Movember

When I came to Australia, I arrived not just with a backpack and jet lag, but with some well enforced prejudices. I believed that the mullet was the most common hairstyle, that all Australian men were six feet plus, that Fosters was the beer of choice and that people ate kangaroo with the regularity that we Irish eat potatoes. Of course, I have found that none of this is true.

The mullet has disappeared into history alongside Jason Donavan’s acting career and is only found these days on Pacific Islanders with biker fetishes. The traditional mullet wearer was the Australian Football League player, but they all wear tight haircuts now so that they can slip into nightclubs unnoticed and indulge in their drug taking habits. In the globalised modern world, you won’t see many differences in hairstyles between Melbourne, Montreal and Milan. Brad Pitt or David Beckham set the trend and we all follow like sheep. A number of years ago (probably around the time that Beckham decided to shave his head) barbers changed their process from suggesting a style to suggesting a number. This made visiting the barber a similar experience to visiting you local Chinese take-away. You would ask for a 3 on top and a 2 on the side or an all over 1 if you were feeling minimalist. This only works for men of course who see hair as an unavoidable nuisance (until we start loosing it of course, when it suddenly becomes the most important thing in the world). Women have a different approach and would never dream of choosing hair-styles by numbers. Which is why hair dressers can charge women ten times as much as they charge men. There is a world of difference between having your hair cut and having your hair “done” after all.

Facial hair is making a comeback here however with the introduction of “Movember”. This is a charity driven event to encourage men to grow moustaches during November and transport themselves back to the 1970’s of flairs and fast cars. It seems to have caught on, although some people are more productive than others. I insulted one guy at the weekend who told me he was taking part, by asking him when he planned to start. Thankfully, I am in a play until the end of November and the Director has left strict instructions that I am to be clean shaven until then. This saves me the embarrassment of displaying my follically challenged facial hair. On the few occasions when I’ve tried to grow beards, my chin has resembled the scrublands of centre Australia, with the occasional spurt of hair surrounded by an ocean of virgin skin. My attempts at growing a moustache have occurred during long absence from work, such as study leave. Lack of food and sleep during these times turned me into a twitchy nervous wreck, which was never helped by the emaciated caterpillar sitting on my lip.

I am also haunted by the memory of a girl I “shifted” when I was 19. Her name escapes me as several years of therapy have helped me to erase most of the memories of that faithful night. I walked her 3 kms back to her house and was invited in for tea. After the tea and the Mikado biscuits, I thought I was safe to move my move. The lights were dim and her lips beckoned me like the Sirens beckoned Odysseus. I moved in for the kill but found that an assassin was already waiting and my lust was her target. When lips met lips, I detected something previously undiscovered in my humble, heterosexual upbringing. Stubble! I was pretty sure it wasn’t mine as I had barely discovered shaving by then and all sorts of fears raced through my head. Was this a “Crying Game” moment? Should I check for an Adam’s apple or do the Paul Hogan test (when I was 19, that was known as “3rd Base” and I was far too shy for that kind of thing). In the end, I made my excuses and left, but my relationship with facial hair took an irredeemable turn for the worst that night and has never recovered.

Movember works as a popular fund raising event, purely because facial hair is so rare in Australia. Clean shaven and tight haircuts are the fashion here. The climate no doubt contributes to this, as walking around with a Karl Mark beard would be pretty uncomfortably in 40c heat. I think Australians also have a desire to escape from their tragic fashion status of the 1980s. In the years before the Internet and global telecommunications, Australia was starved of modern fashion trends. So leggings and big hair found a retirement home in Australia when the rest of the world had moved. These days, Australians are far more fashion conscious and they will maintain a neat and tidy state until the next trend becomes available.

As a result, I expect most moustaches to be shaved off as soon as the Movember Ball is out of the way and the young ladies of Australia have had the chance of snogging Tom Selleck look-alikes. If my experiences as a 19 year old are anything to go by, those ladies will be aching for some smooth skin after they have recovered from the beard rash. World stock markets are going through turbulent times at the moment with the collapse of sub prime debt and rising oil prices. However, if you want a sure fire stock tip, put your house on Gillette because the sales of razors (in Australia at least) are going to rocket in early December.

Unless of course, David Beckham grows a tashe. If that happened, I might even think of growing one myself.