Peter Rhodes: Beards and brainpower

WHAT is it with all these beards? The fashion for facial fungus is infesting the upper lips and chins of young men everywhere. Are beards the new tattoos?

***

THERE is a theory that beards become fashionable at times when men feel threatened by women or by change in general. They were almost compulsory in Victorian England when there was a woman on the throne and the rise of business corporations made individuals feel less important. Perhaps the rise of feminism accounts for today's crop of beards. Unless, of course, beard-wearers are part of that generation which has gone to university but learned very little and is now eager to appear intellectual. A beard may suggest brainpower where there is actually none. As the critic A A Gill put it perfectly: "I've never been convinced that facial hair is an alternative to thought."

***

MICHAEL Gambon admits he tried to seduce Joanne Whalley while they were starring in The Singing Detective back in 1986. He was almost twice her age and admits he "got nowhere". Which must come as a relief to millions. Miss Whalley played the 22-year-old nurse in the BBC musical drama and I seem to recall we were all in love with her.

***

I GET increasingly irritated at various experts suggesting the public has some profound and important human right to sniff nitrous oxide, the "laughing gas" linked to a crop of sudden deaths, and that taking the stuff is an "informed choice." Baloney. An informed choice is one where you have a chance to assess the outcome. For some people there is no learning curve with nitrous oxide, no second chance, just a straight vertical line from life to death, in a matter of seconds.

***

PAUL Massey, variously described as a Mr Big, a crime lord, and "an old-fashioned gangster," was shot dead a few days ago outside his home in Salford. He had served a jail sentence for attempted murder and was suspected of money laundering and running protection rackets. When he died, in what looks like a gangland assassination, a senior officer in Greater Manchester Police announced: "Paul didn't stand a chance." I wonder how the good folk of Salford feel to know that, when it comes to one of the most notorious characters in their area, the cops are on first-name terms.

***

ENTRIES had been so low for the annual parish vegetable show in Quedgeley, Gloucester, that the organisers decided to allow folk to display produce they had not produced. As Graham Smith, vice-chairman of the parish council put it: "People were told they could buy it, show it and eat it after but that still didn't persuade people. It is pathetic." Maybe so. But it raises a question for our busy, and not always honest, age. How many "home-grown" marrows, onions and carrots proudly displayed at neighbourhood shows actually come from Tesco?

***

HERE'S something to cheer you up if you were unable to follow a single word of the high-speed colloquial French conversations in Witnesses (C4) last night. A reader tells me she lived in France for 12 years - and she can't follow it either.

***

ANIMAL-rights campaigners want a memorial to be erected at the roadside after 120 sheep were killed in a lorry crash near Brentwood in Essex. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) told the local mayor that a roadside memorial would "commemorate" the unfortunate sheep. Quite so. But rather than erect a huge plaque or statue, let's create one of those sensory gardens, planted with fragrant herbs. Mint, mostly