FACTORALY - E77 BEARDS

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Beards have been around forever. Protecting, attracting, warming, styling, everything you can do with a man's face is in the hair. This episode explains the quirks and foibles of beards and aims to demystify them for the 50% of listeners who can't grow one! As always, click on the pics to delve deeper. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello Bruce. Hi Simon. How are you today? I'm feeling refreshed and happy. How are you? That's jolly good to hear. You almost sound like a person who's been away for the weekend. I may well have been away for the weekend. Excellent. And I didn't trim my beard. Did you not? I went somewhere cold, so I thought I'd just leave the beard on. Ah, okay. Yes, as a protective thermal layer.

Exactly. Exactly. Good idea. Yeah, sort of like, worked like a scarf. Yes, lovely. I understand. And hello to all you lovely listeners. Welcome to another exciting episode of... Factorially. My name's Simon Wells. And mine is Sven Lars Eriksson.

Known in this country as... Bruce Fielding. That's the fella. That's him. I know him. We are a couple of professional voiceover artists, and when we're not doing that, we love facts. We do.

And trivia and things like that. Pub quizzes. All that kind of jazz. Yeah. And we come here once a week and we pick a particular topic and we find some interesting facts to chat about, and you lovely lot get to listen to us do so lucky you this one's close to our faces it is yes not to our hearts

this week we are talking about beards that's right and what do we both have glasses well i only wear them to look at you on on screen that's a good point actually are talking about beards. That's right. And what do we both have? Glasses. Well, I only wear them to look at you on screen. That's a good point, actually. In that case, we both have beards. We both have noses. Yes, we both have beards. Yes.

How long have you been wearing a beard for, Bruce? Well, I started growing a beard when I was about, I suppose, about 17, 18. I kind of started because I looked about 12. And I thought I'm not going to be taken seriously if I look like a little boy. So I started to grow a beard. And I sort of mostly have had one ever since. I do occasionally take it off just to see the horror that lies beneath.

You just sort of unclip it and put it on the dressing table briefly and then put back on again yeah yeah that'd be great detachable have you ever shaved shaved yours off yes um i've i've gone through quite a few different phases of my beard we have um i wonder if we should put photos of ourselves on the show notes this week so people can see what we're talking about in fact why don why don't I... Hang on a minute. I'll take a picture right now. Oh, a little screenshot.

Yeah. There we go. So smile, please. There we go. We have a picture. Lovely. Right. If you head over to the show notes

on factorily.com... Factorily.com. That's the one. You will see a lovely photo of both of our bebearded faces. Yes, our mugshots. Yeah, so i've gone through various phases i've been attempting to grow a beard since the moment i could just because of the novelty factor right sort of around 15 16 i started off with a bit of stubble but i've just gone through various different phases i've had a goatee i've had a a little sort of two-piece d'artagnan-esque

mustache and beard well we all do that don't we i mean we're chaps forgive us the other 50 percent of people who are listening to this um but when you when a chap shaves a beard off generally speaking they kind of do it they plan it yes so you plan okay so i'm going for i'm going for the for the light stubble look. I'm going for the Zapata. Yeah, lovely. Like all the different stages you can go through on the way until you finally get down to the moustache. Yes.

And then you work out the Hitler moustache very briefly. And then that comes off. I feel a bit sorry for Charlie Chaplin because Charlie Chaplin had a very similar moustache to Hitler. But unfortunately, we all associate it with him. Yes, we do. The last time I fully shaved, it was accidental. I accidentally slipped the length on my beard trimmer down to zero. And I took one swipe at my face, and it was just sort of nothing but stubble.

