Tag Archives: Salvador

Losing my mind/beard

25 Jul

For the past 6 weeks I had been growing a beard for absolutely no reason. If there was a reason it was laziness. But maybe there was more to it than that. I began to look for the answers. I eventually found some sheer wisdom from the great Graham Taylor himself (at the time he was discussing the increasing beardage of Roy Keane):

“I do think there is a psychological thing about people who grow beards for no reason.”

“People may laugh at this and say it is absolutely silly, but he changed his personality when that beard was grown. My wife will tell you the truth. When I saw the beard I told her there were problems. I do think there is a psychological problem when people grow beards for no reason. I can’t believe they do it.”

Not one to fly against the logic of Taylor´s thought, it was clear I had to do something about it. This was how bad it had got:

original beardage

Psychological trauma can be seen all over that face. I can´t believe I let it get so bad. I decided the best way to take off the beard was to do it in stages, trying to imitate as many football managers as I could in the process. As it was I completely failed, my Bic was not up to the job and Souness´s hair was just to radiant. I had visions of a Rafa Benitez goatee, Sam Allardyce with Hitler moustache, the hi-tec visions of Gavin Peacock perched on my chin. Instead, I ended up with these:

dave navarro
Dave Navarro – Has a famous footballer ever had a beard like this? I´m not too sure, maybe it´s a bit too rock.

the frenchman
As much as I want to fight it, maybe there is a touch of Phil Brown in this moustache. Come to think of it, after Phil Brown grew that moustache, the Hull team did seem to completely capitulate last season. I think Taylor might have been on to something.

chris kamara
Chris Kamara

And there you have it. Next on the list is Socrates. I think this may take some serious work. Or maybe I should try what this guy did – Jon Dyer’s blog

Death

24 Jul

So far on this journey, I have:

  • broken my camera
  • lost my glasses, they are presumed dead
  • lost an assortment of shirts and towels; not a day goes by when I don´t think of them
  • lost a guitar tuner
  • broke a replacement guitar tuner
  • broken a ridiculous amount of headphones, I believe I am now on my fifth set. It´s very lucky that long coach journeys seem to come with free pairs
  • and now to finish things off, my laptop has broken, it is not a happy bunny. I believe it has swine flu. The problem is, how do you rid a laptop of swine flu. It´s not easy, water only worsens the case. I really want to get it fixed here in Salvador, but the laptop shops look like the unfriendliest places in the world. I think I will have to wait til Rio
  • Plus, this is an additional, my mp3 player has been wiped off all songs. Which means my bus journey to Rio will be a lot quieter than expected

Maybe I need to learn to take better care of my possessions. I´m not sure a plastic bag is sufficient protection for carrying around a laptop!