Movember in London

Movember brings with it a strange sense of cameraderie. The older gents tell me they’re proud they can still grow one. You get weird nods from men you don’t know, invariably from those alpha males with beautiful full uppers. The compliments over beer: ‘Dude… You look like Hulk Hogan.’ The side-by-side face-stroking in the queue for coffee and the constant conversation about the state of one’s mo.

Movember is simple: for the month formerly known as November, men turn their upper lips into hairy billboards for the promotion of male health, and through their efforts raise money for The Prostate Cancer Charity and the Institute of Cancer Research.

I have always secretly wanted to have a go at growing a mo, but had never tried for fear of ridicule. The whole office seemed to start laughing when we started discussing if we would do Movember, which suggested we were on to a good thing, so we got a team of twenty men together: The Jestico + Whiles Architects Grow Mos for Men’s Health, or Testicles + Smiles for short.

Some have taken a short cut and just shaped their already-bushy beards, but most of us have grown them faithfully. No-one is used to their new look: you see chaps do a double take in the mirror and then the hand slides to the mo as a proud stroke begins. Yeah, I grew that; impressive, manly.

However, it turns out that mos are officially disgusting. There is a constant stream of comments like ‘you look like a ’70s porn star’ or ‘I’m not letting you near my children wearing that’, and my favourite: ‘You look like an anorexic strongman from the ’30s.’

Well, a fella can put up with cheap jibes, but it’s the reaction from loved ones that hurts. Such as my friend Phil’s mother, when he said he was doing Movember: ‘Are you? I didn’t notice, I’m sure it will be great in a month.’

At the water cooler, chaps swap tips for keeping one’s mo in tip-top condition – some have even resorted to applying Aussie 3-Minute Miracle to offending follicles. Some of us men haven’t had a kiss in a month for the complaint of scratchiness. At first I didn’t understand what all the fuss was about, but in the past week my mo has turned against its master and now when I kiss my wife it needles my flesh and I want it to end. It’s a good cause, I say to myself, but thankfully there is only a week to go.

To find out what all the com-Mo-tion is about, visit the Movember website as well as keeping up with Andrew’s progress.

Image by sameffron courtesy of Flickr