Oi think 'ee is a Seltick God!

Oi think 'ee is a Seltick God!

Once you've watched more than a couple of episodes of 'Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World', you start to notice that a workable alternative title could have been 'Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious Beards'.
Now being a beardy sort myself, I know it is cruel to throw standing stones, but frankly there are some spectacular specimens on show here.

If the 1960s saw Russia and America concentrating on the Space Race, by 1980 one country was definitely overtaking the other in the Beard Race.

America offers up an Ice Scientist with a nice hat and he's perhaps the baseline from which to make our comparisons.

But Russia wheels out the big guns and gives us a highly impressive Proper Science Beard, which follows in the grand tradition of periodic table pioneer Dmitri Mendeleev. Frankly, if you stuck it on the end of a wooden pole, you could sweep up a warehouse with this bushy beauty.

'The Riddle Of The Stones' might feature assorted archaeologists, but they are disappointingly clean-shaven. The stereotype of 'Time Team' ("with their beards and their brightly-coloured jumpers!") seemingly hadn't yet taken hold down Avebury way.

The mystery of the so-called Baghdad Battery offers us the memorable Dr Arne Eggebrecht; a fellow with an "eye-ron rod", a "copper sigh-linder" and a startling resemblance to Rory McGrath.

But ultimately, you can't beat Local Beards for Local People. A trip to Cerne Abbas provides us with chap in a blue jumper who has waxed the ends of his moustache in a possible tribute to Salvador Dali.

How ironic, though, that in a series where we travel the globe in search of Bigfoot and the Yeti, eventually we find living in the priapic shadow of the Cerne Abbas Giant a curious creature more hair than face. He may not be able to say the word 'Celtic' properly, but as the wind buffets his mass of curly locks, this bloke surely wins the Beard of the Decade Award.

As Beard Symbols go, he does wonders for me!

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

PS: At least they've spliced in some footage of people with more sensible hairdos. The films are invariably so well-edited that you can't see the join. Oh...