Ten Years On, Local Man Lives With Souvenir Of A Simpler, Cheekier Time

ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact

A Betoota Heights man is looking back today on a simpler, cheekier time in Western society.

Shortly after arriving at work this morning, city worker Tom Gilhooley received a ‘Memory’ notification from his iPhone, which let him know it’d been ten years to the day that he got his ‘Nando’s’ tattoo on his arse during a footy bus trip to Jundah.

“Gosh,” he said.

“Where has the time gone. I don’t think I’ve had a Nando’s for years. I haven’t even thought about it, to be honest. Except for when the wife points it out. She wants me to laser it off but they want two grand for that. I’d rather fall off a motorbike in the nude and hope the gravel shaves it off, I would,”

“But it’s nice. Nice to look back on when we, as a cohort of young people, had a sense of optimism that the world was moving, as a collective, to a better place [laughs] Fuck me, shows how quickly things can change.”

The “Cheeky Nando’s” meme emerged in the mid-2010s as an expression of British lad culture, centred around the casual and often inexplicable reverence for the South African-Portuguese chicken chain. Popularised through viral Tumblr and Twitter posts, the phrase typically evokes an image of a group of mates spontaneously deciding to hit up their local Nando’s for peri-peri chicken. No plans, just vibes. What made the meme uniquely potent was its cultural opacity to outsiders. Attempts by the simple American mind to understand why a Nando’s visit could be “cheeky” only deepened the meme’s mystique. As such, it became less about the food and more about the shared absurdity of national in-jokes. It inevitably spread to other countries where subtly and droll activities are appreciated.

With the cheap ink slowly starting to break down beneath his arseskin, Gilhooley wondered if he could even get Nando’s in Betoota these days. As some readers would recognise, Gilhooley won the ‘Sucked Mango Seed Look-a-Like Competition’ at last year’s Betoota Show. That fact prompted him to begin looking for healthier fast-food options in the area.

As it turns out, there is one Nando’s left in Betoota.

“There’s a Nando’s out at the airport,” he said.

“Would it be cheeky of me to drive out there today for lunch and get a whole chicken, family-size chips and 70 packets of peri-peri sauce? Yes, it would be. Considering it’s