Changed Spots.

Today I rocked my leopard-print facemask on the bus; trendsetter or cunt? The jury's out.


In many ways, I tested this poser to the max by changing buses in Stevenage Town Centre. If there's one place you're most likely to be mocked or taken down for defying fashion norms, it's there. But despite sitting at the bus stop with the facial equivalent of Tarzan's loincloth covering my air holes for a good fifteen minutes, I remained unchallenged; after that, I'm invincible. I may as well visit the Kop in full Everton regalia without feeling I'm tempting fate.

The reason I bought a leopard-print mask - along with a few others that weren't plain black - was to quash the conventional male wisdom of not standing out. While I may be prone to anxiety, I'm comfortable enough in my skin to risk not just buying things from the sedate men's sections of whatever shop without feeling I'm calling my manhood into question; moisturiser's moisturiser, for fuck's sake.

Wearing this mask, however, did raise a few salient points. Firstly, if I committed a crime, would the witnesses assume I was Pat Butcher? And secondly: did the law of averages mean that somewhere on the planet, a leopard was wearing a mask of my snout?

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