Why didn't he just hand me the application form, and leave it at that? I try to ameliorate the man-behind-the-counter's inevitable embarrassment - but I cannot lie all my way to the railcard, as I'm ineligible for it. 'I'm fifty-three', I say, lying upwards by four years. Complete honesty would be disastrous for the poor man; the fifth decade just embarrassing. The man-behind-the-counter simpers. 'I'm really sorry, please don't take it the wrong way - I thought I could save you some money'. I smile my not-offended smile, and say: 'That's alright - if I was sensitive about my age then I wouldn't have this, would I?', pulling the end of my large, grey beard. The man looks relieved, but not fully so and he laughs nervously. Perhaps my not-offended smile was unconvincing, and he envisages a complaint to his manager.

 

I think we're dealing here with two difficulties that are easily conflated. First, a full beard adds a few years; many have told me that. I'm not fully convinced, but there is probably something to it. When I grew my beard at the age of twenty-five, a fellow student laughed that I now looked 'over forty', as if entering the fourth decade of life was shameful. As I say, this was water-off-the-proverbial to me. Well, at the present time my critic will be over fifty - I wonder how she's handling the disgrace. My second point is that, given the scarcity of beards nowadays, we get little practice in matching age to appearance. It is for these two reasons, presumably, that a barber, offering the 'senior rate', asked me if I was retired, when in fact I was only forty-eight. For reasons already explained I was not mortified; just amused.

 

5.        Bare-Faced Cheek

I receive frequent stares, the predominant motivation for which is, I prefer to believe, curiosity rather than disapproval. Intrepid investigators, I mean the sort who violate 'do not touch' signs, seek tactile confirmation.

 

I am walking through a pedestrian precinct, minding my own business, and a charity worker asks if she might feel my beard. She makes little of it though; with thumb and forefinger, it is over in half a second. Having requested permission, she seems reluctant to use it. She makes no comment; nor is her face at all readable.

 

I am walking along, minding my own business. A drunk weaves towards me and, grasping each side of my beard, laughs alcohol vapour in my face. 'You're like me old dad', he says. He is the jovial sort of sot; I am his best friend in the whole wide world.

 

I am sitting in a pub, reading a newspaper and minding my own business. A man passing by my table stops, leans forward and takes my beard's tip between thumb and forefinger. Our faces are twelve inches apart: I look directly into his eyes, while his eyes examine my beard. His face is expressionless and unreadable. The fondling lasts several seconds; he then breaks off abruptly and, saying nothing, disappears into the pub, walking soberly. I expect to see him return to his audience, all laughing appreciatively at his 'dare'; but no-one is watching.

 

'You don't just go around touching people without permission', said my friend the next day, exasperated at my inaction. I said, 'some people believe it quite acceptable to place their hands on a pregnant woman's distended abdomen'. He sighed again, exasperatedly. 'If anyone did that to my wife I'd have a serious problem with it.'

That I did not bat away the man's hand, had nothing to do with timidity. To explain my inaction would require extensive thought, but partly it was my pacific temperament; and partly my impression that he intended no demeanment, indeed, his scrutiny seemed scientific.

I am unable to keep my own fingers from my beard, especially when thinking or reading; this behaviour contributes to its disarray. For those who know me well, the manner in which I play with my beard probably reveals my mood. Although I have no evidence for such, I am almost certainly lampooned for this practice, behind my back.

This reminds me of my first job. It was an office whimsy that a certain colleague's huge, black beard and his deep-learning, were in some way associated, if not exactly cause-and-effect. When one enquired into the abstruseness of Fast Fourier Transforms, he would, saying nothing at first, twirl the hairs around his forefinger, while trawling through his mental treasure house. Are large beards to wisdom, what Samson's hair was to strength? There is something in this associativity, at least insofar as knowledge is accreted through time (for those who take care to accrete it), and, unlike tomato plants, beards cannot be forced in a greenhouse. I have it on good authority that Charles Darwin, before he grew his large, grey beard, was quite unable to spell 'evolution', still less enunciate its driving mechanism, natural selection.

 

6.        When in Rome

Facial hair has oscillated in fashionability, in accordance with its variable associations: maturity, religiosity, intellectuality, conformity and . . . erm, nonconformity. In one era, beards are conformist (high Victorianism); in another, they're countercultural (the 1960s). The things society considers 'respectable' changes over the years i.e., respectability is a mutable concept; but what it's really about, is whether you conform to prevailing social norms.  Or, as W.H. Auden put it,

 

Law is neither wrong nor right,

Law is only crimes

Punished by places and by times

In contemporary society, most men cleave their facial epidermis daily - why must I dissent? My behaviour underscores the distinction between difference on the inside and difference on the outside. Moreover, the two are linked - what do those long, grey hairs on my outside, say about me on the inside? Our appearance, after all, is the way we express our personality. You see, it's not about a man's appearance per se, but what that appearance tells you about him, as a person. A man is judged, not by who he really is, but by who he appears to be. The problem is this: you judge him, as a person, according to your interpretation of his exterior; this should not be confused with his self-image. In other words, we should guard against our tendency to make false assumptions.

I learn that I've been subjected to obloquy; the term used was 'oddball'. Although we are total strangers, my critic has nonetheless decided that he dislikes me. The grounds are not wide-ranging; in fact, the charge-sheet mentions only one infraction - my large, grey beard. Disconcerted, I laugh it off: 'I'm an oddball for far surer reasons than a mere beard', I say. But the description sounds defamatory nonetheless, and so I check my dictionary: I'm told that 'oddball' and 'eccentric' are effectively synonyms.

Whatever lexicographers might advise, words are freighted with unspoken cultural baggage. For various reasons I hold my hands up to 'eccentric', guilty as charged your honour, but, in my own mind at least, 'oddball' connotes disapproval; indeed, it is close cousin to 'wierdo'. I was sent down for hirsute dissent, pure and simple. How frequently am I condemned in absentia? When you're running a business you should listen carefully to a complaint, not because of that particular customer, but because ten dissatisfied customers have not complained. It is as well, therefore, to consider the size of my unapplauding audience. This incident was epiphanal: when I realised that I'm thought less of, merely because of my large, grey beard. My critic, though, as it turned out, conceived his dislike for reasons not germane to this essay; my beard was incidental. When we like a man, we overlook his idiosyncrasies, deeming them harmlessly eccentric; yet when we dislike him, we bolster our prejudices with those very same idiosyncrasies.

Curiously, dissent is found in conformist avenues. Conformist dissent encompasses: tattoos, piercings, dyed hair and pony-tails (on men, of course). To treat one's body as a canvass, or as a pin cushion, is surely more extreme. Have I injured you in any way? I'm not doing you any harm by growing a large, grey beard, so why can't you just leave me alone? I didn't ask hairs to grow from my chin - they've done that quite naturally since adolescence. It's something a man's body just does. Why do you leave that woman alone, the one with the bright pink hair? There are several men at work with pony-tails, and who escape censure. If you keep your pony-tail on the front of your face, that's somehow different . . . I am nagged by a suspicion that some folks are quite unhappy with my large, grey beard, even though it's on my face and not theirs. Do those long hairs jutting from my chin matter so much?

Returning to my question, what can be safely inferred about me, as a person, from my large, grey beard? There's the rub. Remember, it's not so much about the beard, as what it represents. I can only be an 'oddball', if the necessary preconditions are something like the following: I'm not a slave to cultural norms; I'm master of my own mind; I'm unafraid to have my own opinions; I'm not culturally conditioned; I won't be bullied. In all of these things I plead, 'Guilty as charged, your honour.'

 

7.        Having a walk, are we, granddad?

Since growing my large, grey beard, young women are friendlier - that is to say, they smile readily, and without encouragement. I originally ascribed this change to my harmless grandfatherly appearance i.e., I am no longer a sexual predator who must be 'fended off'; hence, young women can afford a smile without worrying I'll get the wrong idea.

But now I've come to suspect that more is afoot.

Let's imagine an elderly man out for his evening stroll, supported by his walking stick. Let's also imagine that, while strolling, he meets an impetuous youth. 'Having a walk, are we, granddad?' says the impetuous youth. Now, this is interesting because they are not both having a walk; for, when the youth said 'we', what he meant was 'you'. The elderly man has, therefore, inexplicably passed from the second person singular to the first person plural. It's also a little puzzling because the impetuous youth is not the elderly man's grandson - in fact, they're not even related! The explanation is precisely this: the condescension of youth - which is, after all, the reward for a long life.

