The Book of Bloke Read Free Page A

them, cowing them to the point where they were helpless against his brutal bouncers and bristling upper lip. Hughes’s mantle was later taken up by Shane Warne, who at times during his career flirted with Metrosexuality, particularly in regard to his hair, but in the end came to be known as a Bogan icon, not least for his taste in underpants. Outside of the cricketing world, one of the greatest of all sports Bogans was Wayne Carey, whose athletic ability, when fused with his love of hitting people and groping passing women, made him something of a Bogan role model. However, his high level of physical fitness made him perhaps less than an absolutely ideal Bogan – in many ways he was more an Athlete than a Bogan, at least during his playing career – and he may have been surpassed by his contemporary Billy Brownless, who was such a Bogan that immediately upon announcing his retirement, he tripled in size. Another great sporting Bogan was Matthew Johns, forever assured a place in the Bogan pantheon thanks to his ability to parlay his footballing talent into a career making fun of homosexuals – living the Bogan dream, as it were. And then of course there is Phar Lap, who used to spend his downtime between races drinking on his front lawn.
    Outside the realm of sport, other famous Bogans include Senator Bill Heffernan, actor Michael Caton, television presenter Scott Cam, celebrity criminal Mark ‘Chopper’ Read, and prominent puppet Agro.
    Boganism is a broad church: although many people consider Bogans to be a homogenous and conformist lot, within the wider Bogan community are many groups and cultures who have carved out their own identity within the greater Bogan monolith. Some of these hew closely to the classical Bogan ethos, while others, having diverged some time ago from the main trunk of the Bogan tree, have developed habits and markings that clearly indicate a distinct subspecies. Varieties of Bogan include:
    The Bootsniffer . A Bogan species notable for its pack behaviour and unusual religious habits, the Bootsniffer tends to congregate in large groups, known technically as ‘a barracking of Bootsniffers’, for the purpose of drinking heavily and roaring incoherently. Scientists have studied Bootsniffers extensively to try to determine exactly what it is that they are roaring about, with only limited success. Some hypothesise that it is a kind of mating call, although counting against this is the fact the roars are usually directed towards other men, who are generally located on a large field playing football. Others have speculated that the Bootsniffer’s distinctive call may be an attempt to influence the game in some way, although it has also been noted that the words roared only occasionally bear any identifiable connection to events on the field, and there is no recorded instance of a Bootsniffer having any influence on a game of any kind. This has led many to prefer the mating call theory, and others to simply decide Bootsniffers are eternal optimists. Bootsniffers themselves are divided into different breeds, existing in different regions. The Northern Bootsniffer tends to be gruffer and heavier-set than his southern cousin, and his social groups a little smaller, which the Southern Bootsniffer will generally claim is a mark of inferiority. Although there are many other differences between the varieties – such as the Southern Bootsniffer’s inexplicable love of tribal chants sung by barbershop quartets, or the Northern Bootsniffer’s reluctance to leave his house in unpleasant weather conditions, or if his TV is working – they are still recognisably of the same type, as evidenced by the fact that both breeds share a love of scarves and yelling about how soft everything is these days. No matter what region one is in, one is likely to hear the phrase ‘It’s not bloody NETBALL’ in the company of Bootsniffers.
    Bootsniffers can be distinguished by their tribal markings, loud call and extreme