Smokey Dawson, a millionaire, is a Mason.

He is also a country music singer/songwriter, knife thrower, whipcracker, cartoon strip, voice in radio programs well remembered by those over 35. He is still a kind of media institution reincurring the value of … precisely what? Cowboy kitsch?

Publicity works. Without it, Dawson, a household name, would probably have spent his life as farmer spending spare time singing and playing guitar. When frustrated he might have flicked angrily with a stock whip at chook feathers set in beer bottles on a creaking fence.