Sock Jocks!

Sock Jocks: they're the sartorial commentators who cram our airwaves. You may love them, or hate them, or disagree strongly with their sock-based opinions, but you've got to admit, they get you talking! Let's take a look at some of the best known Australian sock jocks...

	JOHN LAWS QUOTE: "People who wear differently-coloured pairs of socks should be shot!" POLITICAL LEANING: Generally in favour of Conservative sock wearing, but unpredictable. Has a thing, for instance, for the wearing of pantaloons 'In the right circumstances'. WEARS: Blue socks, with white spots.
ALAN JONES QUOTE: "I mean, wearing socks with sandals? That's a bloody outrage, mate, and nobody who calls themselves a real Australian would even think of committing such an outrageous crime as that." POLITICAL LEANING: Again, his sock opinions are generally conservative. Likes Rugby socks in particular, but not if they are dirty. Is said to have a particularly large collection of red socks that he never wears. FACTOID: As a child, was made to wear purple-and-pink striped socks to church and Sunday school by his mother, because she thought it made him look 'pretty'.
	NEIL MITCHELL QUOTE: "But you know something, M? It's the children I worry about. All those little children, being raised in all manner of inappropriate sartorial circumstances that I just don't want to think about. Imagine, being made to wear those horrible fluffy-little teddy-bear socks for the first three years of your life! I mean, it would potentially traumatise you for all time! Someone should think of the children - and the socks they wear, of course. Never forget the socks." POLITICAL LEANING: A self-styled 'moderate', Mitchell sometimes leans to either side of sock-politics, progressive or conservative, depending on which way the sock populists want him to go. WEARS: Knee-high cotton socks.
PHILIP ADAMS QUOTE: "Whatever happened to the great Australian sock industry, Gladys? Now, I know that we live in a changing, globalised world, and that the Sock trade with other nations - especially those in Asia - is especially valuable, but I remember with increasing fondness the hemp-and-tweed socks that my mother used to lovingly make for me when I was a kid. Can't we go back to those simpler days?" POLITICAL LEANING: Left-wing/progressive sock wearer, which means that he quite often wears socks with sandals and/or odd coloured socks, JUST TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE. FACTOID: Has a habit of calling his left sock 'Mao' and his right sock 'Trotsky', especially when in the company of any of the Sock Jocks above. WEARS: Most often, socks in the colour of the Soviet flag, or simply black socks to go with his shirt.

Yes: it seems our Sock Jocks are not going to go away. But when it comes to the vital question of the things that you wear on your feet that aren't shoes, where do you stand? Perhaps Sock Jocks have a place in society, after all.