Sign of the times

In my capacity as a Rust-er observing life as it is lived in the 21st Century I sometimes alight upon an item on the internet that amuses or causes pause for thought. My grandmother, who died in 1977, held views that no doubt reflected the attitudes of her time. One of them was that men who grew facial hair were either hiding something and/or not to be trusted. She told of how, as a young girl (today we would refer to her as a teenager though this was not a term she would have used), she and her sister used to play a parlour game called ‘Hodge’, whereby – among her circle of friends and family – gently pulling a man’s beard and uttering the word “Hodge” scored a point, with the winner being she (or he) who gained the most points within a given period.

Today I found myself wondering what she would have made of this piece, spotted upon the website of the DAILY MAIL