The Journal is an online collection of articles and essays written and curated by Thomas W Coombs, published bi-annually.

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Issue 41; Hair by Design

By design I am not a hairy person.  I do not have a hairy body, no unsightly back hair, I am pretty much hair free, my chest may have some six or seven that I have been cultivating since my teens but have never taken root.

I am beardless and always have been partly out of choice of the daily shave, which is a big part of my morning but also I am not sure it would really grow to much more than a teenager's fluff surrounded by mid length stubble.  Making it look like I have just lost a few million that day on the trading floor as I down whiskey with whiskey chasers.

Bearing in mind the above shared information, which I am sure you are very happy to now know, you can understand my annoyance and damn outright horror of the amount of hair that now seems to sprout from my ears.  As I age, currently not yet over the four decade mark I was not expecting this delight to hit me just yet.  And when I say ears, from some weird genetics it is mostly just my left ear.  It is growing like cigar plume, the cloudy tuffs with a couple of scarily light coloured long ones, just to make the few whites in my sideburns feel better.


White or grey hair doesn’t bother me, I plan on growing old gracefully, but please do not remind me of this article in twenty years time when I am botoxed up to the eyeballs.  I would not be happy if you do, not that you would be able to tell.