He was a character, the genuine article, out of the box - and he looked like an unmade bed.
Ron Boswell - the long-serving, larger-than-life, permanently rumpled Nationals senator who died on January 6 - was remembered as all these things and many more at his state funeral mass on Friday.
The pews in St Stephen's Cathedral in Brisbane were packed with mourners including current and former prime ministers, state premiers and opposition leaders - all fanning themselves in stifling conditions.
They heard the story of a champion of Queensland, despite Mr Boswell having grown up in Doodlakine, Western Australia.
Mr Boswell was almost certainly the first resident of the tiny Wheatbelt town to receive a state funeral, celebrant Father Michael Twigg said.
His memoir was called Not Pretty, But Pretty Effective, and his daughter Cathy told the service Mr Boswell "was often referred to as looking like an unmade bed".
Former prime minister John Howard delivered a eulogy to the man who spent time as a parliamentary secretary in his government while also leading the Nationals in the Senate for a record 17-year stint.
He said Mr Boswell's decency and honour were respected on both sides of politics.
Mr Howard also highlighted the former senator's trenchant opposition to extremists on his own side, referring to a speech Mr Boswell gave in April 1988, warning of the far-right League of Rights.
"It was a body that was trying to infiltrate, with malice, parties of the right and centre-right, including the National Party," Mr Howard said.
"One of its principal clarion calls was anti-Semitism, and in the context of today, all Australians should be concerned, because it's an evil that has to be identified and rooted out."
Mr Howard did not mention Pauline Hanson's One Nation, of whom Mr Boswell was also a strident critic.
In his valedictory Senate speech, Mr Boswell had claimed that defeating Ms Hanson and her "aggressive, narrow view of Australia" in 2001 was his greatest political achievement.
But Mr Howard said Mr Boswell was a firm believer in the Liberal-National Party coalition, and that during periods of fractiousness between the two, "we'd give each other a wide berth".
"Both of us knew that in the end, common sense would triumph," he said.
Mr Howard said you could never escape a Ron Boswell phone call - a theme that ran through the service.
Cathy Boswell said her father "rang often, and he never accepted that you might not be available if you didn't answer".
Fr Twigg later confirmed he had once missed nine calls from Mr Boswell during the course of a single mass.
Ms Boswell said her father did not have an easy life, but among his favourite aphorisms was the phrase "calm seas do not make good sailors".
His greatest challenge was the sudden death of his son Stephen, aged 30, in 1999.
She said her father chose service over despair, in accordance with another of his favourite sayings: "those who turn up, rule the world".
And Mr Boswell kept turning up, "often camping outside John Howard's office, persistent and without apology, until a result was achieved for his constituents".
Mr Howard said Mr Boswell saw the greater good when it came to gun law reform after the 1996 Port Arthur massacre, staring down opposition from others in his party and many of those same constituents.
There was always a pound of flesh to be paid, though.
"It meant that every so often, you gave a few hundred million for this, that or the other to legitimately meet the needs of regional Australia," Mr Howard said.
"We thank you, and we thank God for you. May you rest in eternal peace."
