Hundreds of shaggy men descended on Brighton, southern England on Saturday to vie for top marks in this year's World Beard & Mustache Championships.
Roughly 250 bearded and bewhiskered contestants lined up before panels of judges in an effort to win first prize in 17 different classes of facial hair.
Mustache categories include the "Dali" -- slender with long tips, straight or arching up -- and the big and bushy "Hungarian," while full beards range from the shorter "Verdi" to the rounder, more expansive "Garibaldi."
PHOTO: AP
Those with particularly fanciful fuzz -- like one man who showed up with a beard sculpted into the shape of London's Tower Bridge -- were invited to compete in the event's freestyle categories.
Competitors are barred from using extensions or hair pins, although wax and hair spray are allowed in some cases.
The first championship was held by beard enthusiasts in Hofener, Germany, in 1990, and the contest has long been dominated by German beard clubs, according to Beard Team USA, who were celebrating an unprecedented four first-place wins.
Among those celebrating was 23-year-old Jack Passion, from San Francisco, California. His flowing orange fuzz carried the highly competitive the "Full Natural Beard" category.
"I feel fantastic," he said in a telephone interview. "I'm 23 and I have the best beard in the world."
He attributed part of his success to his outfit, a blue tuxedo and bowler hat.
"I looked like a groom," he said. "Too bad you never get married when you have a huge beard."
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
‘POLITICAL EARTHQUAKE’: Leo Varadkar said he was ‘no longer the best person’ to lead the nation and was stepping down for political, as well as personal, reasons Leo Varadkar on Wednesday announced that he was stepping down as Ireland’s prime minister and leader of the Fine Gael party in the governing coalition, citing “personal and political” reasons. Pundits called the surprise move, just 10 weeks before Ireland holds European Parliament and local elections, a “political earthquake.” A general election has to be held within a year. Irish Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin, leader of Fianna Fail, the main coalition partner, said Varadkar’s announcement was “unexpected,” but added that he expected the government to run its full term. An emotional Varadkar, who is in his second stint as prime minister and at
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia