Friday 17 April 2015

N is for Ned Kelly — a call to arms letter

Ned me old mate,
I know you’ve been dead a dog’s age, but I'll give you the drum. It's time you gathered up all your ghostly guts and took a bit of action. Fair dinkum, Ned, there’s blokes on every bloody street in Melbourne walking about trying to impersonate you. It’s doing me head in.

Remember how you once called coppers "a parcel of big ugly fat-necked wombat headed big bellied magpielegged narrow hipped splaw-footed sons of Irish Bailiffs or englishlandlords", well, Ned, some of these wankers fit that bill too. Some are worse.

It's been 45 years since the fat-lipped prancing pommy bastard played you in that shithouse movie, so you've had a pretty quiet run with deadset dickheads mucking around with your legacy. But this new lot, Ned, they call 'em hipsters. They’re a pack of big-bearded wannabes and you’re the only one can stop ‘em .

Believe me, Ned, your badass image is getting crapped on from a great height by these drongos. Come back and sort 'em out mate. I'll help.
Your mate,
Joe
Ned Kelly, sketched as he was leaving Benalla. David Syme and Co, Melbourne, 1880,  held at State Library of Victoria.
.A couple of Ned Kelly wannabes hanging out on Tumblr

Song of the Day: The Wild Colonial Boy as sung by that prancy pommy bastard Mick Jagger, in the shithouse 1970 movie Ned Kelly.


 

Question of the Day:  Hipster beards: Why?

 


12 comments:

  1. I don't know why! I hate them as well. They are not very becoming and add at least 10 years on to their age!

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    1. Indeed they do... I wonder if that's why some guys do it? There was actually a letter in our daily paper today about how women are crazy about beards... Not the women I know!

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  2. And god know what is living in those things!

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    1. ewwwww Plus bits of food and goop...
      I wonder if they're hot?

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  3. To me, as an American, they look like Civil War generals. All they need is some gold braid on their shoulders and a saber. Not a good look then. Not a good look now.

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    1. Agreed... They are actually known as Ned Kelly beards in Australia. It was one of the top 5 new terms last year, considered for the word of the year by ht national dictionary center along with manbun!

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    2. And thanks for dropping by to meet me. I really appreciate that you bothered to leave a comment.

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    3. Thank you for writing such entertaining posts! And when I comment here it's like time travel. You're almost a whole day ahead of me.

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  4. I think they do it to feel grown up (and because they're lazy and can't be fagged shaving). And then after a bit they get rid of it for a cheap face lift an injection of youth and positive girlie attention. Unless they they have no chin to begin with, and then it's a cloak.

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    1. But as I understand it they actually take quite a lot of grooming. I do wonder about the virile male vs metrosexual angle though.

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  5. A few embarrassing confessions:
    1. I had a tiny crush on Ned after reading Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang
    2. Out here in the Western suburbs I don't encounter many hipsters, so for a long time I wondered why there were Jewish men were wandering around without their Yarmulkes on.
    3. Everyone else is up to N/O and i am struggling with I. I hate I. I will probably still hate it when I eventually publish it. And I WILL get to the end of the alphabet challenge.

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    1. 2:You are such a dag. 1: I hope you feel the pressures off now that you've confessed...
      3: But you're writing long well-thought out pieces. I'm sure not. There's been many a day I've wanted to take it back down! But you press on, girlfriend.. I have faith in you...xxx

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