War is not healthy for fancy chickens and other living things.
Sponsored by
L337.com
Australians have a strange penchant for hero-worshipping scumbags. There is a list as long as your appendage (*snort!*) of Australians who might be considered true heroes — fire-fighters and philanthropists, surgeons and soldiers, and that bloke from the Salvation Army who’s always rattling his tin in your face when you’re trying to down a quick beer or three at the local rubbity. But what sort of people do Australians really look up to? In a word, criminals.
Far and away the best example of this phenomenon, and the most contentious of Australian heroes, was an ill-educated Irish thug by the name of Edward Kelly, better known as Ned. He had a face as furry as a quokka’s quoit (and breath to match), and his daring exploits included assault, theft and murder. If I had a choice of spending five minutes in the same room with this vicious fuzzy mongrel and stuffing a Tasmanian Devil down my daks, I know which one I’d choose (even if the result would be the heinously bloody loss of both my goolies and most of my inner thigh!).
Kelly felt he was hard done by. Those dirty rozzers were always after him and his family (what they did to his mother …), and this was clearly an act of harassment and injustice. If a decent, clean-living, unshaven thug can’t steal a few horses, beat up a few townies and shoot a few coppers in cold blood, then what’s the point of living? Quite!
In the end, dressed in 90 pounds of steel armour, Ned (with his gang of three half-brained bog-Irish numbskulls) held an ill-advised shootout at the Jerilderie pub. Three ill-bred farmboys versus half the police force of the State of Victoria. Terrific odds, Edward! Result? The gang all dead and burned, and Kelly shot in the legs, captured and hung by the neck until dead (don’t you just love that phrase?).
This man Kelly is mythologised and held up as a role model in Australian society. “Yes, kiddies, sensing the great injustice that was being done to his family [because he had a penchant for beating seven shades of shit out of you if you looked at him sideways, and stealing anything that wasn’t nailed down], Ned ran away with his gang and hid until he was able to sneak up on the police that were chasing him and gun them down. And why wouldn’t he? It’s just a pity that he was caught and hanged, because I’m sure he had a lot more to offer Australian society …” Christ on a Malvern Star! The rotting carcase of a road-killed ‘roo has more redeeming features than this brown snake with a beard!
There have been umpteen books and poems written about Kelly. There have been movies, mini-series and songs. The man is as popular as a pair of plastic arms at a thalidomide clinic. But why? Crikey, he’s about as wholesome as the water in Grandma’s denture glass, and as inviting as a naked truckie doing the tassel dance with his donger!
Edward Kelly, for crimes against humanity and facial hirsuteness beyond the bounds of reason, a dirty double-digit score of tenty-one! Victim of injustice my hairy, wrinkled sphincter …
Posted by at May 25, 2003 12:56 PM | TrackBack..in your face when YOUR trying to..
*BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM* *BLAM*
Isn't it "hanged by the neck until dead"?
Posted by: on May 25, 2003 04:46 PMYes it is "hanged by the neck until dead" -- or it was until one of those danged Van Tols got a hold of it! I'll boil their bristly bollocks in brine!
Posted by: aussie boy on May 25, 2003 07:25 PMRight aussie boy, you'd like to think that! Time to boil your own bristly bollocks in brine!
Posted by: Jan on May 25, 2003 07:41 PMWell, talk about victims of injustice! Sorry JvT.
It hurt when I first dipped them in, but now they're hairless and squeaky clean!
I blame the MicroSnot spell-checker. It was "hanged"! I swear that's how I wrote it ...
Belvedere, bring me the analgesia and two blocks of ice!
Posted by: aussie boy on May 25, 2003 10:39 PMTrying not to picture aussie boy's hairy wrinkled sphincter... and failing... OH MY EYES!
And don't forget, Mick Jagger played him in the movie . . .
Posted by: transmaniacon on May 26, 2003 11:13 PMDidn't Yahoo Serious make a film called "Reckless Kelly?" He said, too lazy to look it up on the IMDB.
Posted by: scarred by film on May 27, 2003 08:05 AMYup. no Australian(Or anyone else for that matter) should be without a Yahoo Serious film or three. I just wish he were a bit more. um… prolific.
Posted by: Eric D.V.H. on May 27, 2003 03:33 PMYahoo Serious films are best-known for their laxative effect ...
Posted by: aussie boy on May 27, 2003 07:27 PMEDUCATION....
ok mate....
Nice speech but...ummm.
"was an ill-educated Irish thug"???
I hardly think you can right such a piece and meation ill-education.
Maybe you should read up the historic facts before writing a false document like that one!
The real stories, Both sides are out there for anyone with internet access or a library card.
Ned, was not Irish but born in Australia, he was from irish back yes!
Jerilderee is in NSW not victoria and the siege was at Glenrowin, not Jerilderee.
Ned had a gang of three, well they were the ones outlawed but there many more sympathisers that wouldn't turn the gang in even for the phenomenal sum of 4000 pounds. A fortune in those days!
Once again, if you had looked into the historical significance of the actual time, you would find out that the only people who were doing any good at all were the squatters, Police and wealthy land owners.
The police force was still harbouring thugs such as the way you painted Ned, from the gold rush, where anyone with a badge had a right to take what ever they liked and beat seven shades of shit out of you if you looked at them sideways. a good reason to be weary of them!
This said it is no Justification for murder.
As for your description of Ned as a thuggish man who was keen to fight!
It is actually doumented that Ned's nature was quite passive and The only person that he apparently beat seven shades of shit out of, was a man called Wild Wright, who was the reason Ned actually served 3 years prior. That was a prise fight and the men were re-aquainted after as friends!
So what I am getting at in this post is not telling you, that you have to like Ned Kelly or even appreciate his situation.
The main point I am trying to make is that when you post a full article on some one as well known as Edward "Ned" Kelly, make sure you know what you are talking about before ranting about things that you clearly know nothing about.
It just makes you look silly , that's all!
I have enclosed my email...so if you want some good sources of information about this part of history, I would love to help!
Maybe you could try and show the police side of things?
Maybe you could write some alternative situation that could have taken place instead of the way things unfolded, backed up with all the correct information!
This is not having a go at you I am sincere about this but mate, you gotta have a look at the facts before making claims!
Please email me back just to let me know if you are serious (No pun intended towards Yahoo either) because if you want to know more I can show you good references.
Then if you you paint him black, then at least you are informed enough to battle a harsh letter from Kelly fans.
That way you will earn respect as from them too because you will not come across Ill-educated!
Cheers
Get back to me
Glad to help on anything in Australian history!
Sincerely
Daniel lee Pearson
I don't know anyone who actually saw that recent Ned Kelly movie, and I know quite a few people who specifically avoided it on principle.
Same with that Chopper movie.
P.S. Yes, it is "hanged", unless you mean that he had genital relocation surgery.
Posted by: DJ on December 6, 2003 08:52 AMnot all aussies look up to criminals. there are other awesome people to look up to. you might think your hero is someone that does your sport, like nick reiwolt (AFL) or maybe even ian thorpe (swimmer. not everyone is criminals. ned kelly was years ago and some people may think that he is a legend but others are against how he spent his life.
Posted by: Kim Greenwell on February 29, 2004 10:39 PMI can agree to the fact that some may differ opinion but I think he still reflects the australian spirit and you wont change me on that, the other :heroes" are valid enough but I suppose the only real heroes I believe in are ones like soldiers who sacrafice thier normal life to protect our day to day!
Cheers