When one 'retires' one grows a beard and gets fat drinking the top shelf but doesn't play any golf coz no-one called to make up a foursome.
My heart bleeds.
************************************************************************************** Beard there, done that: Dan Andrews rocks the ‘exile beard’ ByNoel Towell and Kishor Napier-Raman
April 11, 2024 — 5.00am The Age
Nothing says “I don’t have to run the country/state/party any more and I’ll grow a beard if I goddamn want to” like, well, growing a beard.
The Americans even have a name for the phenomenon. They call it the “exile beard”.
It was former US Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore who pioneered the look, we suppose, all the way back in the noughties and just lately, ex-prime minister Kevin Rudd has been giving hairy-face a nudge – to mixed reviews, you’d have to say – as he plies his new trade as Australian ambassador to the US.
So we are delighted to report that former Victorian premier Dan Andrews has unveiled his take on the trend and, in fairness to the artist formerly known as Chairman Dan, we’ve seen worse.
Andrews publicly debuted his beard – a kind of close-cropped salt and pepper effort – last week, as he delivered an address to students at the former premier’s alma mater, Monash Uni, doing nothing, by the way, to dispel speculation that he would end up taking a senior leadership position at the institution.
And even though the look was new, the rhetorical style was all too familiar to those with a passing acquaintance of Andrews’ 10 years in power, as he urged the young Monash hopefuls to never waste a day.
A bearded former premier Dan Andrews addresses Monash University students.CREDIT:MONASH UNIVERSITY/INSTAGRAM
Still, it could have been worse.
At least the old North Face puffer was left at home for the occasion.
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I reckon Andrews wasted 10 years as his soon to be revealed legacy will be a tragic financial catastrophe called 'Broke Victoria'.
