The Magnificent Moustache Malarkey
Day 35: What do I love about my moustache? O so many things! Among them, the blond hairs that are so plain in person, so elusive in photography. Really and truly, I am mildly surprised, however infinitesimally, each and every time I look in the mirror and see that I've brown hair. I will never, ever forgive "the world" for robbing me of the beloved blond mane of my youth. It's nice to see there are a few whiskers yet faithful to the grand old cause (my blondness, not to be confused with the New Model Army's Good Old Cause).

Fewer than three weeks remain until the end o' the Malarkey. After six months, I'm certain I'm going to feel naked without any form of facial hair. The Bonanza & the Malarkey have been so much more than I'd hoped they'd be. It shall be profoundly strange returning to my habitual look.

Magnificent!

Moustache Hero
A picture is worth a thousand words. I should sincerely love to read a thousand words written to capture the grandeur of this picture, for I have not myself the eloquence necessary. To wit, the moustache of Sir Edward Elgar. Behold!



An earlier effort in the same vein as Moustache Heroes, including a list of magnificent moustachioed men of the 19th & 20th centuries: Wayback Machine. (Note the previous name of the M.M.M.)

The Queue
I am thrilled to be reading The Man with the Golden Gun, for though I rolled my eyes at the prospect of yet another of 007's adventures taking him to Ian Fleming's beloved Jamaica, it's clear that returning Bond to that green and sunny land in the Caribbean Sea has shaken Fleming's writing out the doldrums in which it had been mired. I'll write a fairly comprehensive post or series of posts on the Bond books once I've finished Devil May Care, but for now suffice it to say that The Spy Who Loved Me has to be the worst of the bunch (It has to be, right? There can't possibly be anything worse on the horizon, can there?) and that getting through You Only Live Twice was abject drudgery. Two out of the last three outings were more akin to obligations than entertainments, and just for good measure there were real problems with On Her Majesty's Secret Service, too. A third of the way through, The Man with the Golden Gun is a breath of fresh air! 007 is fun again!

Recently
Ian Fleming, The Spy Who Loved Me
Ian Fleming, On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice

Currently
Ian Fleming, The Man with the Golden Gun

Presently
Ian Fleming, Octopussy and The Living Daylights
Sebastian Faulks writing as Ian Fleming, Devil May Care
W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden, or: The British Agent