A few weeks ago I undertook The Shavedown. This is the annual shaving down of the post Edinburgh beard. I did not want to fully shave but nor did I want to live with a bear on my face anymore. So I adopted (at first slightly jokingly but I have actually fallen in a groovy kind of love with it) lemmification of a beard. That is, a beard like Lemmy from motorhead. They sang the Ace of Spades – and, um… something else probably.
You may be observant enough to know that I look not a lot like Lemmy, in almost every conceivable way. But the beard, if not a little blonder, scraggier, patchier and thinner is very similar to the one that be-cheeks his face.
I like this new beard, a lot. For the first few weeks I diligently trimmed and shaved and snipped and clipped to keep it as pristine as a middle-aged impotent accountant’s privet hedge.
But a week of hecticness left me with what was fast becoming a beard again (who am I trying to fool – a week? More like three) only the lemmifaction was long and the rest was stubbly, it was, in short, a mess.
So today after a fervently busy and feat accomplishing day I decided to do it. I snipped and trimmed and shaved , this was the first major remodelling of the lemmy, I had to get it right.
I didn’t, in my keenness of having new razors for once and not shaving with what seemed like a post-it note I cleared away my flatmates shaving foam to discover that on my right cheek on I had shaved slightlty too far down.
It wasn’t much but it was honestly only about a quarter of an inch away from being a Craig David, this is not a good look, not even for the eponymous pioneer of this facial growth.
I thought I could get away with it, but it was soon apparent that I had a lopsided wonky face issue, I had to shave a bit off the left side. Here I had to be careful, if I over compensated on the left cheek then I may have to get rid of the side bits altogether, and that would immediately take me from a Lemmy to a Hulk Hogan, and I have no yellow vests.
I managed it, I still think I’m much closer to Craig David than I’d ever dreamed I’d be, but I can’t Rewind, I’ll have to wait for the full lemmy to grow back.