Beard Liberation Front
Media Release
10th August
Contact Keith Flett @kmflett
London Beard Week 2024 Most Iconic London Beard. W G Grace shaves Michael Rosen for annual honour*
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that London Beard Week which concludes 10th August marks the continued growth of beards in the Capital.
It traditionally coincides with the Campaign For Real Ale’s Great British Beer Festival at Olympia often the source of anti-beard stories in the media. This is not running in 2024 but the London Craft Beer Festival does take place at Tobacco Dock on 9th and 10th August.
London Beard Week is posing the question of whether there is such a thing as a London Craft Beard?
The campaigners say that aside from the many more beards to be seen in workplaces, shops and pubs, there is also a growth of specialist beard care shops and hairdressers offering beard trims and treatments, although the BLF advises against beard trims in barbers shops.
London Beard Week is a celebration of London, now one of the most beard friendly Capital cities in the world, and of London’s great hirsute heritage from Charles Dickens to Karl Marx through to modern day beards such as England football captain Harry Kane and author and Arsenal fan Michael Rosen.
Cricketer W G Grace (1848-1915) took 42% of the vote compared to Michael Rosen’s 26%. Although Grace is associated with Gloucestershire cricket from 1900 he lived in Mottingham south-east London. Michael Rosen is an Arsenal supporting north-east Londoner.
Michael Rosen on Twitter complained that W G Grace’s victory should be laid aside on the basis (by inference) that since the cricketer had died in 1915 he was not available to twitch his beard. Michael Rosen who by contrast is very much alive, can twitch his beard. The inference again being that the Best London Beard should be capable of interaction and movement which W G Grace’s beard is currently not.
The BLF disputes committee having reviewed this complex theoretical and practical issue in detail on 10th August has ruled that W G Grace’s victory should stand on the basis that were he still alive his beard would be able to twitch. Hence the twitch/no twitch comparison is not a valid reason to lay the result of the vote aside.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, London is striking a decisive blow against pogonophobia, the irrational dislike of facial hair. It’s now respectable to wear a beard in London but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for hirsute innovation and in particular a London Craft Beard style. Whether W G Grace or Michael Rosen will set a trend for London Craft Beards in the months to come we’ll see.
London Beard Week poll to find London’s most Iconic Beard.
An online poll ran during the week
Charles Dickens, author
Fred Engels, philosopher and activist
Michael Rosen, author & broadcaster
Sigmund Freud, psychoanalyst
Jeremy Corbyn, Islington North MP
William Cuffay, Leader of London Chartism
Bernie Grant, London Labour MP
W G Grace, cricketer
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