back again.. sorry....

So, herevwe are again, and first the beard offers apologies, both sincere and otherwise, for all those (and I know you are few...) who have been missing the regular missives from the world of beardiness..... but the beard which is wise and inebriates rarely has been having a busy time of it lately.... for those of you who have visited Beardsheim in the past, a surprise will be in store next time you cross the two tone bridge (still saving up for the full Rainbow model...) ... the Beard, with the incredibly useful help of Beard Junior, has actually been having a real sort out.. and I mean, a real one.... avoiding the piles of old rubbish, hoarded mathoms and offcuts of facial hair just got too much, and eing a great fan of arts and crafts, the wise one decided that if it aint beautiful and useful, it aint stopping..... so all i have left is a photo of Jenny Agutter, and a can opener..... seriously though, a lot of the accumulated stuff has gone.... although true to form, some of the more bizarre stuff has remained..... so much so that i have managed to rid the heim of five sets of shelves.... and my kitchen now appears to be the nine feet by eighteen that it actually is.... the lounge is basically tidy (apart from the boot-sale-bound boxes..) and the bedroom is unrecognisable..... all this partly due to the influence of a certain young lady.... on top of this, despite the amount of time invested, the beard has visited the cinema, gone to a concert, and has been regulary working on model railway projects and the upcoming novel...... all of which has been fantastic..... catharsis and relaxation, hard work that has actually been refreshing..... a strange ting... and the relatonship with that aforementioned young lady is growing stronger and stronger..... so things are on the up..... and up.... and up..... its very reminiscent of the scene in V for Vendetta (the comic.. not the film, which i still haven't quite seen.... but I digress...) where Evey says to V something along the lines of "don't you find that sometimes you want to get rid of the stuff from the past, and et on with the future.... " I'll try to find the exact quote if i can be bothered..... which brings me to the subject of Watchmen.... and my fervent hope that the americans haven't ruined the finest comic book ever written.... but as the second act of Siegfried begins to play, the Beard realises the time, and must fly... so until we can all have a jolly good clear out, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!

A traitor to my sex!!??!!!!!!????

So, I am a traitor to my sex... so says my young porter at work (but then he is a drummer....) "but why, oh Wisebeard??!!" I hear you ask.... or do I?? well, the main reason is that I have five Dido tracks on my MP3 player.... including "Life for Rent" "White Flag" and (one of my personal favourites) "Mary's in India..." so why does this,I ask, make me a traitor to the male brotherhood?? Simply that it is, in my co-worker's words, "whinging chick music".... now, this led me to think about a comment that was made about me at school, many, many, many years ago..... a comment that was meant as a compliment... a young lady in my Eng Lit class called me "unmale..." apparently she meant that i was not the typical man of the eighties, wearing trendy clothes and desperately trying to s**g all the George Michael fans (little did they know!!....) Then, a few years ago, another young lady (I seem to know quite a few, don't I.... more of that later... possibly...) called me Big Gay Kirk, in homage to the South Park character Big Gay Al.... apparently, again, this was a compliment.... it meant I was sensible, non-judgemental, and a good listener, while remaining fun , and as cool as a thirty-something ever can be in the eyes of youth.... a year later, another young lady mentioned that out of all the men she knew, I was most in touch with my feminine side.... again, a compliment... although most blokes are probably thinking, yup... big, and gay..... Now, although this has definitely meant that over the years that I have never lacked female company, this has always been in the form of friendship, some more platonic than others.... but although every single woman I have ever known, bar one or two, has complained about the men in their lives being too male, and expressed the wish that they could meet someone like me, none has ever put two and two together and realised that they have met someone like me.... Me..... which leads me to believe that although most women say they'd like an unmale, they either don't, or don't want to take the chance.... which brings me back to Dido.... why on earth does a bloke have both Dido and wobbly-head David Grey albums in his house, car and truck...?? because he's unmale?? well, I've never really agreed with that description... I never set out to be unmale, or a new man, or whatever,.. I just try to be a decent person, think of the welfare of others, and try to make them feel good... rather than seeing no further than my own pleasure... but back to Dido.... (please just tell us why, Wisebeard, you beg...) well, put bluntly, I was told by several aquaintances that if I were to play david Grey or Dido in thepresence of women, it would convince them that I was in touch with my feminine side, and a s**g would be guaranteed.... well, as someone supposedly in touch anyway, I can tell you that it doesn't work.... all that happens is that women think of you as safe, and blokes think you gay, or a gender traitor... perhaps with me its just a case of overdoing it.... a very incredible young lady of my recent aquaintance keeps pointing out to me that I occasionally sound gay.... which doesn't worry me....I'm not, not that it really matters... but I think she's fairly positive now that I'm not... even if I do like musicals and loud silk shirts..... but I digress.... personally, I'm a bit fed up with this sexist rubbish.... why shouldn't a woman like trains, and a man collect dolls... Lewis Prothero (the Voice of Fate) collected dolls....and in his own words, he was no wooftah.... in fact he was a Resettlement Camp Commandant.... but there I go, confusing V for Vendetta with reality again....

Which brings me to the subject of cartoons, and comics... I'm a fairly big fan, mainly of Japanese Anime, and some of the darker comic offerings.... early Judge Dredd, the Dark Knight Batman series, Watchmen, V, etc.... anyway, me and our young electrical sales person at work are both Anima nuts, and we were philosophising about the genre the other day.... after debating whether or not its ok to fancy Asuka and Rei in Evangelion (they are both 15, but neither are real.. they are just cartoons.... we both came down on the side of no, its wrong whichever way you look at it...) and whether Misato Katsuragi is sexier than Marlene Angel, or which of the Dirty Pair we'd prefer to marry, and other such serious topics, we got down to discussing why we prefer Anime to other animation styles, such as the offerings from Disney.... and we finally came u with the following.... I'm a comics fan.... and whereas Disney amke a movie with actors who happen to be drawn, the Japanese, being comics fans themselves, instead make a comic book that moves.... and that appeals to me much more...

But anyway, I have had one of the most fantastic days of my life today... but I'm not telling you lot why!!! In fact, this year, although only just begun, has rapidly become one of the best ever... if not the best... and to end in the style of the best sort of American morality comedy drama...

"Well, I guess we all learned something today..."
"Yes Wisebeard.... I learned that tomato ketchup doesn't count as a fruit..."
"I learned that I fascinate a certain type of woman...."
"I learned that Wisebeard is definitely not gay.."
"And I learned that Plan D is always the one to go for..."

Until we all become unmale, whatever our prior gender, Wisebeard salutes you!!!!!!!!!!!!