Hometime Hoot: Man, You Wouldn't Read About It, But You Can

Simon Thomsen

G’day and welcome to Hometime Hoot, Business Insider’s daily post to help you unwind on the way home from work.

You know the old joke about truth being stranger than fiction. There’s a variation to that rule that says some things are beyond satire.

Take for instance, the profile of colourful Kings Cross nightclub owner John Ibrahim, by Christopher Joye, which appeared in the AFR on the weekend.

It was a fine bromance, ostensibly about the NSW Government’s new alcoholo crackdown, which begins this week, yet the story contains lines such as

I think to myself that Ibrahim’s frankly better looking than the actor Firass Dirani, who played him in Underbelly.

And he’s distinctively handsome, almost mesmerisingly so, with tight coffee-gold coloured skin and dark eyes with the same golden glint.

You can read about ‘Mr Sexy’ here.

And as luck would have it, 24 hours later, Brisbane author John Birmingham published a very funny column taking the micky out of the way women were profiled, but turning it around and making it a parody man profile.

Birmingham’s breathy prose begins

Guy Manfellow is waiting for me at the bar of a stylishly obscure bar. It is quiet, perhaps only half the seats are taken, but every head in the stylishly obscure bar is turned just a little way towards Manfellow, every eye drawn to his long legs, carefully crossed at well turned ankles. It’s the legs you notice first.

Read it all here.

But how can you parody something that’s suddenly real. As Birmingham said on Twitter

If you find anything fun to share with your fellow readers, I’m on Twitter: @simonthomsen

Safe trip home and see you tomorrow.

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