I've done that. I had no choice but to remove the whole thing. It was very odd. I hadn't seen my face in years. I think we've all done that. Anybody with a beard has done that from time to time. I should think so, yeah. My new beard trimmer has a lock. Oh, that's a good idea. So you can lock it in place so that it'll never do that. That's a very good idea. Yes. I like that. So beards. How would you define a beard, bruce because they clearly come in a lot of different shapes and sizes and styles what are the criteria okay i think it's facial hair right that's it

okay i think you know if you if you do absolutely nothing as a chap your hormones and your testosterone will make sure that you have hair on your face yes Yes. So I've always pondered at what point precisely a moustache becomes a beard. Because if you just have a moustache, a bit of hair under your nose, above your upper lip, that is just a moustache. Even if you grow that moustache really long into a handlebar moustache, it's still a moustache. Yes. The point at which it becomes a beard is if it joins up with the facial hair on your cheeks as soon as it does that if you sort of grow the mustache out sideways to join your sideburns or if you grow it out downwards to join the hair on your chin that becomes a beard although you can have mutton chops can't you yes you can which i don't think that's a whole

other thing altogether i don't think they join up to your mustache do they no they don't they're separate aren't they but that must be a beard because that is facial hair on your cheeks it's in the style list it is on the install which if when you go to the blog you'll find a style list which will explain all the different styles of beard i stopped looking at this in depth because there are just too many but I had a quick look at a list it's probably not exhaustive but I had a look at a list of different beard styles

and there are just so many they include Deep Breath Full Beard Garibaldi Beard Old Dutch Sideburns Joinline Chinstrap

Chin Curtain Brett Neck Beard Circle Beard Designer Stubble Captain Beard Goatee Junko Meg Van Dyke Monkey Tail Hollywoodian Reed Royal Verdi You haven't mentioned the Newgate. Like I said, it wasn't exhaustive.

What's a Newgate beard? A Newgate beard is basically a beard that only goes where you would naturally have a noose hanging around your neck. Oh, my goodness. Newgate prison. Yes. Oh, that's bizarre. It is a neck beard, but it's a style of neck beard. Yes, okay.

The etymology of the word beard is really dull. It's one of those words that's always meant beard. But it may or may not be connected to the word barb, like in barbed wire or the barb on a prickly plant. You're getting into an area now. Am I? And if indeed beard is connected to barb then that would explain why we have barbers who cut your beard yes um the etymology of moustache is a bit more interesting that comes

from the late 16th century french moustache from italian moustachio from greek moustachs yes which again has always meant mustache yes so nothing terribly exciting there you see i looked into this because i thought oh i could go to barbecue barbecue yes so there is a there was a theory or probably still is a theory that barbecue as in the french barbecue it's like beards to tail what yeah q is french for. So the idea was you cook the whole animal. From beard to tail? From beard to tail. Oh, that's amazing.

Yeah. Except then I found out that that may not necessarily be true. That it may actually come from a Caribbean word, barbacoa. Yes, that's the one I've heard. Yes. And that's like an arrangement of sticks. Yeah. That you sort of like put, then you put those around a fire Yes, and that's like an arrangement of sticks. Yeah. That you sort of like put, then you put those around a fire and then you can put things on top of it.

That's it, it sort of relates to the cooking apparatus. Yes. Doesn't it? So that's the barbecue. Right. But I was very upset that it wasn't the barbecue. That would have been fun. Yes.

So there you go, you've tuned in to listen to an episode about beards and you've ended up finding out where the word barbecue comes from good stuff definitely so um you mentioned right at the outset um that one of the benefits of having a beard is that it has an insulative quality to it it keeps your face warm goodness me i suddenly feel the cold if i do ever shave so that is totally true i had always assumed that was the main purpose of a beard that sort of pre-historically speaking as the chap goes out hunting in all kinds of weather he could do with as much hair as possible to to keep himself warm whilst doing so yes um but charles darwin made a suggestion which has actually been corroborated several times in in recent scientific studies that having a beard is more connected with

sexual selection and attraction to the opposite sex yes um humans aren't the only creatures that have beards there are other other animals that have beards as well and in all of those species it seems that the ones with beards tend to be more attractive or more successful in attracting a mate the production of a beard is connected to your testosterone levels in fact i discovered a new word the hair follicles in your face are stimulated by a hormone called dihydrotestosterone okay um which in itself is connected to testosterone and so having a beard means that you're you've got good hormones you've reached sexual maturity so that's you know yeah a plus in itself yeah um and that it may have very little to actually do with keeping you warm

there are surveys as well which which suggest that women find men with not big beards but sort of like a normal sort of light stubbly kind of slightly longer longer stubble yeah more attractive than um clean shaven men yes yeah but you also mentioned protection there um from the cold. Protection from the sun as well. Oh, okay, yes. A beard has an SPF of 21. Does it? Huh. Your face can stay in the sun 21 times longer with a beard than it can without a beard. Wonderful.

