BBC bosses have apparently ordered Adrian Chiles to shave off his beard. Okay, the likelihood of that being true is incredibly slim, but that’s what reports are saying and it gives me the chance to rant off-topic. Chiles has been sporting a beard on The One Show for the past month.

Reportedly executives think that the chin fuzz is “inconsistent” with his role on the show. In The Sun, one of those ubiquitous ‘sources’ has said: “Adrian’s bush has not gone down well with petty-minded BBC execs. They reckon he doesn’t look right, a bit scruffy, like he hasn’t bothered to get ready properly.”

Chiles reckons: “I was just about to shave it off in our make-up room when Kirsty Young told me to leave it on. Since then Davina McCall has told me she liked it. And Kate Silverton called me over to tell me I looked hot, though I don’t think she had her specs on at the time. Women and many gay men have told me it looks good, so it’s staying.”

What is it with people and beards? We all know that the world is filled with braying morons, but really… the amount of complaint that some people put up in the face of The Beard is astonishing.

Alan Hansen, BBC footy pundit, sported a fine, distinguished beard a while back… turning him from a Captain Scarlet puppet into a refined gentleman jewel thief. I recall he was dressed in black, with a cracking beard to match… yet, thanks to the creepily hairless Gary Lineker and his metrosexual jibery, the beard was gone in a flash.

Fact is, any man worth his salt should want a beard at some point in his life. Just like a woman can’t be arsed shaving her legs, men grow out the fuzz and some stick with it. Men who are constantly clean shaven give this writer the willies. That close face crop has a tendency to make a chap look like a raw faced cretin. Precision clean, they remind me of cold-blooded murderers who bleed bodies dry whilst listening to Wagner on a pristine white iPod.

Whereas the gent who sports a beard (or any facial hair for that matter) is a man who is welcoming… a man that understands that thanks to our lack of interesting make-up, we can actually make our chops more interesting to look at with a beard, some sideys or a Lemmy handlebar.

Adrian Chiles needs to keep the beard for a bit longer. It’s getting political and beards are for winners.