Face Fungus 2

Well after two weeks of razor and trimmer free time I have once again just enough Face Fungus to have a play with. Now, before we go any further, I must first apologise for the facial expressions. I appears that pointing a camera at me makes my face go all nasty and stern looking. The only way to break this look is to do a massive smile and look like a complete idiot. No middle ground with me…

So here we have the raw face fungus. Untrimmed and totally untouched for almost exactly two weeks. It is no wonder that I got selected to be stopped at security by a man with body armour and a gun.

And today’s only real experiment was to trim back to a thin line. Not bad I feel but just not me. For one thing this is going to take more effort and precision to maintain than I can possibly muster. So no.

And so with a flick of the razor and a wrenching of the facial muscles I am left with a goatie rather lacking in length. It has been left to grow though and so we shall see if one day it can be turned into either a real goatie, a Fu Manchu or maybe a Frank Zappa. Who knows…

'Ere We Go Again, 2, 3, 4...

Sorry people but it's going to happen again. Not content with my previous beardy efforts, I have decided that there are a few more styles that need trying. For one, I didn't get a proper Frank Zappa set going. That has to be done. I'm going to need a little more time, since the styles that I'm going for include dangly bits, but not too long I hope. I know you're all dying to see them, after all.

So, any requests? check out my previous efforts first at Face Fungus and then let me know.

They’re After Me!

Back in March and April those of you that come back for regular updates on the sorry state of my life here in Amsterdam will know that I’ve been harassed since December by the road works out side my house. You’ll also know that not only have they been using bloody noisy jack hammers but they have been using them both day and night. Well, the works outside my house were due to finish at the end of May, just as I was due to return to England. However, I agreed to stay another three months and so they have very kindly agreed to keep the heavy machinery on a little longer. The pavement still isn’t finished but I have to say that most of the night time activity has stopped and the rest of it is just a little inconvenient.

But they have now decided that I need more incentive to leave and so the ROC School Amsterdam have decided to build some accommodation for foreign students. They have decided that the best place to build this is right outside my office window… Yes, that’s my windows in the redish building on the left of this photo. I sit just across from the corner window on the second floor. That is the large window, bottom right, above the light grey part of the building. They started by drilling large holes in the ground. Kinda like having a large, industrial mole in the garden. I’m guessing here, but I think that they must have drilled about 40, 50ft deep holes. Slightly annoying for a few days, but we can live with that kind of activity in the neighbourhood without due concern. Once the mole had left they then brought in the serious machinery. This next beast is the one that is going to fill the holes. But it’s not going to just pour concrete in or even bash poles into the ground as is common. No, this machine bashes a tube into the ground, fills the tube with concrete and reinforcing steel and then bashes the tube out of the ground again. I assume that the second set of bashing is either there just to annoy us or some pathetic reason such as ensuring that all the concrete settles into the hole. Who knows. Anyway, for those of you wishing to have a little sympathy for yours truly, this is what it does all day. And yes, we can feel the ground move.

 

The Girl Next Door.

It’s not so much about her, it’s more that she is. OK. A little background. I live in the top floor of The House That Munt Built. This floor is split, front to back in 2 with a small corridor between. The front half is one big room, but the back half has been split into two smaller rooms, one of which mine. The problem is that the partition wall between these smaller rooms hasn’t got any sound insulation in it. This means that I can pretty much hear everything that goes on next door if I am being quiet. More worrying, they can thus hear everything that I am doing if they are quiet…

The Chef used to live the other side of the wall and he has a loud, deep voice and loves reggae music with massive amounts of bass. He’s not the smartest cookie in the jar and would always turn his hifi on, realise that it was on really loud and turn it down for me. Very considerate, but bearing in mind this was usually at 2am, the damage was already done. He worked the evening shift and so could have it up very loud during the day. Not playing music at 2am was not an option I ever managed to convince him to try. I even leant him my headphones, but remembering to plug them in took longer than it too to turn the music down from it’s daily setting.

So when he moved to the big room across the hall I was ecstatic. He’s been there a few months and life was good.

But now a woman (girl?) in her early 20s has moved in. I’m sure she is nice enough and all, but as Jilted John would say… ‘ere we go 2, 3, 4…

Face Fungus

Just recently there has been much twittering of the Louchetache. I’m not sure who started it, but I know that several of my followees have been on about it for a while. Since I hadn’t shaved in a week or so, I decided that, since I couldn’t think of a good reason, not to grow one, I would grow one. Common sense and self respect would mean that it wouldn’t stay on my face for long, but it would be sculpted at least briefly and just as importantly, photographed in situ.

So, I grew a beard. I’m sorry that I’m not smiling in this picture but I was having serious problems not grinning like a Cheshire Cat a the thought of what was to come…

But before I got to the required horseshoe, Frank Zappa, or more entertaining 70s Pornstar style, I thought that I’d try the good old, standard goatie. By the way, I have decided to keep some chest hair in these shots since it adds nicely to the 70s Pornstar look, I think.

Now, keeping a straight face was almost impossible at this point…

And you really can’t imagine what was going through my head next…

But since things were going from silly to stupid, there was just one more that I had to try…

I won’t do the accent…

And then even that went…

Now, this is the first time that I have been clean shaven this year. I shaved once last year too, but I’m trying not to make a habit of it. I am now desperate for my stubble to return and make me look vaguely human…

The Great Royal Barbarian

I was just having a quick gander over at my good friend Mister Ro when I noticed that he has made himself into a quite dandy super hero. Not to be out done, I have decided that I too can become one of the finest ever to roam the planet dishing out justice and generally saving anyone that happens along and falls into some form of peril.

And here I am. The one and the only The Great Royal Barbarian. I didn’t pick the name, he must have chosen that himself. Erm, that’d be my alter-ego.

So, anyone wanting to make their own super hero had better follow this link to The Hero Factory.

Ruyter or Rötger

In 1667 Ferdinand Bol painted the portrait of Michiel de Ruyter. It looks like this.

Sometime later, on 3rd March 2009, I took the following photo of Rötger, one of the Germans that I work with.

Rötger has taken a cut out of the painting and pasted it onto his pass. It’s a good enough likeness that he gats away with it on a daily basis. We like that.

Do the clicky thing if you want to see how good the likeness is in more detail.