The Book of Bloke Read Online Free Page A

drink until he falls over in the surf and drowns. And so forth.
    Then there is the matter of their appearance: the Wave-Snipe holds a very large advantage over other Bogans, in that he is sexually attractive to non-Bogan members of the opposite sex, mainly because he has the abdominal muscles and tan to appear like a non-Bogan himself. Often the partners of Wave-Snipes don’t even realise they’ve thrown in their lot with a Bogan, until the day their new man wraps himself in an Australian flag and heads to the streets with a slab of VB balanced on his head. The revelation is frequently traumatic.
    However, despite the potential lurking within every Wave-Snipe to get drunk and roam about punching people in the head until they promise not to come back to the beach, this is an essentially peace-loving Bogan who would rather be riding a wave than starting a fight, and who likes nothing more than watching the sun go down over the ocean while downing his fifteenth beer and contemplating the meaning of life, which has something to do with beer and surfboards.
    A very different, but some might say even more exotic variety of Bogan is the Mussel , a subspecies that experts believe split in the relatively recent past from the Exhauster branch of the family, given its similar obsession with all things automotive. The typical Mussel can spend just as much time as an Exhauster on his car, and takes pride in having the most pimped-out, highly polished, subwoofer-laden machine possible. But in that very car will lie a clue to the difference between a Mussel and other Bogans, because while the classic Bogan will cruise the streets, 80s pub-rock blaring through his windows, the Mussel is more likely to be pumping out heavy hip-hop beats in an effort to stake out his territory. The Mussel doesn’t, to be frank, care much for music, but will always strive for enough bass to make the car next to him shudder.
    The Mussel is not always recognised as a true Bogan, and many Mussels will themselves deny they
are
Bogans, considering themselves to be far too sophisticated for such a label. However, although a Mussel is more likely to sport a slick, heavily gelled coiffure than a luxuriant mullet, and a tight, pec-displaying T-shirt rather than a baggy Bon Jovi souvenir, his Bogan antecedents are evident in his behaviour. For just like any self-respecting Bogan, the Mussel can be seen on any given weekend venturing into the city, where he will drink, dance, and fight with bouncers. The main difference is that he is a better dancer: your average Bogan will hit the dance floor with a sort of awkward, apologetic half-spasm, whereas the Mussel will prance with extreme confidence in his moves and the carefully arranged bulge in his jeans. Similarly, the Mussel trumps his cousins in his confidence with the opposite sex, boldly approaching the female of the species in a manner quite alien to, for example, the Bootsniffer’s baffled stammer, and not letting the constant rejection get him down in the manner of the common Guzzler. A true ladies’ man, the Mussel will always operate via the law of averages: the more women he rubs up against, the greater the chance one of them won’t throw a wine cooler in his face.
    Despite these superficial differences between the social habits of the Mussel and other Bogans, however, their night will invariably end the same way: with blood, vomit and unconsciousness in the grand Bogan tradition.
    Like all Bogans, the Mussel feeds mostly on a sense that someone is out to get him. For the Mussel, this includes other Bogans, and so there is frequently tension between the Mussel and traditional Bogan communities, neither of which recognises the essential brotherhood that exists between them. Indeed, each often sees the other as a wanker, a disappointing state of affairs that has up to now prevented Bogans from uniting and taking over society.
    Although the Bogan is commonly seen as a creature of the lower socio-economic strata,