In the matter of facial hair, are celebrities copying the street or is the street copying celebrities? As you will be aware, Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom, Sting (presumably in an effort to stop being mistaken for Jeffrey Archer) and, most notoriously, David Beckham have been neglecting the razor of late. Not just for a few days for purposes of stubble generation, but for weeks, months on end. The beard is about as back as it’s been since the 19th century.

In addition, male models — nameless and yet, one assumes, influential in their way — now, more often than not, sport some growth beyond the designer scrub that has been fashionable for many years.

And among the non-posing fraternity, at least where I live and, indeed, where I work, among those under 35, beards are now more common than non-beards. Just as more people in February 2010 are reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (or one of its ever-so- slightly disappointing sequels) than are not reading it, a majority of those men younger than middle age are wearing some form of beard. It is undoubtedly a major trend. My question is: who started it?

If we could determine the answer, that would be very valuable, would it not? It would help to answer all sorts of interesting questions, interesting not just to sociologists and commentators, not just to Gillette and Wilkinson Sword, but also to advertisers, marketing people and other hard-headed hommes d’affaires. Questions about the value of endorsements, the importance of role models, the impact of celebrity culture and so forth.

The brilliant thing about beards for the purposes of quasi-scientific research is that they’re measurable. Thus I am in a position unequivocally to state that the beard revolution is a roots-up movement. How do I know? Because the beards I see every day on the streets of Hackney and the corridors of The Times are simply longer than the ones I see on TV and in magazines. Not just longer, but bushier, thicker, glossier, more luxuriant — downright biblical many of them. I conclude that the people got there first and the so-called trendsetters followed.

With that in mind, I predict that, come the World Cup this summer, Beckham will be tripping over the full Jesse James. Either that, or, if he’s really plugged in, he’ll have teased out a twirly 1940 Spitfire pilot moustache. Yes, for the übertrendy this winter, it’s all about handlebars.

No sale

Of course it’s not just the young. Many men at my time of life grow a beard too. Along with the Harley-Davidson, the leather jacket, the trophy second wife, the gym membership, the wine cellar, the Very Big Telly and other luxury goods, gadgets and gizmos, the beard is a classic response to, and symptom of, a mid-life crisis. I’d probably grow one myself if I could.

But I can’t. Neither, I find, can I allay existential angst with retail therapy. I was in Covent Garden, an hour to kill in the drizzle. Wandering from one shop having a Sale Sale Sale to another shop having a Sale Sale Sale, checking out the cashmere this and the vintage that and the audio the other, I found that every time I came close to getting anything, I thought: nah. Don’t need it, don’t want it, put it back.

Even Paul Smith, even trusty Stanfords, even that fabulous fag shop at the eastern end of the arcade could not tempt me. My aversion to acquiring anything new, anything at all, was so strong that I thought perhaps that this, right here, is itself a form of mid-life crisis. Very serious business, deciding your shopping days are over. If everyone thought this way, it would all come tumbling down.

Calling card

I had to have my photograph taken in a studio recently, at the same time as an acquaintance I see perhaps once a year. In the changing room, he gestured at my discarded belongings. “What a beautiful vignette,” he commented. “A scruffy old pair of trainers, a packet of Drum lodged in one, a lighter in the other. See that anywhere in the world and you’d know Crampton wasn’t far away.” Flattered as I am to have acquired such a powerful visual signature, I’m not sure it’s what I would have chosen.

Ringing off

Rather like Alexander Fleming creating his tray of life-saving mould by accident, a mistake this weekend resulted in a very important discovery. On Saturday afternoon, I left my mobile at work. I didn’t realise until I got home. One by one the various stages of mobile-bereavement overtook me. Disbelief: it must be here somewhere. Panic: I must go and retrieve it. Grief: what will I do? My weekend is wrecked. Acceptance: perhaps, for 36 hours, I can survive. And finally liberation: I feel freer, lighter, happier, perhaps I should do this more often.

And in any case, nobody called.

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