I just realised that this shot was taken on Anzac Day; a public holiday that commemorates a monumental military blunder, specifically the invasion of Gallipoli in Turkey during World War I. Of course, what's being commemorated is not the blunder itself but rather the bravery of the Australian and New Zealand troops, deployed in large numbers for the first time, in attempting to implement what was a really, really stupid idea dreamt up by the great Mr Churchill. Who seriously needed to be punched on the side of the head in early 1915 while having the words "WHAT THE F*** ARE YOU THINKING, YOU STUPID BLOODY MORON?!" screamed in his face. It probably would have helped had someone done that while he was planning the invasion of Norway during World War II as well. But I digress.

What you're seeing here commemorates something from a few decades earlier than that. Edward (Ned) Kelly was from an Irish immigrant family. The family lived somewhere around the boundaries of legality. On the other hand the authorities of the time (servants of the British Crown who held no love for the Irish) did, there is no doubt, abuse their authority and made life harder than it needed to be for the Kelly family. The end result was that Ned Kelly changed from being a questionable character to being an outright outlaw. Whether he was in fact a Robin Hood like folk hero as some believe or just a criminal jackass as others believe is in the eye of the beholder. As with most things, the truth probably falls somewhere in the middle.

At some point he came up with the ingenious idea of creating suits of armour for his gang to wear when they were confronting the police. And I will concede that in an era before armour piercing technology this did prove quite resistant to hits from the police firearms.

Oh, just one small problem; the armour doesn't work on legs. Or arms. It would be far too restrictive for either.

You don't have to guess how that turned out.

Neither would Ned, had he paid attention to the lessons from the Battle of Agincourt. But it is in fact unlikely that he even knew that battle had ever occurred, much less understood the tactical implications of it. In any case it didn't stop his armour suit as shown here from becoming quite a cultural icon.