Grey Minge

A NEW shower has forced a surprise re-examination of my nether parts 

I SHAVED MY PUBES for the first time ever the other week.
 
It’s taken me until well into my 54th year to get around to doing a little topiary on my Man Garden – and I’d probably never have done it but for the new shower we got.
 
Suddenly, every time I stepped inside, the chrome control panel at hip height was reflecting back a daily – and frankly alarming – State of The Minge report.

For years, I took it for granted that my lettuce could be left alone to produce dark, disciplined waves – think David Budd, Reporting for duty Ma’am! – and his discreetly gelled top hairs.

But all at once Worzel Gummidge, that frightening old greybeard, had taken up residence at the top of my legs and was spreading towards my hip bones like some sick steel-grey ivy.

Worse, the tendrils were curling up at the ends like a Poirot moustache. No, like a mouth turning up into a smile. My horrible bush was laughing at me!

For a man who no longer has any hair on top of his head, you might think that I might welcome a fulsome pubic pelt – but no.

For me, being fifty-something is all about the acquisition of what you might call ironic hair.

There’s abundant growth in places you don’t want it and have never had it before – like your ears, eyebrows, shoulders, and back. And, simultaneously, you are forced to endure a hair desert, a follicle famine, in the place you crave it most.

So, I shaved. I whipped out my Trusty Remington and beard-trimmed the bugger.

But I took off a bit much, leaving me looking worryingly pre-pubescent. Abruptly, it was pale and white with just a hint of stubble down there, like the breasts on a carelessly-plucked supermarket chicken, with its faint beard of missed feathers.

In the golden light of the shower cubicle, what was left of my thatch even looked a little ginger, and there was a fat little pucker of skin between thigh and pubis that at least Worzel had been decent enough to cover up.

But after a few days, it grew back a bit. And my downstairs looked all the better for it. Like the bristle of a man in control of his destiny.

All in all, shaving my bush has been A Good Thing, and there may still be more benefits to come

When I shaved for the first time, I did it out of sheer panic and vanity, and not in the hope of pleasing the Missus.

​But if our pubic spheres do happen to align soon, at least I will have the wise words of retired Glaswegian Ball-Wizard Sir Kenny Dalglish to spur me on as I unveil.

Mocked by an acquaintance, supposedly for selling out his working class roots by attending a Buckingham Palace medal-fest in full top hat and tails, Sir Kenny shot back: “Well, if you’re going round tae someone’s hoose, ye need tae look daecent.” ​