It's beard time again

Beards are the new black apparently. Two unrelated items this weekend seem to suggest that facial hair is this seasons must have fashion accessory. Forget your metrosexuals, retrosexuals are the way forward.

This isn't a new phenomenon of course, beards have been with us forever. Mrs Thatcher famously wouldn't have a beardy in the cabinet, mind you she didn't have any men either, and we've all been through that period in our lives when we've wanted to look like the two members of ZZ Top who aren't called Frank Beard.

I always start to grow a beard on holiday, I think it's the rebel in me, although I can't actually think of a rebel who had a beard, apart from Che, but after a week I give up because it's too gray or ginger or it just gets on my nerves. So anyway it's only a few weeks before chest hair makes a big comeback - remember where you read it first!

Of course some beards look cool:

and some don't: