"Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity?" William Shakespeare 1564-1616, English poet, playwright

Update, update! I was shaved! It's true, really... See the evidence here

Perhaps so. But at least one part of that can be rectified.

Yes, that's right, the beard is coming off in -418 days on the 13th May 2008.

When I was starting my legal career I looked very young. I suppose I was very young. Anyway, I thought it would be a good idea if I could look a bit older, and make clients think I was more experienced than I was.

So I grew a beard.

I have now reached the stage in my legal career when I don't really need to look older. In fact, I probably need to look a bit younger, so that people don't look at me and think I'm about to fall off my perch.

So I'm going to get rid of the beard, and once that happens I'll look like I did in these pictures once more.

And this is where you come in. I'm not going to throw away the 39 years of hard work I have put in to growing that beard for nothing, I'm going to raise money for a deserving cause.

Please go to my fundraising page and give as much as you can. Your reward will be that virtuous glow you get when you do a good deed, plus the fact that when the beard comes off you'll get pictures of me in my new form - just to make sure that you recognise me the next time we meet after 13 May - which is B-Day.

Happy giving.

• What exactly is a beard?
• Should people create web sites about beards?
• Is a beard registry relevant to national security?

"There is always a period when a man with a beard shaves it off. This period does not last. He returns headlong to his beard. " Jean Cocteau 1889-1963, French author, filmmaker