Did you know that's how SPF works? No, I didn't, actually. Come on, another side topic. Is that what SPF refers to? Yes. So it's how much longer you can spend in the sun. So an SPF 50 means you can spend 50 times as long in the sun without getting burned. Oh, I didn't know that.

Car, facts galore. I know. Of course, the current culture and fashion and so on has to be taken into consideration as well. You know, we've got a survey saying that, generally speaking, women find men with beards more attractive than men without. But obviously, that comes and goes over the years. You know, we've had eras where every man jack of us has worn a beard and that's been the absolute standard, you look back to sort of the early 20th century, sort of the 1900s Edwardian era, everyone was either clean shaven or just had a moustache. There was very little facial hair.

You sort of looked at World War I photos and that sort of era. Beards weren't terribly fashionable. So if you'd taken that same survey then, I wonder if the results would have been different. And yet, if you'd gone another few years back... Yes, the Victorian era, beards everywhere. Well, at the time of the Crimea... Yes. It's bloody cold in the Crimea.

Yeah, of course. So beards were kind of... At that time, beards weren't necessarily allowed in the army, but people were just growing them anyway because it was too cold not to. And they were writing letters to headquarters saying, please can I grow a beard because I'm desperate to keep my face from freezing off. Yes.

And actually what happened then was that men came back from the war wearing these beards. And women sort of found them more attractive because they were obviously warriors and soldiers. Oh, the rugged hero returning. So other men who hadn't been to war thought, OK, I'll get in on the act here and grow a beard. How interesting. So that's why they suddenly sort of sprang into popularity again after the war. Yes.

Excellent. There have been differing military opinions on beards over the years. That's a sigh of, oh, I'm so glad you've gone down this route, Simon. That's because I looked into the rules and regulations on beards in every single army in the world. Oh, my. Well, that's more thorough than what i've done wow but yeah all throughout history beards have come and gone and come and gone um in ancient greece they were very popular you know you can hardly see a painting or a sculpture of a greek philosopher without a beard um alexander the great came along and said, no, this is terrible. We need to get rid of them all. We need to have our military clean shaven, largely because it gives the enemy less to hold on to

whilst in close combat. Yes, of course. The Mesopotamians loved big curly beards. The Romans hated beards. The majority of the Roman Empire was clean shaven up until their later era, when one of the emperors can't remember which one grew a beard and repopularized it but the majority of romans were utterly clean shaven um so it comes and goes interesting well shall i go shall i go through your military regulations please i'm really looking forward to this so india sikhs are allowed to wear full beards right but they have to dress up their hair and beard properly. Non-Sikh personnel are allowed to grow whiskers and moustaches of moderate length.

Army personnel on active duty are exempt from facial hair regulations. Funnily enough, generally speaking, the Navy gets a better deal on beards than the armies do. Really? Is that because it's blooming cold at sea and if they want to grow one they can yes possibly or possibly because naval people like to wear beards fine they're just that kind of guy so you would think that arab countries like iran and iraq um would allow beards i would have thought so yes uh which they are good um however israel uh the idf prohibits the growing of facial hair unless a special request form has been filed and approved. Really? How interesting.

Because you'd think, you know, given Samson, and given that you occasionally see sort of like very religious Jewish people wearing a long beard, that they would be allowed to do that. But they're allowed a sort of like a trimmed beard, a neat looking beard. I wonder whether that might be deliberate because in many cultures a beard is seen as quite a religious item. It is. Isn't it? It's sort of, you know, so many traditional ideas of God and Abraham, Muhammad, Jesus, you know, having beards and their followers should mimic them in all ways. And therefore beards are very popular in religious circles.

