Christopher Pyne: Why I’ve decided to keep this isolation trend going

Covid-19 isolation has taught us plenty and created numerous trends. There’s one in particular that has grown on Christopher Pyne, he writes.

Can you trust a man with a beard? That’s the age old question.

Politicians rarely have a beard. The rule of thumb when I was a politician was that the first thing a candidate with a beard had to do was shave it off. Why? The accepted wisdom was that men with beards appeared less trustworthy than men without beards.

Barry Jones, the Pick a Box champion who went on to be the Labor MP for Lalor and minister for science in the Hawke government, always sported a beard. Maybe that’s what stopped him becoming prime minister? He still has a beard. I trust him.

Labor treasurers Ralph Willis and John Dawkins, at different times, paraded themselves with a beard but only briefly. Their beards seemed to disappear pretty quickly. Again, no cigar in the leadership stakes.

In fact, there hasn’t been a prime minister with a beard since Sir Joseph Cook, the Liberal prime minister from 1913-14.

Christopher Pyne with a beard. Picture: Supplied

He didn’t last long. Although, you can’t blame the beard. Alfred Deakin was prime minister three times in that period and he preferred a beard. Beards were all the rage in the early part of the Federation, but not since. Not for 107 years.

Finance Minister Simon Birmingham grows a beard most summers and then shaves it off. Former senator Nick Minchin carried a beard for a few years in politics.

But they are the exception.

I’ve never met a real estate agent with a beard. I’m sure there must be some. Perhaps they specialise in selling property for bearded vendors to bearded buyers?

Television presenters don’t have beards. They got the memo that viewers like to see the whole face. Except for Paul Murray on Sky TV. But there’s always an exception that proves the rule.

There are parts of the world where being hirsute is de rigueur and hairlessness is rare.

I am the chairman of a business council connecting Australia and the Middle East and it’s rare for me to be on a zoom call in these Covid-19 times when my overseas interlocutors are not hirsute.

The same would be true across the subcontinent and much of central Asia. Think Genghis Khan who ruled the largest contiguous empire in world history.

Dumbledore from Harry Potter fame sported a serious beard.

There was a time in Britain when facial hair was dominant. Queen Victoria, who was on the throne from 1837 to 1901, was so taken with her husband’s beard that she all but insisted that the British Army and Navy got on board (pardon the pun) and beards went through the British military like myxomatosis.

The same thing happened during the American Civil War in the 1860s. Not only did president Abraham Lincoln cultivate a beard, but so too most of the generals and admirals of the fleet. The other officers, soldiers and politicians followed suit and beards rule in North America too.

Fashions are changing again.

Beards are back.

It seems to me you can trace these trends through the tales of Hollywood. When superheroes start having beards, then you know.

Thor has a beard. So does Iron Man. Wolverine has a beard. So too Aquaman.

Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, another iconic bearded character.

Bad boy Loki doesn’t. King Orm doesn’t.

Dumbledore has quite a beard. So does Hagrid. Voldemort not so much.

Gandalf and Aragorn have beards. Actually, Gandalf appears to have a beard and a half! His wizardry friend, Radagast, seems to have birds and small mammals living in his beard. Yet the Orks aren’t bearded as a rule.

Anyway, you get the picture.

Why am I interested in this rather boutique subject? Simple – I have grown a beard!

After 54 years, arguably more like 38 as I would have struggled to grow a beard before year 11, I have become a bearded bloke.

Like many middle-aged males, I grew an “iso beard”. I was so surprised with the progress I let it go and now, it’s fair to say, I have quite a beard.

Even more surprising to those who have seen it, it has quite a lot of red in it.

This is no surprise to me because I was a ranger with a cow lick haircut and freckles until I was about 12!

The question is, what to do with it now? Do I keep it or shave it off?

On the pro side, it amuses me how much it discombobulates people who have never seen such a phenomenon on my face. On the con side, the face masks make it very itchy.

Another pro is it makes me look younger, which is important now that I am well and truly middle-aged.

Countering that, when I do television, it might look odd because no one else has a beard on television and there’s got to be a reason for that.

The bottom line is that I can’t decide. Opinions from readers would be most welcome.

But hold the vitriol. As they say, if you can’t think of anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.