What's your favourite One Direction lyric?

I never thought I'd be one of those people who needs a beard trim, being obsessively clean-shaven until quite recently. Alas, the things you find yourself doing in your 30s. I'd like to think this is the price of following fashion - beards are back, even the hipsters are doing it. But it may be more truthful to say this is what guys my age do to compensate for the hair migrating away from our scalps to establish colonies elsewhere on the body.

Now maintaining a beard requires some commitment. Trim too close and it's not a beard at all, it's long stubble and maybe you forgot to shave. Leave it untethered and you acquire a certain homeless chic. Then there's the neckline, which you're sure to get wrong and carry that mistake around for all to see.

Best to consult the professionals, and there is but one people who know about grooming men's hair. Off to my local Turkish barber in Shoreditch I went.

The clippers was only the start. You might think having a beard would spare you the the blade - if this is not making you nervous already, you need to know its proper name is a 'cut-throat'. But no, that thing is going to caress your throat in the most intimately threatening manner while you try not to express your inner terror.

Mert, a burly guy with enormous arms, carried out this task with the precision of a watchmaker and dexterity of a pianist. When we were done I caught myself in the mirror to witness his work. Looking good, I thought. Then came the fire.

Some sort of torch was doused in flammable liquid and set alight. Before I could form the words to ask what the hell was going on, Mert had fashioned it in to a flame-thrower and was launching those flames toward my head to be instantly recoiled, then this little performance was repeated to the other side of my head. My lobes were a little warm but genuinely unharmed. On the air sat the distinct aroma of my singed ear-hairs which I never knew I had. These guys don't fuck about.

I sighed relief. Surely we were done and no more weapons would be deployed. That's when he grabbed my temples.

Jerked to the left, then to the right, I felt something audibly crack at the top of my spine. "Relax" he chortled, and some tension did subside. I squeezed my leg to make sure I had not been rendered quadriplegic.

For these guys grooming is serious business, and the manner in which they execute their art is the height of machismo. But what was most unexpected transpired in the background.

"Let's go crazy crazy crazy til we see the sun. I know we only met but let's pretend it's love. And never never never stop for anyone. Tonight let's get some and live while we're young."

This contemporary ballad had come on the radio, an unlikely juxtaposition I thought, given the setting. But Merk was getting in to it. Humming along the whole time. At some point he did a little sway back and forth. Was he dancing - to One Direction?

As the time passed however, another track came up. And another. This was not the radio at all. Merk had the album.

I learned two things that day: I have hair in my ears, which can be extracted using petrol and a match without causing injury. And the music of One Direction is pure poetry.

I can't decide what my favourite lyric is, currently I'm torn between

"Tell me with your mind, body and spirit
I can make your tears fall down like the showers that are British"

or

"Now she’s feeling so low since she went solo
Hole in the middle of my heart like a polo"

What's your favourite One Direction lyric?