I wonder whether that particular military edict is to notify the fact that you're separate because you're in the military community rather than the civilian. Well, in the Israeli army, you're allowed, sorry, in IDF, you are allowed to grow a beard, but you have to ask permission. And that permission has to be renewed every year.

Really? You get a beard permit? Yeah, a beard. But you have to ask permission. And that permission has to be renewed every year. Really? You get a beard permit? Yeah, a beard permit. As opposed to in Lebanon. Lebanese armed forces aren't allowed to grow beards. They're allowed a trimmed moustache. Okay, fine. Pakistan, beards are not a problem in the Pakistani army. Philippines, facial hair is actually prohibited in the Philippines. Yeah yeah no facial hair at all entirely wow yeah you would think that the gurkhas would be allowed beards they're allowed mustaches yes but not but not beards no interesting um there were things about gas masks and stuff

that they thought well i'm not sure oh Yes, that's true. Singapore, no. They're allowed moustaches, but not beards. South Korea, nope. Sri Lankan Navy doesn't allow moustaches alone, but does allow full-set beards. Oh, that's unusual. I mean, I could go on. And that's only Asia.

Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, we could go through the whole of Europe, America. But anyway, let's talk about Britain. Let's talk about the United Kingdom. Let's keep it close to home. Yeah, exactly. So the Navy's always allowed beards since the 1850s. Has to wear what they call a full set beard and moustache.

So you can't wear a beard without a moustache or a moustache without a beard okay it's all or nothing it's all or nothing and the individual must seek permission from his commanding officer to stop shaving and if after a fortnight without shaving it becomes clear that the individual cannot grow a proper full set the commanding officer may order him to shave it off. Oh, poor lad. I know. How discriminatory. In the Army, Marines and Air Force, they did allow moustaches, but were bids for grown for medical reasons, such as temporary skin irritations, were allowed. The sort of archetypal RAF fighter pilot of the Second World War was allowed a moustache.

Yes, absolutely. I mean, a lot of it these days is about respirators. Yes, okay. And sort of breathing apparatus. Yes. So in the event of conflict in which the use of chemical or biological weapons is likely, service personnel with beards may be required to shave

a strip around the seal of the respirator. Wonderful. Let's also talk about the Germans. Okay. I mean, famous for a moustache. Actually, that moustache was the only facial hair that was allowed under the Nazis. It weren't allowed beards. Oh. And since they, one of the biggest German operations of the Second World War was called Operation Barbarossa.

Okay. Red beard. Well, actually, it's sort of named after Frederick I, who was the Holy Roman Emperor who conquered most of Europe. Who had a red beard. Who had a red beard. Makes sense. And then hence sense barbarossa and uh so yes no no beards allowed on that operation to invade russia which um massive

loss of life i mean about eight million soldiers died in that operation crikey and um the germans sort of like stopped short of about 20 miles short of Moscow. Right. And one of the theories is it was so cold and the soldiers couldn't operate because their faces were freezing. Because they didn't have beards. So for want of a beard, the battle was lost. Exactly. Gosh.

But nowadays the German army does allow sort of trimmed, neatly trimmed beards, so long as it doesn't interfere with gas masks and respirators and things. Okay. Okay, yeah. I suppose other than the practicalities of a beard getting in the way, it's also good to sort of have everyone looking the same, isn't it? There's a certain uniformity to being in the beard. Military, uniform, always good. Yeah, yeah.

You either all wear the same moustache or you none of you wear it yes makes sense so there are lots of people uh whose name includes beard obviously we've just mentioned barbara rossa sure red beard yep uh but there was black beardard. The pirate. The pirate. See our previous episode on pirates. Absolutely. And the French murderer, Bluebeard. Oh, OK. I know the name, but I don't know anything about him. So he's famous for murdering his wives.

