It used to be clothes, as in three-piece suits and jaunty hats and tweed with leather elbows, then it became sleek cars and 4wds with shovels bolted to the racks, and when the most desperate wannabes flocked to the image cues the cover was blown.

These days it's the beard, even if the ridiculous hipsters with their designer beards and designer everything else are trying to find a new look.

That's not, however, why I'm growing a beard. My intention is not to deceive anyone, it is not to change my image, and you'll be relieved to know that I'll continue to be the same handsome, rugged, masculine cove I've always been.

The process began when I dropped my electric shaver while we were caravanning in March, and you may know that all men with a beard will have a story about how unplanned circumstances started it all. Some will have been trapped on an island during a flood, some will have been too busy saving whales, and none will have made a conscious decision to change the way the world sees him.

But I, on the other hand, really did drop my shaver. It was almost two weeks before my wife noticed, and I explained that, no, I wasn't growing a beard, it was simply that I'd dropped my shaver and hadn't got around to fixing it. I feared that by admitting to the attempt I would open myself to the disgrace of failure.

Now, two months along the track, I'm not fooling her or anyone by denying the intention, and I have to admit the obvious that it's not all hunky-dory. You see, the whiskers on the chin and on the cheeks are so different that it looks like two beards cobbled together.

On the cheeks the whiskers are gingerish, wiry, curly, while in between the cheeks they're a distinguished silver, soft and straight, and it is touch and go whether the whiskers on the cheeks are ever going to amount to a beard. They're sparse and patchy, and every morning my wife inspects them and announces "nope, no change".

Then she jabs at bare patches rating them in coins, as in that one's the size of a 20 cent piece, that one's a 50 center, these are 10 centers, and so it goes on. Not exactly a positive start to each day. She likes also to tell me that I have a funny walk, a strange eyebrow and ears that don't match.

She has a droopy eye, just by the way.

In the past week she's been urging me to shave the cheeks and retain the goatee, consoling me with the assurance that the goatee would suit me, but as you who have read the first paragraph here will know, it would not suit me at all.

So I battle on, day by day. And I have found that by looking at myself head on in the mirror, rather than with my head askew, I get a much better impression of the beard. Straight ahead the cheek growth looks almost bushy, and so after a few seconds of admiration I turn away with a slightly extended blink lest I catch a sideways glimpse then I march manfully into the day.

I was almost pleased that my young grandsons were more than circumspect when they saw me after a month or so of isolated growth, and even weeks later the adventurous 17-month-old fellow won't let me take him out of sight of his mother. Bearded men crave impact.

Now that I'm out in the open I might as well explain that I want a full beard because a full beard allows the wearer to be not only the person he wants to be, but the people he wants to be.

When I want to be seen as everyone's jolly, kindly uncle, I will be. And when people see me that way I will be that way, and I will be as happy with myself as everyone's jolly, kindly uncle is with himself.

When I want to be seen as wise and knowledgeable, I will be. And I will indeed be the man with all the answers. And when I want to be seen as fearsome, I will be. And I will revel in being fearsome.

Full beards make this possible because they hide the face and the expression, and so who can know that the jolly man's face would betray his perennial crankiness, that the guru has a face flickering with uncertainty, that the fearesome has a face of soft, podgy folds?

A full beard is a hairy mask, while all the other beards are an affectation. A cranky man with a goatee will never be everyone's jolly uncle, a stupid man with mutton chops will never be wise, a frightened man with a sculpted growth will never be fearsome. Can a man with a chin strap ever be anything but a fop? And so, for me, it is all or nothing, a full beard or no beard, and definitely not a goatee. And another thing, my wife's ears don't have lobes.