 

I'm walking along, minding my own business. I come to a bus stop, and sense that I'm being stared at. Turning to look, I see a teenage girl. I observe her facial expression - it is the one all women's faces assume when they look at a new-born baby, or possibly a teddy-bear. She'd like to tickle me under my chin, and say 'coo-chi-coo!'

 

This, possibly, elucidates an experience from my early career that puzzled me at the time - it happened to me in Germany, where there's more facial fur than here - although the vogue's more for moustaches than beards. There was this engineer with a black, humungous beard - easily twelve inches long, well-nourished and lustrous, even, curling gracefully. As we entered the lift, I made some appreciative remark about his lustrous exuberance. He nodded grudgingly, while studiously avoiding eye contact - no conversation would be struck up. Why was this? Today I have an inkling. Perhaps he'd had a gutful of 'Aw!', 'Cute!' or 'Bless!' (The German equivalents, of course). Perhaps he found it tiresome, not to be taken seriously; of being applauded for his 'cuteness'. Is it not a presumption to suppose that a man wishes to discuss his personal grooming habits with you?

There are the approving remarks, the tone of which reveals them as pseudo-approval. We needn't take a middle-aged man seriously as a middle-aged man, if he has a large, grey beard. Or rather, we should take him just about as seriously as we would Andy Pandy, Rupert the Bear or the Flowerpot men. (Or the Teletubbies, to bring matters up to date - but then my beard is grey, after all. Or Cbeebies.) It is for this reason that, when I walk into shops or restaurants, I resent some of the smiles. They are genuine smiles through and through; but they are smiles of condescension.

 

I go into a pub, and see a man sitting at the bar talking to the barmaid. The man looks at me, then turns and says something to the barmaid. The barmaid looks at me, then back at the man. I cannot hear what passed between them, but for reasons I will come to, I have an excellent idea. The barmaid walks toward me, smiling her condescension. It is a welcoming smile, but the wrong type of welcome. It says, 'Aw, look at the old boy with the large, grey beard. He's so cute!'

 

8.        Worse than being talked about

In The Portrait of Dorian Grey, Oscar Wilde writes: 'there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.' I beg to differ.

I am walking along, minding my own business, and pass a pub outside of which there are tables, at which several customers are sitting. At one of the tables I see a man and woman. The woman looks at me, turns to speak to the man, then they both look at me. I cannot hear what passes between them, but their faces betray its amusing character.

I am in a shopping precinct, on the descending escalator. Below me on the same escalator I see two men, one of whom happens to look up at me. He turns to his companion, then they both look up at me. I cannot hear the comment, but I perceive it was amusing.

A man with a beardy bane is no stranger to pointed fingers. We've all been in a restaurant, say, and your companion wishes to comment on another diner, and so he says to you, 'Don't turn round now, but that man over there . . .' Your companion does not say, 'Hey - that man over there', because then you'll look round immediately, out of reflex, there'll be two pairs of eyes bearing down on the man, and he'll know you're talking about him. You don't want that, partly because he'll feel uncomfortable, but mostly because you'll feel embarrassed. You don't want the impropriety, so you converse discretely. You might also say that you respect the man.

I'm possibly more attuned to this, because I grew up with disability in the family. You're in a park, say, and there are two strangers on a bench nearby. One of them looks at you, moves his head closer to his companion, or gives a nudge, then they both look at you. More to the point, they notice that you've noticed, but they're quite open about it - there's no 'shush – he can hear you'. They're not embarrassed in any way that you've noticed, because there's clearly no reason why they should take you seriously. You're unworthy of their respect, after all.

The small child might say loudly to her mother on the bus, 'Hasn't that lady got fat legs?!' We expect ingenuousness in the young. And so I don't fault the littlest children - it's in their nature to stare at anything new or unusual like large, grey beards; their range of experience is so narrow. But when you've accumulated some maturity, you ought to know better. The curious are happy conversing about me, even though I'm within earshot - and they needn't worry that they're depriving me of my dignity, for I already did that to myself: by growing a large, grey beard!

 

I'm walking along, minding my own business. There are five chavs - erm, I mean young gentlemen - twenty yards to my left. One of them looks at me, turns back to the others, and then they all turn to look. They amble off, turning back to look at me on two or three more occasions. I listen carefully, but the only word I can make out is 'fuck'. It is uttered several times. These yoofs just don't give a toss what I fink innit.

 

A formerly well-known term of deprecation appears in novels written fifty or more years ago. I refer to the passages in which the mother says, 'I don't want you playing with that boy - he's common'. I used to laugh at this - today we know so much better; we're as anti-snobbish, as our forebears were snobbish. And yet, after I grew my large, grey beard, I realised what 'common' really means in this context.

9.        The Hardest Thing

Whenever I go about, minding my own business, it is not rare to find myself the object of certain, well, 'remarks'. I have this advertisement on my chin, you see, the neon lighting that says: please mock me. It is a public license or invitation; one that exculpates the vulgar, and indemnifies the crass. These remarks - some might call them 'witticisms' - are of three types: those made to others that I am not expected to overhear (90%); those only ostensibly made to others, for it is intended that I'll overhear (8%); and those made directly to me (2%).

 

I am taking my lunchtime constitutional at work, minding my own business. Several men approach me from the opposite direction: from their scrutiny of me, and from humour evidently passing between them, I know that I'm being talked about. As we pass one another, one of them studies my face while smiling. It is not a friendly smile. He has seen something silly; something he need not take seriously.

 

In this case I failed to make out the comments, but, as I will indicate in due course, I had an excellent idea of their nature. I overhear many remarks solely because I know what to expect, and I listen out for them.

The same remarks may be divided otherwise: offence intended (2%); no offence intended (98%). The first category presents no ambiguity; but my mind wages continual civil war about the second: a remark should not be taken 'the wrong way', but despite long staring, the face in the mirror refuses to become a 'joke'. Offence is a curious thing: when the avowed intention is inoffensive, and the object of the remark even understands this, he may find it offensive nonetheless.

I remember the first time I saw a remark 'taken the wrong way': I was with my grandfather in the local park, when we approached a council workman sweeping the litter up. As the workman swept, my grandfather enquired of him: 'How long does it take you to get from Horsforth to Tadcaster?' The workman responded with oaths and execrations, and I enlarged my youthful vocabulary accordingly; but the lesson was more than lexical, for my grandfather's joke was, to him, innocuous and light-hearted; whereas the sweeper, on the other hand, perceived himself mocked and demeaned. We might imagine, for example, a highly skilled artisan in the Leeds textile trade, made unemployed by new technology, and forced to make a living in an unskilled capacity. The lesson being, that we cannot know the spirit in which a man will receive our witticism, because we have not walked around in his shoes.

As for the genuine wind-ups and put-downs, it is a mistake to engage. I received a salutary lesson here as a teenager, when I responded angrily to a comment by a girl in my class. She was not horrified at offending me: rather, she turned to her friends and they all laughed. She had fully intended to provoke me, and in responding angrily, I gave her the feedback she sought. And so I prefer to present, as it were, a highly-polished surface, lacking all convenient footholds or anchor-points. I respond, rather, as if I've heard nothing, because I am completely deaf. This strategy draws its effectiveness from what the wind-up artist most desires, namely, evidence that their remark has struck home. They salivate for their cheese cake, and there is no better way of punishing them, than by snatching it away. Paradoxically this strategy is always the hardest to pull off, as what you would like most of all, is to tell them to 'fuck off'.

 

10.      So here it is, Merry Christmas

When confronted with an unusual sight, we search our minds for something analogous - to establish a cultural mooring, as it were. That is to say, we rationalise the unfamiliar by referencing it to something we know. While sociologists doubtless have their argot, I shall call this a 'cultural reference'. I will not cite all instances of the commonest cultural reference for a large, grey beard - that would tax my reader's patience. What follows is just an inkling.

 

I'm walking along, minding my own business. A car passes me, from inside of which I overhear someone exclaim 'Santa Claus!'

 

I'm walking along, minding my own business. A car passes me, and the driver starts tooting. Toot, toot, toot! Toot, toot, toot! A child leans out of the open window and shouts at me: 'Santa Claus!' I realise it is the same car that passed me in the same neighbourhood two weeks previously. Toot! Toot! went the driver. I thought it was someone I knew. But I did not recognise the car, nor could I see into it. Now I realise, it is the same driver encouraging the children to demean me. I entertain a fantasy in which the car comes to a halt, and I kick the wing mirror off.