Right. He got married and then murdered several wives. Oh. And I think it was a fictional French story, but it may have been based on truth. Oh, OK. But yes, so lots of people called Beard, including a chap called Beard who doesn't have a beard. OK, who's that then? So have you ever heard of a band called ZZ Top? Yes, I have, or as I like to call them, ZZ Top.

Quite right. So they were made up of Billy Gibbons, a lead guitarist, who had a huge beard. Yes, of course. Dusty Hill a lead guitarist, who had a huge beard. Yes, of course. Dusty Hill, bass guitarist, huge beard. And Frank Beard, who's the drummer, who didn't have a beard. No beard. So beard was beardless. Exactly.

Exactly, yes. So lots of well-known people with beards. There are loads. There are so many famous people with beards. I mean, beards were such a popular thing in the Victorian times. It would be hard to name a famous Victorian who didn't have a beard.

Yes. You know, Charles Dickens, Charles Darwin, W.G. Grace, the cricketer. And then fictional characters as well. You know, every wizard worth their salt in literature has a beard. Merlin, Gandalf, Dumbledore, you know, they all have beards.

And there's an element of the fact that that sort of shows their age. So wizards, the word wizard, you know, related to the word wizened and wise. Having a big long grey or white beard shows that you've been around the block a few times, you know, you're older and wiser and a bit, you know, separate. And that was the case with Greek philosophers. You think of Socrates and all those sorts of people, the philosophers were allowed to keep their beards as almost a piece of uniform you know i'm old i'm wise i've earned my beard yes everyone else has not yeah although it was quite expensive to have a beard at some point. Yes. There were beard taxes. What? So there was a Russian beard tax under the Tsar. Okay. And there's also under Henry VIII a beard tax and Elizabeth I had a beard tax. You know, I'm not sure how it was measured, whether it was the length of the beard or whether you just had a beard. But Henry VIII had a beard. Well, yes.

I mean, obviously. That seems unreasonable. He's tax exempt. Yes, of course he is. Yeah, naturally. Oh, how bizarre. Beard tax. Taxing beards, windows, all sorts of things. I wonder how they, I mean, they must have had inspectors. They must have had someone sort of coming around to your house and saying, right, you've got five windows.

That's a big tax. You've got a beard. That's another bit of tax. Yeah. Oh, brilliant. In Sweden, in Herdenberg, they elected the mayor. Okay. Everybody who was up for election, like, knelt down by a table and put their beard on the table.

Right. And they put a louse in the middle. And whichever beard the louse wanted to live in oh my goodness became them became the mayor that's fantastic i read at one point that um in medieval europe a knight having a beard or at least a senior knight having a beard was you know really sort of again it sort of proves he's been around the block a bit he's a bit older a bit wiser a bit more manly beards became really quite important to them as a sort of a symbol of their knighthood and um it was actually an offense to grab another person's beard oh wow well that's various points in medieval europe i say that's just not cricket. Indeed. And at one point, if someone else grabbed your beard, it was such a serious

offence that you had the right to challenge them to a duel to the death for doing so. There are lots of animals with beards. I have one. Yes, you do. You have a bearded collie. I do. Ah. Not the only bearded thing, though. There's also the bearded dragon. Yes. Which is a sort of lizard. Yes. There's a bearded emperor tamarin, which I'll put a picture of in the show notes, which looks absolutely amazing.

That's the sort of the monkey-like creature, isn't it? Yes, with like a bright white beard and moustache. I recognise it, yeah. It just looks stunningly good. Yeah. And then obviously you've got goats. Of course, yes. You've got a goatee, haven't you?

Well, you haven't, but one has. One can get her, yes. And then there's the bearded pig. Okay. It's a breed of pig. Right. And then there's the bison, which has a beard. Right. So there's quite a few animals that have beards i wonder how one distinguishes because the human definition

of a beard as already discussed is hair around your lip cheeks chin neck etc yes if you're an animal with hair yeah you already have that what makes you bearded i think if it's extra long in that particular area right or unusual or a different color okay i mean for instance what makes your dog a bearded collie rather well presumably there's a breed of collie that doesn't have quite such long facial hair i think i think actually it's a border collie with with long hair and they just decided to pick on the beardy bit. They could call it a long-haired collie or something like that. Yes, okay, fine. But a bearded collie sounds better.

