There is little news on the Movember front this morning. Sadly, moustaches do not grow like bamboo or mile a minute. Mostly they just sulk, in a hairy way, mooching about on the lip, getting in the way of drinking coffee:
and causing waiters to look at you in ‘that way’.
Jason has now taken over the role of explaining about Movember to people.
I just look at them darkly and announce in a loud voice: ‘I AM TRAINING HIM TO BE A PORN STAR FOR MY OWN PERSONAL PLEASURE.’
That usually silences ‘em.
Jason is mulling over dying the ‘tache blonde for maximum Swedish porn star action. Apparently people at work have agreed to give him more money if he does this. I am not sure. I am beginning to wonder if this is all a ruse, and it is just his way of indulging some long held personal moustache type fetish.
I wouldn’t put it past him.
He says to tell you he will consider most kinds of moustache based torture/topiary if you pay him.
You can donate here by clicking on this link.
In the meantime I have agreed to hand over the rest of this blog post to Alan Titchmarsh, a surprising, underground celebrity fan of the Movember movement.
He is going to give you handy tips on Mo Management.
Take it away Alan:
Good morning, moustache growers of Movember. Katyboo has kindly offered her blog as a space where I can break free from the shackles of my usual job as the suavest celebrity gardener in the world and indulge my real passion, which is for the care, growth and upkeep of the moustache.
I know that you usually see me clean shaven on television. It is part of my contract unfortunately. Ever since, in the pilot episode of Ground Force, Charlie Dimmock thought a slug had crawled onto my face, and tried to batter it off with one of Tommy Walsh’s lump hammers (at least that was what she said she thought it was).
The programme was delayed for six months while I had reconstructive surgery on my upper lip. Charlie had to go to anger management classes, and that was why she was only allowed to do water features after that. It was more soothing for her nerves.
Anyway, I was very disappointed, as you can imagine, because there’s nothing I love more than a luxuriant growth of facial hair to caress of a morning. I have tried to persuade Mrs. Titchmarsh to grow one, with my blessing, but she got quite upset and used language that I didn’t think was at all appropriate for a lady of her social standing.
I confess it quite turned me on, but as she refuses to speak to me at all on the matter of moustaches anymore, I doubt I will ever see a repeat performance.
It remains for me to to be a secret moustache wearer then. I have a fine selection, one of which you will see me sporting in the photograph above. I am allowed to wear them at weekends, bank holidays and on the Queen’s birthday.
All I can do, to share your passion, is to offer some handy tips which I have built up over my years as a moustache enthusiast and true gardening professional.
Here are my top ten tips for the finest moustache money can buy:
- As Katy so rightly says, moustaches do not grow like bamboo, therefore a little patience is required when it comes to growth. I have found however, that 3 parts baby bio to one part bone meal mixed with 2 measures of Horlicks makes an excellent stimulant. You can drink it, or simply massage it briskly into the moustache using a bottle brush and repetitive circular movements.
- A little light rotivation in the early stages of growth can help enormously if you are aiming for something bushy and thick on the upper lip. You can buy specialist rotivating equipment from Tache Weekly: First for Taches, or simply prick the top lip lightly with a toasting fork about twenty times a day.
- Thinning the initial growth can also help if you want even, standardised growth with good strong roots and a nice, frondy effect. I used my wife’s tweezers for this in 1979 (Jubilee year. It was my way of showing my loyalty to her majesty). Unfortunately my wife did not see it this way and it has been brought up in every argument we have ever had since then. I advise buying your own if you want harmony in your marital relations. I was also a bit disappointed that the Queen never noticed my efforts by rewarding me with an OBE.
- A quick course in topiary will do wonders for you if you are thinking of styling your moustache and are ambitious of standing out from the crowd. I managed to persuade the director of Gardener’s World that I was interested in topiary in 1998, and he paid for all my tuition, little knowing that I was at home, practising on my moustache collection of an evening. I was particularly pleased with my ‘two love birds billing and cooing’. If my wife ever let me show it to anyone I’m sure I could win prizes.
- Protecting the moustache at bed time is also crucial if you are to maintain ‘tache integrity. I like to bed mine down at nights with a light scattering of straw, and if the weather is really nippy, a layer of polythene over the top. Nobody likes a frost bitten moustache.
- I suggest using a combination of baler twine, chicken wire and those plastic loopy things you use to hold up droopy trees, if you’re having trouble shaping your moustache, and like me, your skin is too sensitive for regular hair products. Either that or mail me at Alan@TitchmarshTowers for a catalogue of the moustache grooming products I am currently developing in my shed.
- I also suggest that if you are one of these European types who insist on hugging and kissing everyone all the time, that you will need adequate protection for your tache, either to stop someone squashing it in a passionate embrace, or if you are indulging in a manly bear hug, stopping your moustache locking with your companions. This is a public service, as in extreme cases the fire brigade have had to be called in order to disentangle gentlemen from each other, and orphans have been known to burn to death while waiting for them to finish. You will be thrilled to know that I have a patented Titchmarsh Moustache Protector available for only £49.99 +VAT. E-mail me for details. It is also environmentally friendly, as I have fashioned it from badger droppings and baler twine that I have found lying around the garden.
- If you are facing ridicule from friends and family over your desire to grow a moustache I suggest you buy them the Titchmarsh Patented Family Moustache Kit, which shows you ways to grow moustaches for all members of the family and offers family friendly moustache related activities like Moustache Monopoly and the Moustache Beetle Drive Evening. It retails for £99.99 and if you buy two, I will send you the Patented Titchmarsh Moustache Protector for only £10.00 + VAT.
- If you are not sure what style of moustache to grow and you are having trouble picturing yourself wearing some of the more avant garde designs I suggest the Titchmarsh Pop Up Tache album in which I have highlighted many different styles, some of which I have invented myself. I have left a hole in each page for you to insert your face so that you can try before you buy. Only £19.99 + VAT.
- Finally, you may, if you are bald, or even slightly follically challenged, wonder if sporting a moustache will go against nature, unbalance your Feng Shui and/or rip a massive, moustache shaped hole in the space/time continuum. I would say to you that I was as bald as an egg until 1976, and it was only upon growing my first, and most luxuriant moustache, when I was stuck on a Polynesian Island with Bob Flowerdew looking for the mysterious whortleberry of Snaa, and he had bored me senseless with his evening slide shows on bio diversity and the many uses of sphagnum moss, that the hair on my head began to grow. Stimulate one hair follicle, stimulate all, and that’s the motto on the Titchmarsh coat of arms, which also shows two moustaches rampant astride a bottle of bay rum.