 

I'm in a pub, standing at the bar. Across the connecting passageway, I see a man standing at the opposite bar. The man looks at me, and I overhear him mutter 'Santa Claus'.

 

I'm walking along, minding my own business. A middle-aged man and a woman are approaching. As I turn into a side street, I overhear the woman say 'Santa Claus'.

 

I'm sitting in a restaurant, minding my own business - it is late December. A large group stands up to leave; it seems to consist of two families. The two men are the last to file out. One of them looks at me, and says something to the other I cannot hear. The other then says, 'same joke every year'. I briefly consider going over to them and saying, with due Anglo-Saxon emphasis, that it's not every year I get that remark, but rather every week.

 

I'm walking along, minding my own business. I come to a group of children, one of whom taps me on the wrist and says something, looking up at me. I am wearing my earpieces, so I take them out. He repeats the question: 'Are you Santa Claus?' The boy, around ten years of age, is a precocious piss-taker; for his face is beautifully composed: a masterpiece of faux-naiveté; a study in cherubic ingenuousness. I briefly consider asking him 'Are you fucking retarded?', but instead I replace my earpieces and pass on without comment.

 

The sole prerequisite here, would appear to be greyness: the first, isolated, solitary grey hair, peeking out from a dark thicket fifteen years ago, offered sufficient grounds for this allusion. Length is unimportant: I was targeted, even while my beard was still close-cropped; indeed, according to an acquaintance, grey stubble will alone suffice. It is more correct to say that, the longer the hairs in my beard, the more frequent the Christmassy jollifications. Nor should it be misunderstood, that yuletide is the necessary corollary: when a man has a large, grey beard, then it becomes Christmas every day, although, unlike in the well-known ditty, I do not wish it. This lazy levity is not, even, any more populous in December. The world's Einsteins will have their trite epithet, won't they? Ho, ho, ho! My concern here, is that they'll leave their McJobs before they're quite ready for the stage; before they're fully-fledged stand-ups. 'I say, I say, I say, my dog's got no nose.' Ha, ha, ha! He, he, he! Ho, ho, ho! What kind of iron says "oink oink'? Pig iron. What do policeman put in their sandwiches? Truncheon meat. Ho, ho, ho.

I have thought lengthily about why this comparison annoys me so much. I claim various reasons: it is demeaning; it is ignorant; it is glib; it is unoriginal; it is trite; it is intellectually vapid. A mind as unimaginative as it is uncreative, believes itself imaginative and creative: is not this a vexing spectacle? For the moment, let us consider triteness. How many times must we tell a gag, before it becomes funny? I found this comparison to Santa Claus tiresome the first time I heard it, and also the hundredth; after several hundred repetitions, it's not grown any funnier. Why, I even suspect that it will never be funny! To say, 'that's more than an armful', to the nurse in the blood bank, is not to claim any originality. Everyone who says it, though, finds it achingly funny; only the nurse, you see, has heard it a zillion times. (The same is true of the pianist who plays all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order). And, unlike the Santa-Claus-to-a-man-with-a-grey-beard, the armful-joke was devised by a creative and original mind. On a radio program, a disabled person remarked how many frightfully witty people there are. 'I do hope you've got a driving license for that', says the frightfully witty person to the wheelchair's occupant. After several thousand million zillion billion times, the 'joke' is not getting any funnier.

I entertain a delicious fantasy that I would like to share with you. I go into a restaurant, and overhear a witty diner on a nearby table say about me: 'Santa Claus'. As usual this witticism is greeted with laughter down the shirt sleeve. Well, I calmly go over to the table, sit myself down and say, 'That looks nice', before helping myself to the food. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' says the witty diner. (He has a monopoly on being offended, by the way.) 'I'm getting myself something to eat', I say. 'Who on earth do you think you are?' he shouts. I reply coolly, 'You already know who I am.' 'No I don't!' shouts the man, pushing me from his food. 'Yes you do', I say. 'You identified me correctly when I walked in.' 'What the hell do you mean?' asks the man, growing still more irate. I say, 'You identified me as Santa Claus. And I think you're being a bit ungrateful, if I may say so. I don't just work one day in the year, you know. I spend the entire year getting the Christmas presents together, and the least you can do is give me something to eat. Ho, ho, ho!' The man jumps up threateningly, and I say 'Hey! Hey! Hey! Don't take the piss if you can't take the piss! Ho, ho, ho! He, he, he! Ha, ha, ha!'' I'd then be taken seriously at least, rather than as a joke.

 

11.      Dumb Britain

Private Eye's column 'Dumb Britain' documents amusingly ignorant answers given to banal questions on game shows. The Weakest Link is fecund. Ann Robinson: 'The adjective Rubenesque, meaning a plump, voluptuous woman, is derived from the work of which seventeenth-century artist?' Contestant: 'Aretha Franklin'. Alternatively, we might have the following. Question: 'A scientist with a large, grey beard appears on the ten-pound bank note; who is he?' Answer: 'Santa Claus'.

 

I get off the local bus and walk down the street, minding my own business. Another passenger has also disembarked, and walks behind me at a distance of ten feet or so. As he follows me, the man begins whistling. The melody is well-known, as are the lyrics. ♫♫♫ 'Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Oh! What fun it is to ride, in a one-horse open sleigh.' ♫♫♫.^[1] There is a summer heatwave, but it is still Noel. I do not turn round.

 

To interpret the 'texts' of everyday life (e.g., a speech, a radio or television commentary, a passage in a book, an article in a magazine or newspaper, a joke we are told in the pub), it is not sufficient to know the dictionary meanings of words; we must also understand numerous allusions. For example: 'Rommel was a jazz fan, because in the desert he kept asking "Wes Montgomery?".' Now, to this statement I bring the following referents. (a) Rommel means Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. (b) Montgomery means General Bernard Montgomery. (c) Rommel and Montgomery led opposing forces in the Second World War. (d) The opposing forces were German and British. (e) The desert was in North Africa. (f) Wes Montgomery was a jazz guitarist. While all referents are not essential, the joke cannot be comprehended without knowing several of them.

To navigate our way successfully through life, we must know many referents - lots and lots of them. We use them all the time; and, a little scarily, we are unaware of doing so. The educationalist E.D. Hirsch coined the term 'cultural literacy' for these referents. A culturally literate person understands allusions or references to past events, idiomatic expressions, names and places. A culturally literate person knows that 'gate', when tagged onto a scandal, derives from Watergate i.e. the Nixon presidency. A culturally literate person knows that television schedules are to be found in the Radio Times. A culturally literate person knows that income tax is not assessed by turf accountants. A culturally literate person knows that Scotland Yard is not in Scotland.

What are your cultural references for men with large, grey beards? The historical record is replete: writers, poets, artists, composers, scientists, philosophers, intellectuals, etc., etc., etc. Whenever I visit the V&A^[2], which the culturally literate are wont to do, I am assailed by depictions of large, grey beards. Why, we all carry one such depiction in our very own pockets! Every week I visit the ATM^[3] and withdraw ten, equally-sized pictures which I use to conduct financial transactions. Why does Santa Claus appear on the ten-pound banknote? It must be Santa Claus because he has a large, grey beard!

My large, grey beard forms an unusual profile I admit - but unusual only in contemporary society. And so, when a comic genius sees my large, grey beard; resolves to mock me for it; ransacks his head for a cultural reference; and only finds that scarlet buffoon, then he's revealing rather a lot about his cultural literacy; for he lives his life on the cultural meniscus. Who was George Orwell, exactly? Was he a contestant on 'Big Brother'? Who was Winston Churchill, exactly? Did he sell car insurance? Who was Duke Ellington, exactly? Was he the general who defeated Napoleon? Who was Martin Luther, exactly? Was he the American civil rights activist? Life is perplexing when you're ignorant of your culture's heritage, be it scientific, literary, artistic or intellectual.

Welcome to Dumb Britain.

 

12.      Brad Pitt Does It

There are few absolutes, as the culturally literate already appreciate; much is mutable. Role models are key, in transmuting naff baseness into modish gold. It looks utterly absurd until a pop star, actor-luvvie, or single-cell sportsman goes about like that. A woman in trousers was once deeply shocking; now they are everywhere and no-one notices; the trail-blazers were doubtless censured, but Marlene Dietrich and Katharine Hepburn undoubtedly helped them. When Clark Gable revealed his vestless chest in It Happened One Night (1934), he demolished the male underwear industry. And when Bruce Willis saved the world (several times) wearing a vest, he rehabilitated this garment for tough guys. Clothes have no intrinsic property - what matters, is who wears them. As yet, there are no celebrities to tell us that large, grey beards are okay.