I've met the dog in question. The bearded thing does totally fit him. Absolutely, yes, yes. Dogs looking like their owners, unfortunately. Oh, yes, now you mention it. You talked about famous people in the olden days having a beard chopin had a beard right but he only had half a beard did he like literally down down the middle because he felt you know i'm only facing the audience on one side because i'm sitting at the piano so i might as well just have a beard on one half because I'm sitting at the piano so I might as well just have a beard on one half

that's bizarre there's a one called a monkey tail have you seen that one I've actually met someone with a monkey tail I couldn't I mean he wore it seriously he wore it there was no irony or comedy in the thing that was just how he wore it. So this thing sort of went from his right sideburn down across his chin over onto his moustache and looped over and then stopped at the top corner of his moustache and didn't go up the other sideburn. So it just looked like he had a monkey sitting on his head with his tail wrapped around his face.

But like I say, it wasn't comedic he was wearing it as a genuine serious fashion choice not for a bet no nope that was just how he wore his beard well you can decorate your own beard you know if you've got if it's if it's bushy enough have you seen these beard decorations you can get again i've got them bruce have you yeah i've got a set of beard baubles do you wear them for christmas just for christmas yeah um i have a little collection of miniature baubles some with bells some with flashing lights each with a little crocodile clip attached and you pin them to your beard i haven't done it for a while because my beard's a bit shorter now than it used to be but i used to have quite a big bushy beard. And each Christmas I would pop on the beard

bobbles and shake my head and jingle all the way. Have you ever heard of beebearding? No, I haven't. Oh, wait. No, I haven't. So what you do is, if you're a beekeeper, you get the queen into a little sort of pocket underneath your chin. And then you pour a load of bees onto your chest and they all go up towards the queen. Right. And they go all over your face. And basically they form like a bee beard. Just... Why? Because you can i mean there's a video which will go on the on the blog brilliant uh of people actually doing this and it's quite i mean we talked about

decorating you know you can get bee decorations you can get little bees that you put into your beard yes of course as a decoration but this is an entire beard made of bees that's very niche isn't it have you heard of a beard hammock nope so this is a thing that's got two suckers on the end and you wear it around your neck and then you stick the suckers to the window so that when you trim your beard all the trimmings go into their into their beard hammock bruce you've got one i had one of those i didn't remember that that's what it was called oh that was genuinely one of the best things I bought until the suckers came off. What can I say? I'm a nerd. I like gadgets and things.

Now, following on from beard hammocks, that's a nice little segue, I had a look at shaving. People who don't wear beards would generally assume i think that people with beards don't shave but we do and in fact it's actually sometimes more intricate and awkward so to do because you have to keep your beard trimmed and then you have to shave a very neat line around the edges so it's it's actually quite a quite a kerfuffle so i had a look at shaving and um apparently archaeologists have found 100 000 year old clam shells with traces of human hair in them and uh they've they've guessed that people actually used to use clam shells as tweezers to pluck the hair out of their beards um apparently 60 000

years ago they started using sharpened clam shells and actually shaving the proper way. Razor clams. Razor clams. There you go. That's why they're there. The Romans used an implement called the novosilla, which was sort of an iron block sharpened on one edge with a handle. Sort of looks a little bit like a knuckle duster, really. And it was the Romans who created something akin to the first barber shops they had these places where you specifically went to a person who shaved you already mentioned you know the romans had quite a thing about being clean shaven yeah so you would go to this place you'd

have a nice nice clean shave you'd share the gossip and the news of the day and and that's where sort of people hung out um the higher echelons of society had their own in-house barbers and hairdressers but don't we all don't we all um but the everyman could go to this this place and obviously we've we've done an episode previously on barbers but from then on barbers were really sort of trustworthy people notwithstanding the likes of sweeney todd perhaps but um But, you know, you sit in a chair and you've got a relative stranger holding a very, very sharp piece of steel,

