When I'm looking in my mirror at home, I don't think I'm so bad.

Whichever way you look and whoever's doing the looking, you couldn't call me ugly.
Not handsome, maybe, but not ugly.
My face is sort of square and what an author might call open, and it's a good colour.
The scar over my left eye where I argued with the railing doesn't help, though I wonder sometimes if it doesn't make me look a bit tougher. I don't know.
And there's always my hair. No two ways about that, I've got a head of hair that any man would be proud of, thick and dark with a natural wave that needs only a touch of the fingers after it's combed and glossy without a lot of cream. No doubt about my hair. And I have it cut every fortnight and never miss. Or only now and again.
I could do with a couple more inches on my height. I've always had a yen for just two more inches.

And then my clothes. Now there's no denying I know how to dress. I don't pay the earth for my suits but I know where they give you the right cut and I always keep my pants pressed and my shoes clean.

So there I am, Victor Arthur Brown.
Take me or leave me, I'm all I've got.


A Kind of Loving.
Stan Barstow.