I enter a railway station and head for the ticket office. As I approach, the two officials behind the counter scrutinise me and exchange mumbles. When I reach the counter I ask if they were talking about me, with as much nonchalance as I can muster, for I expect a reference to . . . well, you know who. 'We think you look like a sheriff', one of them says. I am wearing my Panama hat, not a ten-gallon; but for once I feel undemeaned. I am unware of any Westerns with a large, grey-bearded Sheriff. The re-make of True Grit has just appeared, but Jeff Bridge's beard is extremely modest. I now realise that to some, a large, grey beard might signify a tough guy: that is, a 'lumbersexual'.

I am leaving work, minding my own business. As I walk past the smoking shelter, someone shouts: 'Captain Birdseye!'

I am in an underground station, waiting on the platform and minding my own business. When the train arrives I get on, but someone a few yards away begins shouting 'Gandalf!' He does this several times, laughing uproariously. He gets into another carriage.

I am walking along, minding my own business. Two men approach; they appear lubricated. I overhear one of them say, 'Fuckin' 'ell, it's Forrest Gump!' This analogy is culturally speaking semi-literate, for Forrest Gump's beard is intensely brown, not grey at all.

Grayson Perry cross-dresses; Eddie Izzard wears lipstick; Russell Brand models himself on a dog's dinner. Celebrities aim for distinctness: this is their 'gimmick'; their 'brand'; society gives them this license, on account of their fame and money. And it helps, if you travel by private limousines rather than public transport. There are footballers, pop stars and other celebrities with pony-tails, tattoos and piercings, so these are alright. There are no celebrities with large, grey beads; so these are not alright.

I am in a restaurant, minding my own business, sitting at the bar with a glass of beer while my table is prepared. In the far corner a large and noisy group is just leaving; from which a man detaches himself, sidles up and takes the neighbouring seat, uninvited; for he clearly aims to speak to me. I am unsanguine about his likely topic, and I brace myself for another tedious cultural referent. He surprises me, however - at least initially.  'You remind me of William Lee Golden', he says. This name is unfamiliar to me; for there are indeed nooks of cultural illiteracy in my own mind. He informs me: William Lee Golden is a singer with the Oak Ridge Boys, a country and western band that hails from Tennessee. What prompted this comparison, pray? I have not been singing 'Boot Scootin' Boogie'. No: instead, the man makes the beard sign and declares that I'm facially analogous. Since he shows originality, and I find the comparison undemeaning, I resolve to indulge him.  I hold that a gentleman is always polite, even when faced with rudeness; but this credo surely has its limits. That day I have already met several wits, jesters, humourists and sundry entertainers, all keen to impress with me their original and creative references to reindeer, sleighs and the like. Consequently, when I hear the country and western fan utter the word 'Santa', the dam breaks and I unleash a splenetic rumpus.  'You know, you people are a bloody nuisance' I say. 'I go into a pub or restaurant - Santa Claus. I go into a shop - Santa Claus. I get on a bus or train - Santa Claus. All I'm doing is walking down the bloody street, minding my own business - Santa Claus. Sometimes I can't even set foot outside my own home without hearing it! Santa Claus! Santa Claus! Santa Claus! Shit, it may be June or July, but hey, Merry Christmas - we've got a man here with a large, grey beard, after all! I tell you what, have a fucking good look out of that window - maybe I left my sleigh outside! Spring, summer, autumn, winter - every fucking day of the year's Christmas when you've got a large, grey beard. You lot never think to yourself, do you, that possibly, just possibly, just maybe, a man of my age has heard Santa Claus already! No. And if you thought about it a little bit more, you might realise, just possibly, just maybe, that a man of my age has heard it a million fucking times - and it gets FUCKING BORING!'. During this time the barmaid smiles, half amused and half embarrassed. The country and western fan, now cowed, apologises several times during my remonstrance; but by now I'm unstoppable. 'This', I say, pointing to my facial appendage, 'is not a big sign saying "take the piss!" My appearance is not a fucking joke.' The man is contrite and offers me a drink; this propitiation I refuse, but he buys it anyway. 'I just wanted to talk to you', he simpers, but I'm unplacated. 'I don't want to talk to you', I say, 'I want you to fuck off!'

The festive analogy reveals strange priorities in the psychology of the dunderhead. Santa Claus has a huge, white beard, rather like William Lee Golden's, as it happens; and so my own effort, which is grey and more modest, strains the analogy somewhat. Santa Claus is also portly. I have acquired an abdominal tyre, this is true, but one better suited to a bicycle rather than a truck; I still qualify for 'svelte hirsute'. And yet, when the dunderhead spots obesity in the street, he never chortles 'Santa Claus'. Finally, Santa Claus's crimson suit is edged with fluffy frippery, a style in which my wardrobe is not over-endowed. Again, the dunderhead, when he sees a man in a red shirt, never guffaws. All in all, these differences highlight an imperfect basis for comparison; and so my tormentors, shall we say, are lacking a little in acuity; but to conceive other, less specious epithets, would exceed the powers of their fecund imaginations.

The actor Brian Blessed, who's long sported a big beard, is now in his eighth decade; but while grey upstairs, his beard remains deeply dark; this is clearly an artifice. Why might he colour his beard, and only his beard? If Brian Blessed encounters dunderheads with the frequency I do, then one particular speculation leaps readily to my mind. Similarly, when the actor Richard Griffiths played Falstaff^[4] and so grew a large, grey beard, he described arriving in the US. The immigration official saw the desperate need for a good 'joke', but, being a dunderhead, his preferred role model was neither Falstaff nor William Lee Golden. The only thing to say in defence of the immigration dunderhead, is that Richard Griffiths was almost spherical; but I doubt that his obesity provoked the analogy.

13.      The Ten Commandments

When I lived in South Carolina, at yuletide I'd drive by road-side hoardings carrying two images side-by-side; one of Christ, the other of . . .well, you know who; above which there'd be a question, 'Whose Christmas is it, anyway?' When Martians or other aliens make yuletide peregrinations to our planet, the perplexity they feel may be imagined. If we're really celebrating the birth of Christ, if this time of the year is truly the fulcrum of Christianity, then why is the crimson oaf everywhere we turn? He shows up every year, within five minutes of the trick-or-treaters. At Christmas we celebrate the three wise men, the shepherds, and the baby Santa.

 

I walk to the local shop, minding my own business, and must pass through the usual phalanx of ne'er-do-wells . . . erm, I mean, teenage ladies and gentlemen. When I pass them I hear 'Jesus' said two or three times. It is muttered, but loudly enough so that I'll overhear. I ignore this. I enter the shop, make my purchase and leave. Passing the same audience, I again hear 'Jesus' muttered. Again, I make like I haven't heard. I'm now about twenty yards away, and one of them bellows out, 'Jesus!' It is audible several streets away. I ignore it, and walk on. I hear laughter; it sounds derisive.

 

I am walking along, minding my own business. Three teenagers are sitting on the grass about fifty yards distant. I am well past them, though, when the boy shouts 'Jesus!' I do not turn around. He shouts it two or three times, the last when I'm a good one hundred yards away. The boy is desperate that I turn and look, so that he might grin at the two girls, and bask in their admiring looks; for he knows his humour to be truly exquisite.

 

I am walking along, minding my own business, when I pass by the local park, where a group of teenage boys are playing football. They stop playing and begin shouting. 'Jesus!' 'Jesus!' 'Jesus!' 'Jesus!' 'Jesus!' 'Jesus!' It is shouted around a dozen times, along with much hilarity, in the hope that I'll turn and look at them; but I do not.

 

All teenagers - ladies as well as gentlemen - possess a common aim: to be treated as adults. And what is their strategy for accomplishing this? It is to mock anyone who looks different. In my locality this is vocational training - for adulthood, that is.

These remarks are made to 'get a reaction', a pleasure which I deny them. As I say elsewhere, the humorist seeks confirmation that you're amused, or, better still, that you're riled. Nowadays though I evade the park, because refusing to engage will not necessarily solve this problem. Name-calling steals your dignity: it is the first stepping stone in antisocial behaviour; following which sterner measures are adopted. If I fail to satisfy them, that I find their humour of the highest order, they may obstruct my path, or search the ground for suitable projectiles. A man proceeding through a public area and minding his own business must not be allowed to pass unmolested, if he looks different.

