I NEVER fought for a free French republic, but at present my face says otherwise.

I look even stranger than I normally do.

Your husband, brother or father might do too!

For the whole of November I have been challenged, facially.

The end result is that I am sporting the most horrific moustache, all in the name of charity.

It’s designed to raise awareness for prostate cancer, and many people in Oxfordshire, and beyond, have been accruing odd facial hair for “Movember”.

It’s a great cause but don’t be fooled by the clean shaven smiling face at the top of this column, and yes, before you ask, that is a smile.

It’s not that I have an ideological or metaphysical stance against a face smooth like a baby’s bottom.

Far from it, in fact it is only the process of shaving itself that prevents me from enjoying having nothing but my nose on my face.

No, having a shave is such a massive faff and full of rigmarole.

You have to get the right foam or gel, the correct razor and then there are the crèmes, potions and lotions for your “aftershave care” and that’s before the act itself.

The advertising pressure exerted is immense.

Take the latest Wilksongillete 9-blade Cuttathron Mega Razor commercial.

An impossibly sculptured gym-going-tanned model wearing nothing but a towel, holding in his hand a blade so sharp it would make Excalibur blush.

This is an image I can’t compete with.

Every time I shave it reminds me how far from this shaving ideal I am.

Anyway, stubble is fashionable. Look at George Michael and Nick Knowles.

I try to fool myself into thinking that I have fashionable stubble. However my ability to tread the right side of the fashionable/hobo look is fleeting.

Every so often it will become too itchy to stand and I will shave.

But to try and enliven what is fundamentally a boring and functional activity I shave in stages. It’s like time travel.

Bare with me here. Firstly I leave long 1970’s style sideboards. These chops are then destroyed leaving the typical 80’s goatee. After that goes it’s back to the Victorian era and the handlebar.

With a little more off it becomes the Mexican troubadour. Next stop 18th Century France and the “Musketeer” (this look is achieved by leaving a little bit of fluff under the bottom lip coupled with a top lip length tash). I then move to the 1930’s pencil lip before finally and fleetingly “the Hitler”.

I am then fresh faced.

These enjoyable but highly private moments of my shaving ritual are exactly that, strictly for my own enjoyment.

You might have thought that on the face of it – excuse the pun – ‘Movember’ would be right up my street.

Wrong.

I am now out in public looking utterly ridiculous.

Which look did I go for? I plumbed for the musketeer.

The result. Less Dartagnian, more Dodgytashian.