Man - A History of Manliness :: Wessex Scene Online

Man - A History of Manliness

9th March 2008
Nicholas Brown

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Nov 05 - Pimp my Rolemodel
Dec 07 - Christmas Songs and...
Mar 08 - Nick and Emmeline take the first shots in the Wessex Scene ‘Battle of the Sexes’
Mar 08 - A Culture Club?
Mar 08 - Inside the Female Mind

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Oct 08 - Tropic Thunder
Sep 08 - How To Lose Friends and Alienate People
Jan 08 - Happy New Year!
Dec 07 - Christmas Songs and...
Nov 07 - When Nick met Joe

In celebration of all things male, the Institute of Rolemodel Sciences has dedicated this, the third annual Pimp your Rolemodel to manly men and their manly achievements. No Arnies or Chuck Norrises here, we are talking real men.

So, we begin with Grigori Rasputin. Allegedly stabbed, poisoned, shot four times, badly beaten but only died when his body was thrown into the Neva River. His subversive powers of persuasion were only matched by his magnificent beard and enormous genitals.

Jack Churchill was an English soldier who fought through WWII armed with a bow, arrows and claymore. Once said "any officer who goes into action without his sword is improperly dressed". In his old age, he would toss his briefcase out of the window of moving trains as they passed his back garden to save him the effort of carrying it.

It seems that nothing can stop Lance Armstrong – Won the Tour de France seven times in a row. His opponents tried to take him down by poisoning him with testicular cancer and a germ cell tumour but he beat those too. Having completely mastered the bike he now he runs the New York marathon in under three hours.

The Ancient Undisputed Champion - Alexander the Great. Undefeated in battle, conquered most of the known world by the time of his death and he is subsequently mentioned in just about every ancient holy book and cultural text across Eurasia. Allegedly magnificently bisexual.

Father of Men, Genghis Kahn united nomadic tribes to create the Mongols and invaded most of Asia creating the beginnings of one of the largest empires in history. His army was never truly defeated. Fathered so many children that 1 in 200 men in the world carry a possible Y chromosome that links back to the Kahn lineage. Who’s your daddy? Probably this guy.

Where to start with Sir Ranulph Fiennes? First man to cross the Atlantic by foot, member of the SAS, was almost James Bond, discovered a lost freaking city in Oman, got frostbite in the fingers of his left hand then sawed them off himself, ran seven marathons in seven days on seven continents at the age of fifty nine. Cousin of Shakespeare and Voldemort.

The Great Kiwi, Edmund Hilary was the first man to climb Everest, declaring "Well, George, we knocked the bastard off" upon reaching the summit. He climbed ten more Himalayan peaks in six years, went to the South Pole and jet-boated up the Ganges aged 58. He also built a load of hospitals and schools for Nepalese sherpas. He was perhaps the only man to have his face put on a bank note (NZ Ł5) before he died.

Can anyone match the courage of Polish soldier, Witold Pilecki, who founded resistance groups during WWII? Was the only person to volunteer to be imprisoned in Auschwitch. While there, he organized the resistance movement in the camp, informed the Allies of atrocities in the camp and escaped in 1943 to take part in the Warsaw Uprising.

David Boon - Cricketer, Keg on Legs, Icon. Boon consumed 52 cans of beer during a flight from Sydney to London before their victorious 1989 Ashes tour.

And you can forget the rest of those roided up freaks, for "Macho Man" Randy Savage is a six time world champion and the undisputed king of the ring. He had a hot manager-wife and an even hotter beard. Savage is also universally feared for his trademark battle cry: "Oooh yeah." But the fact that he is an old white guy didn’t stop him from releasing a hip-hop album. The album’s title? ‘Be a Man’.