How might a man with a large, grey beard, be Santa Claus as well as Jesus? The culturally illiterate seldom examine their own minds with sufficient rigour to discover inconsistencies. I admit, of course, that Jesus reveals a spark of originality; it is refreshing, for a time, to divest myself of those red robes. There is a problem, though, in that Jesus went to Calvary in his early thirties; and consequently, when hirsuitely portrayed, which he is sometimes, his beard is dark-haired. Still, I am not overly surprised that teenagers hereabouts mistake the Old Testament for the New. It was Jesus, they insist, who led the Jews out of Egypt; and it was Moses, they equally insist, who was crucified.

 

14.      Can you keep a secret?

In a Monty Python sketch, someone is being interviewed for a job with the secret service. 'Can you keep a secret?' the interviewer asks.

 

I'm walking along, minding my own business, and enter the local market where, while I browse, a man looks at me. 'Are you a terrorist?' he asks. I just say 'no' and laugh slightly, half-forced. He passes on. The exchange is at least friendly.

 

I'm returning from Canada, and on the flight talk lengthily with the woman sitting next to me. She says, casually and in passing, 'You look like a terrorist'. This is drollery (presumably); but our conversation is sober though; I glean no sense of humour in her, certainly not of the ironical or desiccated variety.

 

While these remarks were (presumably) made with tongue against cheek, here is a pet theory of mine - if I were swarthy, if I appeared to hail from the Middle East, India or Pakistan, I'd no longer be a dartboard. It would be, 'That's fine - it's his culture or religion or whatever.' Were I to be verbally abused, moreover, strangers would take offence on my behalf, and pounce on my detractor: 'That's not right! No! Stop right there!! You need to buck your ideas up; otherwise you'll be in serious trouble, m'lad!' I've clearly been subjected to remarks that would nowadays be deemed legally actionable, were I a member of any racial group other than 'white British'. I entertain a hypothesis that, were I to visit a theatrical shop, or some other purveyor of skin-darkening pigment, and swarthy-up myself, I'd evade the attention of beardist dunderheads. On the other hand, the complexions of many Middle Eastern or North Africans would pass for 'white European'; and their beards would attract, presumably, beardist witticisms. Yes, it's open season on white men with large, grey beards: 'Look at that! The things I see when I ain't got my gun!' This behaviour, it seems to me, is racism in reverse; but without bothering to look in the rear-view mirror.

An acquaintance of mine, a teacher, converted to Islam and grew a large beard. He worked in a mostly white school, where it's the coolest thing for pupils to compete in mocking the teacher, and quite openly. Any distinguishing feature will do: a large beard's unusual on a white guy, and remember you're only giving him what he's asking for anyway. But then my acquaintance moved to another school, where the children were mainly of Asian extraction, and they associated large beards with wisdom and spirituality. That's cultural conditioning for you.

I am at a conference, talking to a professor during the coffee break. We edge up to the subject of 'diversity', meaning respect for the values of others. 'I know this maths lecturer, he says. 'He's got tattoos and piercings all over his face. If you saw him in the local park you'd just think he was a vagrant.' 'I see this from the opposite perspective', I reply. 'It's a real chore having a large, grey beard - so many people see my appearance as a joke, and believe they're entitled to get some fun out of it. You know what; I get "Santa Claus!" every week, on average. Every single, bloody week.' I hold my forefinger up, and start jabbing it. 'No exceptions; every bloody week. Santa Claus. Every single bloody week, without fail.' The professor mentions an academic we both know of, who has just taken a post at a Middle Eastern university. 'You could try that', says the professor. 'You'd have no problems whatever. None at all - your beard would be seen as entirely normal', he says, slowly waiving his forefinger in reassurance.

According to the BBC documentary Sandhurst, beards in the British Army are forbidden by diktat - unless, that is, a soldier's religious persuasion argues otherwise. Soldier A is denied a beard; Soldier B is permitted a beard; but neither need feel in any way discriminated against, because they're equal under the regulations. Ain't it the truth, sometimes we're equal when treated the same; and sometimes we're equal when treated differently.

Beardy religions besides Islam are less obvious in the UK. At Charing Cross Station I espied a free-flowing, black appendage descending to a Sikh's belt buckle. Sikh beards, he told me, are not necessarily reigned in; but tend to be so, to avoid encumbrance. The Sikh's turban, though, vitiates references to sleighs, jingle bells, etc., as does the distinctive garb of the Hasidic Jew. From a radio program I learned that, when Orthodox priests live in the UK, they trim back their humungous shrubs and severely so. The phrase used was, 'to fit in'; but in actuality, I suppose, they prefer to stay under the humorist's radar. (A friend of Greek extraction, on the other hand, assures me that ecclesiastical fashion is also responsible). I'd never venture a waist-length beard of my own, for fear I'd be found dead in a ditch.

15.      A somewhat weed-strewn lawn

The surveyor's report referred rather dismissively to the 'somewhat weed-strewn lawn'. I bought the house anyway; I have no time for that immaculately manicured verdure. Nature should be gently encouraged; not whipped and scourged. There is also the labour: several hours of grooming per week, I can use more profitably elsewhere. A lawn that's not too bad, is easier to maintain.

In those Hollywood portraits, say, of Cary Grant, Errol Flynn and Clark Gable, every hair is brilliantined into line, either side of a ram-rod parting, and within a precision-cut hairline - suggesting the finest of machine tools. Are today's men scruffy, when they give freedom to their hair's natural dispositions, or is fashion a capricious changeling? What, prey, is 'unkemptness'?

 

I arrive at work and take the escalator to the first floor. As I ascend, a man descends on the neighbouring escalator. He is immaculately dressed and groomed. When his eyes alight on me, a bolt of electricity jolts his body. I am unnerved by his evident incredulity, disapproval and disdain - outrage, even. We break eye contact. I say nothing, as he might be one of the top managers.

 

My own face assumes this expression - whenever I find a saucepan that's not been washed up properly: if bits of dried-on porridge are stuck to it, for example. This saucepan has no business, lurking in the cupboard reserved for clean saucepans - it should join the unwashed saucepans. The dandy on the escalator held notions about saucepans: I had no business lurking among well-groomed men. I must self-groom according to his notions, not mine. Chin-hairs are undoubtedly problematical for grooming zealots: they have their own ideas; they are free-born; they are unruly; you may encourage, but never command them; for they are weed-strewn lawns. Better that they are hewed down every morning, than end up with a weed-strewn face.

When I grew my large, grey beard, I fought the voice within me that said 'scruffy', because I recognised cultural conditioning. This, more obviously, applies to stubble. In black-and-white celluloid, whenever a man is disreputable or sleazy, whenever he's a blackmailer, an alcoholic or has slept rough, etc., he's unshaven. Such a man was lazy; he was a bum; he was scruffy; he'd let himself go. In the 1960s Richard Nixon lost the election because of his five-o'clock shadow, so it is said. If a man didn't shave every morning with religious zeal, then he wasn't bothered about his appearance; and if he wasn't bothered about his appearance, then he couldn't be trusted to do his job properly. Then, in the 1980s, George Michael went about like that; stubble was now hip; it was snazzy; it was in. Men arrive at work today unshaven, or meet their date that way, they escape censure, and they're neither scruffy nor unkempt; the volte face is complete. We project our own beliefs and our own experiences onto what we see.

If large beards can be scruffy or unkempt, then this is a property they share with clothes. Shall we go about au naturel? The fop is not deemed to have 'let himself go', when he bestows a freedom to his scalp that he denies to his chin.

A junior lecturer I knew, jeans-and-tee-shirt-and-long-haired, worked with higher academics who, besuited and short-back-and-sided, watched him with beady-eyed disdain. A professor asked him, 'Why don't you get a haircut and smarten yourself up?' Again, this is cultural conditioning: short hair is smart, long hair (excepting women) is not. I admired the man: it takes courage to be different; the vulnerable individual against the mob. His comprehension of nonlinear dynamics, moreover, bore no relation to his haircut, or lack of it. He made full professor in his forties; whether a barber would've accelerated this, I cannot say.

Employees are preached at night and day: diversity is lovely, cosy and wonderful. By this is meant, that we overlook differences between us; indeed we cherish those differences. How, exactly, we secure this goal via dress-codes, is a question best answered by the manager, who is paid, after all, to lift rugs, and to shove antimonies beneath them. It is true, however, that dress-codes are now unspoken, because to speak them, is to speak with fork tongue. Special exceptions are made for race, religion, sex, etc., of which more later; but otherwise, we must obey unspoken rules. (Why was the other guy promoted? Is it 'cos Ah is bearded?) A large, grey beard is a face that fits neither figuratively nor literally. We value difference, but only of the appropriate hue. Managers preach diversity from the highest pulpit, but resent it when they see it.

