Scantily Clad

A few days ago I daringly appeared naked on Blip...indeed naked for the first time anywhere for some years. It took some getting used to this stranger looking at me out of the mirror and it wasn't helped by my rapidly hitting a technical snag. My centuries old razor blade was, to say the least, past it. All the miraculous smooth shaving technology of 3 bladed "Fusion!...for Men" that can cut through an Amazonian rainforest like it was roller skating on ice reduced to a grimy, twisted, blunt instrument. It was like shaving with 2 biros and an antique fountain pen strapped together on an emery board. Nil desperandum ! somewhere in amongst the assorted heirlooms of previous generations I have an ancestral cut throat razor (my Grandpa Ritchie was a barber). Amazing how a little stropping can restore the wicked, gleaming edge of a blade....sort of strangely fascinating the way the light dances along the edge and the steel sings to you. It sings a strange, dark song of deeds best left unspoken, of the hot gush of red across the pale white of flesh, of the wild joy of......sorry where was I.....came over all funny there....Anyway as i was working out correct angle to the skin, appropriate level of force (not having used one of these things except for sectioning tissue samples in the lab) I remembered how much my hands shake these days (what with my Syringomyelia, Arachnoiditis and other spinal damage and diseases)....I decided this might not be one of my better ideas, my hands would inevitably go into spasm using them for that kind of dexterous manipulation and raising my arms above 45% initiates intense pain and cramp like contraction in biceps and triceps. No better not, that would hurt. Consequently I reached the momentous decision that I would have to buy a new razor blade....not intuitively obvious I know but it's astonishing how a rational, scientific analysis of a problem can eventually lead one to the answer - no matter how obscure....or expensive. It did take me 3 days to remember to go into a shop while I was out and when I did I was shocked to my core, shocked all the way down to my little, tight lipped Scottish wallet when I saw the price tag. I appreciate that since I last made such a purchase times and currencies have changed; we have come off the gold standard, lost the Empire, abandoned the simple time tested monetary system of ha'pennies, pennies, thruppences, sixpenses, shillings, florins, half crowns, crowns, ten bob notes, pounds and guineas in favour of some bizarre and overly complicated decimal system - but good grief! I only wanted to buy a few razor blades not the entire sodding foundry! Sadly my itching hirstuteness would brook no further delay and I had little option but to pay the extortionate price.

My lumpy phiz is once more naked and distressingly moon shaped and shiny, however in the belief that things are more exciting when a little is left to the imagination I have chosen to blip a scantily clad image rather than the full monty. Amazing how a beard can struggle for survival after it has been savagely cut down - rather like watching nature re colonise the tundra.