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| Mullet search |
My mission in life is to visit them all.
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As seen in the Sydney Morning Herald, London's Metro, on TV in New Zealand, Albania's Shekulli newspaper, and other media throughout the world. |
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My bemused fascination (some would say unhealthy obsession) with mullets began while travelling with university friend Niall round eastern Europe and the Middle East in 2001. Niall was a keen mullet-spotter, and began constructing a Mullet League Table of all the towns and villages we visited. I joined in, and was quickly sucked into the dark and compelling world of mulletology.
I fall awkwardly between the two camps - feeling both abhorrence and also the thrill of the chase when I see one... wishing the world could be rid of the outrageous cuts, but also knowing the world would be a duller place without the the complicated scoring system and the dream of beating my all-time best of 17 points in a day. Which was in Nottingham, if you're interested.
How it all startedMany months ago, surfing the web while bored at work one day, I discovered that there was a village near Tirana in Albania with the wonderful and simple name of Mullet. This set my mind wandering, and within an afternoon I had discovered more places with "mullet" in their name.
I bagged my first "mullet" in 2003 in Albania (or so I thought at the time), and since then have been to Ireland, Australia, England, Canada and New Zealand on the hunt for more. My project was a finalist entry in Channel 4 Ideasfactory's Write Away travel writing competition in December 2004.
Spreading the word
My friend in Inverness Angus MacLeod even did a twelve-minute feature about the word mullet for a competition at Moray Firth Radio, which included an interview with me. His piece won. It's very funny and you can download it here (11.MB, .m4a format, best listened to in iTunes). Do you live in the places listed on the right that I am yet to visit? Maybe you could tell me something about the place before I go there, by emailing me on iliveinamullet@simonvarwell.co.uk. If you work for the media in any of the places listed on the right, I'd love to make an appeal to your readers and listeners for help, perhaps along the lines of this initial article in the Illawarra Mercury. If you can help, please contact me on mulletmedia@simonvarwell.co.uk. Latest newsThe last mullets I visited were in New Zealand in January 2008. Occasionally, however, I come across another "mullet" to add to my list.You can read the mullet-related posts in my blog to get the very latest updates. I will be visiting the west coast of the USA in September 2008. More news here, and on my blog quite soon. |
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Mullets - haircuts which are short at the front and sides but long at the back - hark back to a by-gone age of permed footballers and curly 1980s rock stars; and are a perversion to all that is decent in society. Somehow they persist, lurking in all areas of society - on street corners, in shops, on trains, and most recently in trendy nightclubs and even on television. They are met with revulsion from the fashion police on the one hand, and with an excited admiration from dedicated, anoraked mullet-spotters on the other.
What would these places be like? Would they have anything in common, other than a hair-related name? Would they be dark and sordid hotbeds of mulletry themselves? And should I not stop faffing about on the internet and get some work done?