I am assured by fashionistas that, contrary to my belief-system, to expose one's knees through ripped holes, is the epitome of trousered smartness. These jeans, so I'm reliably informed, are even sold in this condition; to which - to satisfy the true sophisticate - a grubby appearance is intentionally imparted. A premium is charged; for only the truly affluent may dress like a bum, and then proclaim themselves smart. The trousers must, however, be denim: with the consistency we expect of fashion, ripped clothes of any other sort are censured, being the preserve of tramps.

Returning to the dandy on the escalator, I wrote how I'd felt 'unnerved'. This was because, at that very moment, I recalled a distant memory. In The Naked Civil Servant, Quentin Crisp - in the dramatization played by John Hurt - approaches a bus stop, minding his own business; and, as usual, he is dressed effeminately: with long, dyed hair, a flowery blouse and sandals; a serious infraction of 1930s' norms. A woman looks at him, and gasps. She is so incredulous, so disapproving, so disdainful - outraged, even - that she thrusts her umbrella into his sandaled foot. In another incident, Crisp, pursued by a 'who do you fackin think you are' mob, escapes by climbing into a cab. 'Get out of my cab', shouts the cabbie. Crisp does so, and says to the mob, 'I appear to have offended you gentlemen in some way', before being pummelled into a bruised pulp. He has not harmed anyone, but physical retribution is nonetheless deemed apposite, purely for transgressing societal norms. The response was not to Crisp's appearance, but to what that appearance represented. More than two generations later, and in the same area of London, I see grown men holding hands. Another volte face, it seems.

I cannot say whether the dandy would've pummelled me into a bruised pulp, but I'd certainly outraged his notions of common decency. I am unkempt, apparently; but if the medical science were to be perfected, in which my beard was transplantable to a Hasidic Jew, a Muslim, a Sikh, or a priest of the Greek Orthodoxy, then that unkemptness would oddly disappear. It had better do so, lest 'unkemptness' be deemed an ethno-racist remark.

 

16.      Down and Out

We have established, I think, that large, grey beards are a social aberration that deserve public ribaldry; and that Santa Claus, the kitschy, grinning buffoon in the crimson costume - who incidentally does not exist anyway - is the commonest analogue drawn on. I have purposefully delayed my consideration of another specious epithet from my quip-strewn life, which differs in its charm and sophistication; but to which it is also difficult to assign any genuine originality.

 

I'm walking along, minding my own business, and a few houses away I overhear a male voice behind me say, 'Hey - it's that tramp again!' I turn, but it's dark and I can't see the speaker. The street seems empty.

The identification of large beards - grey or otherwise - with dirtiness or squalor is driven by Western cultural conditioning, as easily demonstrated by attitudes in, say, the Middle East. When, in the West, large beards have mostly retreated to the fringes of society, with the exception of Christmas cards of course, the culturally illiterate associate them with sleeping under bridges or in hedgerows, since, for bin riflers of this sort, grooming opportunities present themselves at fairly wide and uncertain intervals. That is to say, if large beards are seen mostly on paraffin lamps, then, obviously, we'll associate them with paraffin lamps; thus furnishing an excellent jocular premise. Yes, I have a beard; but it is not caked in dried sick, nor do I stand on street corners muttering to myself, while swigging from a plastic bottle.

References to tramps are dependent on my beard's size. I gauge this thus: grasping it between two fingers, close under the chin, I then place two fingers from the other hand, underneath the first two, following which I remove those of the first hand, and place them below those of the second, etc. Judging thus, I know my beard has never exceeded the width of five fingers, and it seldom exceeds four. At around the four-finger mark, references to Yuletide and to vagrancy are in roughly equal ascendancy. It is also the approximate point at which casual taunts give way to verbal abuse.

 

I'm walking along, minding my own business. A teenage gentleman cycles past me, travelling in the opposite direction. When a few yards behind me, he suddenly shouts 'tramp!' I turn, to see him cycle off; but he never looks round. Just a whistle is needed, to complete his air of indifference.

 

Up to now, I restricted my discussion to incidents in which I'm the butt of jollities; where I'm demeaned, but under the guise of fatuous humour. I now introduce a new theme: unconscionable vulgarity. In short, the jackanapes went out of his way to insult me, and for no other reason than my large, grey beard.

The entertainer, seizing on my appearance as feedstock for his subtle drollery, ransacks his head for a cultural reference; he must be quick about it as timing's everything, and the opportunity is easily lost. He might use my appearance to impart some festive cheer, say to a spring morning or an autumnal sunset; but no. His humour is subtler; he uses both brain cells at once. I wonder whether paraffin lamps are selected by design, or purely by happenstance. Either way, to suggest that I rummage in public litter bins, or that I sleep under bridges, is to impart an additional frisson. He only gives me what I deserve; it is condign comment. I have outraged cultural norms, after all. I must expect abuse.

As I wrote above, people reveal their cultural literacy, that is, how much they understand about the world, by the references with which they choose to demean me. And there are many famous tramps in history. There's the tramp who wrote Das Kapital; the tramp who's the greatest cricketer of all time; the tramp who gave us the theory of evolution by natural selection; the tramp who derived the field equations for electromagnetism; the tramp who proved heliocentricism; the tramp who wrote War and Peace. The next time you see a man with a large beard and a piece of rope holding up his trousers, don't insult him; instead, spare a thought for his genius. He might be taking a much-need break - from formulating the first successful theory of quantum gravity, for example.

Psychologists speak of 'cognitive dissonance', or two incompatible beliefs in the same mind. The logical, rational person recognises these dissonances, and tries to resolve them. I wonder whether the self-appointed beard commentators are logical and rational. When they receive a Christmas card, are they puzzled by the depiction of a tramp in a red costume? Or, when they take a stroll in the local park, are they distressed to find Santa Claus rummaging in a public litter bin? Show me two incompatible cultural references for exactly the same thing, and I'll show you a clay-brain.

 

17.      Comic Geniuses

Allusions amplify humour, do they not? You require additional work from your audience of course; or, put another way, if you capitalize on your audience's cultural literacy; sides are more deeply split. For example, suppose you come across a man with a large, grey beard, and decide to poke fun at him - which he certainly deserves, after all, for being silly enough to grow a large, grey beard. You might ask him, 'What do you think about evolution by natural selection?' This 'joke' does not come to mind, however, because your brain cells work one at a time, not both together. In any case, if your audience is culturally illiterate, and believes that Santa Claus appears on the ten-pound bank note, then your stand-up would bomb.

Well, you're an inventive person - a comic genius, as it happens - and, since you must dumb down desperately, in order to plumb the depths of imbecilic humour, you ask the grey beard, 'Are you Santa Claus?' This is good because, obviously, you're pretty sure that no-one else in the entire history of the world ever thought of this before - only a comic genius like you could possibly come up with it; you congratulate yourself. But then you realise, hang on, that's too easy, you're not playing on your audience's cultural literacy; and so (even though it's only July) you say, 'Merry Christmas'; or 'Where are the reindeer?'; or 'Where's your sleigh?'.

 

I'm walking along, minding my own business. I pass a fish-and-chip shop, and in my peripheral vision I'm aware of someone standing outside it. As I walk by, I hear this person say: 'Ho, ho, ho!' I pass on, though, without turning my head.

 

I'm walking along, minding my own business. As I pass a group of people standing outside a shop, one of them shouts: 'Merry Christmas!' I ignore it.

 

I'm walking into the local train station, minding my own business. As I mount the stairs that take me across the line to the opposite platform, I pass a man with a boy of about twelve years old. The boy laughs, as he exclaims, 'I want a new train set for Christmas'. The man, presumably his father, says nothing. I ignore it.

 

Allusions, as I say, require shared cultural literacy; for, in the above incidents, Santa Claus was only implied. In the Czech Republic, baby Jesus brings little children their presents - a practice which retains an incongruous religious element in the festive season. In the Czech Republic, men with large, grey beards escape molestation by comic imbeciles.