running it all over your throat to shave your face. But that's what you had to do. That was quite a skilled profession. It wasn't until the late 1700s, a French fella called Jean-Jacques Perret invented the world's first safety razor okay kind of he took a regular cutthroat razor and and put a little sort of wooden guide attached to it so it wouldn't get too close to your skin okay um and from then on the the innovations in in

razors and shaving equipment has just sort of gone from strength to strength in the 1820s we manufactured quite a lot of razor blades here in in england because the the steel industry in sheffield yeah um in 1895 an american chap came along with one of the best names of any person i've ever heard of king camp gillette fabulous what were his parents thinking um and he created the world's first disposable razor blade they came up with the idea in 1895 and then had it patented in in 1901 and all of a sudden this idea that you could just pop the the blade off a razor throw it away put on a new one without having to go through you know sort of using a what are those things called don't know why i'm doing this action because it's a it's an audio podcast people can't

see a strop strop there we go sort of a leather a leather strap with a with sort of polish bread on it that you would sharpen your razor blade on but all of a sudden the average householder can buy these razors get rid of the blade blade, put on a new one, and away you go. And that's kind of been the state of shaving ever since. Going back to beards in the military, the First World War really propelled Gillette to the forefront because the US government employed them to supply a shaving kit to every single US serviceman. So by the time they got home from the war, everyone was using Gillette razors.

And that sort of secured their position as the absolute staple of home shaving kits. Cool. So it's about this time of the show when we talk about Guinness. It is, yes. I've found a few beardy-related Guinness records. The longest beard on a living person currently who is alive today. Yeah, 2025.

Yes, indeed. This is a gentleman called Sarwan Singh who lives in Canada. And he has grown a beard which is 2.54 metres long. How tall is he? It didn't say. But 2.54 metres long. How tall is he? It didn't say. But 2.54 metres is 8 foot 3 inches, so I think it's safe to say that the beard was taller than he was. I would guess.

And this was achieved in October 2022. So that's on an alive person. Yeah. The record for the longest beard ever goes to a fellow from Norway who was born in 1846, died in 1927. His name was Hans Langseth. And he had a beard which measured 5.33 metres, 17 feet 6 inches. Can you imagine the split ends on that? Oh, imagine it.

It's beautifully braided and twisted and you're very very well kept apparently we'll we'll throw some uh some pictures of him lots of beard oil used absolutely yeah um apparently his his beard not his body but his beard was presented to the smithsonian institute in washington dc in 1967 gosh so you can go and see it I hope so it didn't actually say that it's on display but I would very much hope so um and um the other record I found this was a lovely if not slightly odd thing to find out the longest beard chain beard chain beard chain so in 2023 the national beard and mustache championships occurred uh on daytona beach in the u.s of course it does and um 86 people stood side by side with their beards outstretched and twisted together what halved yes so half your beard

going left half your beard going right precisely that yeah okay um and the ends of your beard going left, half your beard going right. Precisely that, yeah. And the ends of your beard tied to that of the gentleman next to you. And repeat, repeat, repeat. This was a chain of 86 people. And the resulting beard chain was 195 feet and 3 inches long, which is roughly the wingspan of a Boeing 777 or the length of two blue whales. It's nice to put these things in proportion, isn't it? That's just absurd.

Yeah, yeah. That's Guinness records for you. People do some weird stuff. Don't they? So I think we should trim it there. Yes, all of my beard-related facts have been plucked. So thank you very, very much for listening. We do appreciate it.

And honestly, we do. We really love the fact that you come back and listen to this nonsense every week. And if you've enjoyed listening to this nonsense, we would be most grateful to you if you were to go and tell some other people about it so that they can come and listen to it as well. Or alternatively, give us a five-star review and tell us what it is that you liked particularly about beards.

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We love being corrected if we've got something wrong. It's an opportunity to learn. So there we are. Thank you very much for listening to another fun-filled episode of Fact or Illy. Please come again for the next one. Bye-bye. Au revoir.