Award-winning mullet. Yes, you read that correctly. Award-winning mullet is a phrase that exists. And no, 'award' is not a euphemism for jail sentence or bonus toke on the bong.

'Award', in this case is a euphemism for award. Which, I guess, kind of makes it not so much a 'euphemism' and more kind of, well...a 'word'.

Hmm.

Anyway, the point here is that you can win a prize for having a mullet. And there's not only one prize. Oh, no. There are multiple prizes. There are prizes for different age groups. There are prizes for assorted categories. There are prizes for, well...I'm not really entirely sure what some of the prizes are for. Given one of the categories is 'Grubby', it seems a pretty safe bet aesthetics are not one of the judges' considerations.

Welcome, my friends, to the glorious world of Mulletfest.

Every year for the past five years or so, in the little Australian town of Kurri Kurri, the finest (?) mullets of the land gather to battle it out for the coveted (??) honour of possessing the champion (??!) mullet in their category.

The best Vintage mullet. The most Extreme mullet. Somewhat confusingly, in what would appear to be an Australian contest, the finest International mullet. There's even an award for the most exceptional Ranga* mullet.

So much culture.

There's a lot to unpack here. A lot to digest. A lot to file away for that next therapy and/or drinking session. So much so, I don't think I'm even going to try. In fact, I'm not even sure I need to. I think the concept of Mulletfest pretty much speaks for itself.

So, I'll just leave you with one conundrum upon which to consider. One puzzle to ponder.

You see, one of the age groups is 0-3.

Firstly, does someone in that age range have both enough hair and time in existence to properly grow a mullet? And secondly ( assuming they do), as they're unlikely to have much say in the matter, does their possession of said hypothetical mullet constitute bad parenting?

I guess that's two conundrums. Woohoo, bonus content.

Oh, yeah. The score. How does the Mullet-O-Meter™ deal with this? How does it rank this multitude of mullets? This veritable cavalcade of catastrophic coiffures? I'll tell you how. It takes into consideration the fact that this contest, for at least a day or two, takes a decent proportion of the mullets that would otherwise be freely roaming the countryside and confines them to a single location, thereby temporarily reducing the mulletness of most of our lives to well below normal background levels. In recognition of this, the Mullet-O-Meter™ give Mulletfest its heartfelt gratitude and a big fat:-

*For the non-Aussies out there, a ranga is a redhead. You know, as in orangutan. I know, I know. Don't look at me, I didn't come up with it.