 

I'm walking through the local park, minding my own business. I see a young gentleman of about twenty, sitting on a park bench. As I approach, my sixth sense tells me I will not be allowed to pass without comment. This turns out to be correct; for the young gentlemen enquires of me: 'Have you got any cider?' I say 'no' with as much politeness as I can muster, but I don't want to sound too abrupt, and so I force a slight laugh as best I can, but I know that it's lame. The gentleman, unsatisfied at my response, shouts after me, 'You fucking toffee-nosed cunt!' Instinct shouts 'thrash him!', but I rein in my anger, and I walk on, replying coolly over my shoulder, 'What's all that about?' When I get home I call the local police, not because I expect them to dispatch a constable forthwith, but because antisocial incidents should be logged, so that virtual pins, placed in virtual maps, allow the police to focus their efforts. I also wonder whether the gentleman has been frightfully witty to others in the park, and whether there have been other complaints. Over the phone I relate the frightfully witty incident to a police woman. She is puzzled by the cider reference. (I don't mention my large, grey beard.) 'You just walked away from it?' she asks. 'Good.' She sounds relieved. I also google my locality, along with 'antisocial behaviour'. I am told the police focused on the clustered pins in the park four years ago. I think that perhaps it's time to uncluster them again. I think that if I want to keep my large, grey beard, then besides the regular mockery I'll have to put up with a certain amount of verbal abuse as well.

 

And there you have it: alcoholic apple-beverage plus large, grey beard equals tramp, making yourself a pretty darned good 'joke' - good, because the merry jokester never said 'tramp'; instead, he deftly dropped in the allusion. The 'joke', naturally, would've fallen flat, had we lacked any shared cultural notion of cider as a vagabondic tipple. I cannot prove this association one way or t'other; but it's probably apocryphal because, from what I see in the off-license, cider is hardly budget-priced. More germane, I think, is that celebrated wits, such as the man in the park, require appreciative applause - they subject me to an indignity, and then demand that I applaud them for doing so. On this occasion I was insufficiently effusive, and so, with a humorous flourish, I was called a 'fucking toffee-nosed cunt'.

 

I'm walking along, minding my own business. I pass a pub, standing outside of which I see the usual smokers. I overhear one of them say, 'He's looking for a doorway to piss in!' I turn to enter the pub and look directly at this group, staring intently at them. They are all suddenly quiet, and avoid eye contact. I'm relieved that no-one stares back; I lack the resolve to fight contumely. I enter the pub and drink an uneasy pint of beer. When I leave, I'm again thankful, this time that the smokers have left.

 

Again, although rough sleepers were not mentioned explicitly; my reader will presumably possess sufficient cultural literacy. If you live life on the road, then I suppose that public conveniences might not always be at hand, thus setting the premise for a pretty good 'joke'. At least, I've now come to appreciate the abuse that real tramps must suffer. It is respect for us that holds others in check. Lose it, and insults become inconsequential. Apparently rough sleepers are urinated on quite frequently. What larks!

 

18.      The Race Card

My anecdote concerning the street-sweeper raises a question of pivotal importance, namely intention. When a passerby utters 'Santa Claus', and their intent is purely jocular in nature, then do I not subject him to an injustice, by taking offence? We might, instead, interpret remarks according to the spirit intended, and not condemn others for the misconstruals we manufacture in our own minds.

I visit the Indian takeaway. It is Christmas Eve - peak harassment for men such as me, and so I'm not oversanguine about the mood in which I'll return home. As I wait for my meal, a woman enters and walks briskly past, to take her place behind the counter. When passing me, she says with the greatest alacrity: 'I see Santa's here already!' I realise she intends no offence, but I feel offended nonetheless, that she should burnish her humorist credentials thus.

 

This woman was seemingly unaware that her levity was a somewhat overploughed field. She was also, shall we say, somewhat generously proportioned; and I briefly considered replying that, on this basis, she might furnish a more suitable model for Santa Claus than I. Perhaps, before mocking others for their appearance, she should lay off the cheesecake? I remained silent though, either because I'm a gentleman, or because I'm wanting in gumption. I see generously proportioned women quite regularly. Perhaps they'd write it off to harmless jocular intent, were I to utter 'fat cow' as they passed by. Their husbands would doubtless write it off similarly, before thumping me.

 

I go to the local shop, outside of which a dozen youngsters are milling about. The comments start when I approach from a distance of about fifty yards. 'Santa!'; 'Jesus!'; 'Awight granddad!' - and, bizarrely, 'Zeus!'

Now, clearly I might not take this sort of thing seriously; I might laugh at myself a little; and I should not take it the wrong way. It is just friendly banter, after all. As the Americans say, I should 'lighten up'. This advice sounds a little familiar: it was once doled out, was it not, to objects of racial or ethnic mockery. In the above incident, if I were of one race, and the crowd of merry jokesters were all of another, then the hilarity is less obviously manifest, in the light of today's sensibilities.

I am walking along, minding my own business. Two Asian lads - they look Pakistani, although they speak in northern accents - approach from the opposite direction. One of them, chuckling, says: 'I see Santa's come early this year.' I think to myself that counter-remarks alluding to race would've been vigorously contested.

 

I am walking along, minding my own business. Two lads, both non-white, approach from the opposite direction. They pass by and chuckle; one says 'Santa Claus!' I think to myself that counter-remarks alluding to race would've been vigorously contested.

 

The diversity, inclusiveness and equality industry draws legitimacy from the not-unreasonable desire, that we must accommodate and respect difference. In a word, no-one must be discriminated against. Employers now police this directive, and there are 'dignity at work' policies. Unacceptable remarks 'may be related to any of the differences that define us as individuals'. The same policies identify the adjudicator on what is offensive: 'harassment is determined by the impact of the behaviour on the recipient and not the intention of the perpetrators'.

 

There is a fire alarm at work; we are all assembled in the car park, waiting to return to the building. I converse with a colleague I know quite well. Studying my face, he says 'Santa Claus', evidently pleased that his mind should prove itself so original and so creative. As I respect and like him, I cannot give the unreticent response I'd like.

 

At work a dozen of us are assembled for a meeting, and my extended vacation over December comes up. My own boss says, 'He'll be putting his beard to good use'. I growl quietly: 'I do get that every week, you know.'

 

At work, I am standing outside the canteen waiting for it to open. Another man, who I know reasonably well, approaches and also waits. 'Where are the presents?' he asks me, smiling at his originality.

 

I am at a conference, talking to two other attendees during the coffee break. 'You could do with a red costume and a big bag over your shoulder full of toys', one of the men says jovially, acting out the bag-over-the-shoulder. I say 'Oh, no . . ', in a dismayed voice and walk off. I wish to give unfiltered feedback; but we work for the same employer and he out-ranks me.

At work, I am taking my lunchtime constitutional. It is summer, and I pass several men basking in the sun. As I pass them I listen carefully. Just above the audible threshold, I hear one of them say 'Santa Claus'.

I am leaving work at the end of the day. As I walk down the main aisle through the workshop area, three men approach from the opposite direction. I realise I'm the subject of their conversation, and, listening carefully, I overhear one of them say, 'Fackin' 'ell - it's Father Christmas!^[5] I fought Christmas was four months ago!' As I pass them I say, 'I never heard that one before', and they laugh uneasily that I overheard. I realise my sarcasm was insufficiently cutting, and that I did not convey my displeasure. In future, I resolve never participate in my own demeanment.

 

After the last-mentioned incident, I drafted a letter to HR asking whether I'm entitled to the same protection as in racism, sexism and the other isms. I showed this to X., who urged me to send it: 'There's no difference between what you get, and saying "ampersand hash tag question mark exclamation mark" to a black person.' This remark I related to Y., who said: 'Yes, but there's a lot of bad cultural baggage attached to "ampersand hash tag question mark exclamation mark".' 'I know', I replied, 'but I still feel as if I'm entitled to my dignity the same as anyone else.' Z., on the other hand, denied the parallel: 'Oh, but race is completely different,' he says 'You can't do anything about your race - but you can just pick up a razor.' This argument, alas, seems insufficient. When, in the 1930s, Quentin Crisp went about effeminately dressed, and in consequence was spat at and beaten up, he might have ended his travails easily. He had, however, something within himself, an internal imperative driving him to dress thus. The same, indeed, might be said of today's Goths, a subculture which some regard as fair game, of which more shortly. When I spoke to A., he insisted that since Santa Claus was a harmless and inoffensive figure, I should not take such comparison amiss. 'You are not the first person to use that argument', I replied. 'Bunny rabbits in the jungle are also harmless, but you can’t just laugh at black people that way'.

