« "wh y do n’ t yo u have a beard?” this was a question that a london taxi driver once posited to me. i’d just told him i was a novelist, and he eyed me with great suspicion, questioned my lack of facial hair and then concluded, with authority, “ a proper author ought to be old, and look jaded, and have a beard.” i pointed out that jane austen and george eliot had managed to pen fine prose despite having hair on their cunts rather than their chins »