If we've learned anything about racial epithets, it is this: jocular intent is irrelevant. Might this understanding be more widely applied? In my own mind, my face steadfastly refuses to become a 'joke', notwithstanding the wit's intention. My letter to HR, though, remained unsent, because contemporary society is drowning under offence: 'white coffee' and 'dark matter' will shortly be outlawed as 'racist'. That is to say, when offence is lacking, it is eagerly manufactured, along with a fair quota of indignation, and a full measure of affected shock. It is impossible to open a newspaper nowadays, without seeing apoplexies of righteous indignation, hurled down for the merest trifles. Let us not be so quick to condemn others, for the meanings and intentions we project into their words.

19.      Sexual Misconduct

The local rag reported two men sent down for shouting racist abuse from a passing car. The motorised conveyance is an ideal place from which to mount such attacks. The abuser enjoys a degree of anonymity; should the two subsequently encounter one another, the abuser will know the abused, but the abused will not know his abuser. The abuser can make a quick getaway, courtesy of the internal combustion engine; the insult is discharged and, by the time the abused has looked up and gathered his wits, the perp is already fifty yards down the road - it is a sort of verbal 'hit and run'. This is all very one-sided, of course. That is because, in a word, it is cowardly.

 

I'm walking out of the local train station, minding my own business. A red car passes me, one window of which is open. From within the car someone shouts, 'Get a shave, you fucking pervert!' The car moves on, down the road. I wince inwardly, but as usual behave as if I'm stone deaf.

 

After this incident I began carrying a pen and notebook, so that I might make a display of writing down the license plate as the car departs, the driver viewing me in the rear-view mirror. Perhaps the driver may worry about a complaint to the police, especially if there were witnesses; or, if he parks in the street, he may sleep very uncomfortably worrying about his car's paintwork or tyres. (Nothing focuses a vehicle owner's mind so readily as the 'deductible'.)

I should make a subtle distinction here. Unlike the teenager on the bicycle who shouted 'tramp!', and who intended a deliberate insult, this driver essayed (presumably) a witticism. I mean to say, it is very unlikely that he really did believe that I was a 'fucking pervert'. Otherwise, he'd find Christmas cards a tad offensive. There is nonetheless an instructive lesson, in that anyone who looks different, anyone who varies from social norms, might be deemed dangerously antisocial, and in consequence deserving of a good kicking. There was doubtless jocular intent, but the link is nonetheless there.

 

I am standing on the platform of an Underground station, minding my own business. My thoughts are interrupted, when I look down to see a boy of about five years old, passing along the platform, holding a man's hand. The boy looks at me curiously. I look up, to find the man staring at me beady-eyed. His expression says, 'stay away from my son, you perv!'

 

I am walking through the park, minding my own business. A few yards to my right I see a teenage girl enter the park; she is holding hands with a teenage boy. 'Oh my God, it's a paedophile', she exclaims.

 

Large, white beards are, it seems, acceptable on Christmas cards; but my moderately large, grey beard, implies unnatural intentions - at least to the unlearned. As my reader may suspect, I am not joyous at finding myself so characterised. It is impressively clear that the unlearned, if I may so call them, who bedevil my life with their giggles and guffaws, rarely pursue their thinking to its logical conclusion; but, if we do so now, I suspect the theory erroneous. The strategy of paedophiles is to blend in. If paedophiles were characterised by large beards, I wonder their capture should prove so problematical - the police might only arrest the hirsute. Of course, as soon as the paedophiles realised this, they'd rush to the nearest pharmacist, would they not? This logical progression of thought would appear to confute the hypothesis.

When men are beaten up or even killed, merely for falling under suspicion, then there are serious risks to 'looking different'. All societies project their moral panics onto 'outsiders' - in the middle ages and the early-modern period, the accusation-of-choice was witchcraft or devil worship. Or course, this was long before our modern refinements in morals and manners. We've progressed so much since then.

 

20.      Man is a Tribal Animal

I decried my experiences to a 'biker', a fraternity in which large beards are not unknown, indeed, they foster the rugged image. 'People tend to leave us alone', my friend said. 'They think we're violent thugs, even though we're normal people with jobs and families'. As I said, a man is judged by what he appears to be, rather than what he is. Perhaps I should don a leather jacket, leather boots and a bandanna.

 

I am at the cinema, queuing to buy a ticket and minding my own business. I see an exuberant facial growth - far larger than my own. I presume the man's fairly young, as his beard's dark brown; there are no grey hairs. I admire this vigorous profusion, but I admire the man's courage even more. I stop him, and enquire into his experiences. Disappointed, I learn that in two months' time 'it's all coming off'; for he's an actor, and he grew the beard for his 'part'. He relates no specific instances of abuse or mockery, but generalises: 'It's mostly just tittering and sniggering whenever I walk into a room. I usually ignore it, but if I'm tired and had a hard day then I'll have a go at people about it'. I say, 'in growing my large beard I seem to have touched an apex of intolerance in society.' He replies immediately, 'most of the politeness you see is just a thin veneer covering up a lot of intolerance.' I realise that I've come to see things this way myself.

 

The penalties exacted for looking different can be severe. In 2011, Harley Davies^[6], a student in Blackburn, minding his own business, came upon a gang of youths shouting obscenities and telling him to get his hair cut. There then followed a brutal beating, leaving him with a fractured jaw and a broken tooth. Unfortunately for Davies, his shoulder-length hair violated his assailants' ideas. And in 2007, Sophie Lancaster and her boyfriend Robert Maltby were walking through their local park, minding their own business, when a gang of five youths attacked them. While her boyfriend recovered from his injuries, Sophie Lancaster subsequently died of hers. This attack, wanton and unprovoked, had one motivation - the victims just 'looked different'; for they were members of the Goth subculture. As the judge said^[7], 'it seems very likely that the attack started out as a form of amusement for those involved'. To begin with, it was just a joke.

There is a gamut, from well-meaning wit, to taunting, to abuse; in passing along which, the target sinks in the social scale; after which the temerity required to mount a physical assault is smaller, because the bar is now lower. And so, when a stranger finds it necessary to call me a 'fucking pervert', or a 'paedophile', just because of my large, grey beard, then I think, it's not just a case of 'sticks and stones'.

The government have introduced lengthier sentences for so-called 'hate crime'; top of which is race hate; and, predictably, numerous special interest groups now clamour for inclusion. And yet, my remarks concerning 'beard hate' are invariably greeted with, 'you can't be serious . . .'

I discuss this topic with a colleague who, although white, has an African American wife. I say, 'up to middle age, I went around in public minding my own business and was, pretty much, left in peace. This caused me to wonder whether the scale of racism might be exaggerated.' At this, my colleague's face assumes an indignant expression. I then add, 'but then I grew this', pointing to my chin, at which his indignation disappears, to be replaced by smiling agreement. I say, 'I've been truly astonished at the number of people who think it's fine to treat my appearance as a complete joke.'

Here's my sociological take on it: by instinct, man is a tribal animal. In the primeval state, survival on one's own was impossible and everyone was part of a tribe, the members of which looked out for one another. But, as tribes necessarily competed with one another for scarce resources, our instincts excel at distinguishing between insiders and outsiders; indeed, our lives depended on the ability to do so at a glance. The most obvious marker of identification here is, surely, bodily appearance. According to this understanding, there are reasons we suspect nefariousness in others who look different: they are from another tribe, after all. But such behaviour is primitive. Humans are able to act counter-instinctively when necessary, because we're also rational; we can choose to set aside two-million years as hunter-gatherers on the African plain. It seems to me that Martin Luther King's famous speech might be more generally applied.

When I grew my large, grey beard I saw it as an entirely innocuous feature of my face, and of no concern to anyone but myself.

What can I say.

I guess I've led a sheltered life.

[1] The lyricist James Lord Pierpont did not originally intend any association with Christmas, as a rudimentary consideration of the lyrics quickly confirms.

[2] Cultural literacy is required to understand this acronym.

[3] Cultural literacy is required to understand this acronym.

[4] Cultural literacy is required to understand this reference.

[5] For those willing to weigh this matter scrupulously, Santa Claus and Father Christmas began as completely distinct figures. This lazy conflation is automatic among those who, on beholding a grey-bearded man, shout 'Santa Claus!' compulsively, as if by conditioned reflex.

[6]Lancashire Telegraph, 'Blackburn College student beaten up by gang over his long hair', consulted on-line, 12/04/12.

[7] The Guardian, 'Teenagers jailed for life for killing Goth woman', consulted on-line, 5/6/12.

(c) Cufwulf

Culfwulf@aol.com