In which, in a jocular way, the pond puts the boot into pompous, ponderous, pedantic, prattling Polonius ...

There's something profoundly poignant about reading prattling Polonius these days ...

It's not just the repetitions and the droning, though that's a good enough reason to shove him behind the arras and hope that some Freudian prince of the Danes will stumble by ...

No, it's the way that the reptiles dishonour him with that sort of obvious splash ...

It sets itself up too easily.

Of course prattling Polonius disdains anyone who disagrees with him, whether ill- or well-educated. Of course Polonius is too ready and too eager to disparage anyone who would disagree with him ...

He's a one person disparaging machine. Every so often, reading Polonius, the pond is drawn back to that line from The Wild One:

The Pond: Hey, prattling Polonius, who - what - are you disparaging this week?

Polonius: Whadda you got?

The Pond: Leftists, progressives, greenies, other ne'er do wells, David Marr?

Polonius: They'll do, they think they're too good for me. Nobody's too good for me! Anybody thinks they're too good for me, I make sure I knock 'em over sometime. Right now, I could slap you around to show you how good you are and tomorrow, I'm someplace else and I don't even know you or nothing.

And with that, Polonius hopes on his bike to show how it's done ...

Sublime this, from a member of the right wing elites who apparently think it's wise to encourage the delusion that living standards might improve under a Trump presidency. Let's hope that Polonius keeps looking up to his of birtherism ...

But the real rub comes with that final par.

You'd never guess that Polonius was actually prattling away as one of the other panellists on that very same Insiders program.

Watching at the time was a hoot, and the experience is still available here for the strong.

Polonius presented the Maiden report and did a little hand-wringing over who was right and who was wrong about a promise to provide public funding for the yes and no campaigns, taking his usual trip down history lane to recall that the two plebiscites - hailed as referendums at the time - over conscription hadn't involved public funding. 

Katharine Murphy couldn't see any reason for public funding - the plebiscite not being a referendum requiring funding for both sides - and David Marr wasn't interested in any dissembling, instead joking that Barrie Cassidy was wrong approaching it from an ethical point of view, when the fundamental impulse of churches was to demand money from government and "the other fundamental impulse is to put the boot in to gay men and lesbians."

Marr was being jocular, though both points are, of course, unarguable ... but it was possible for the psychic to hear Polonius silently seething off-screen. 

When he returned to view, he grumped away about how if there wasn't a plebiscite, there wouldn't be SSM this term ...

Both Murphy and Marr ganged up on Polonius and he was looking and sounding grumpy ...

Naturally when this sort of thing happens, Polonius always returns to the scene of the crime.

He always wants a second go, because he's always eager to disparage those who disagree with him, and so that chip on the shoulder came to pass again some six days later ...

If ever there was a finer example of the finest platitudes and purest undiluted tosh and humbug and hypocrisy and pedantry in Polonius's many scribbles, the pond can't think of them at the moment.

For example, Marr didn't explode. He was jocular. As for the long-suffering Christians not putting the boot in to gays, the pond only recently found it necessary to revive memories of Lyle Shelton breaking Godwin's law ...

That'll do for a boot, though Shelton, knowing the metaphor he was using, tried to pretend it wasn't a jackboot ...

As for the Xians tending the wounded and the dying, how do they do it? Why yes, by demanding money from government, for education/propaganda, health, job placement, and all the other quangos and mangoes they operate ...

And the notion that somehow people wanting to live in the United States and Australia means that all is well in matters concerning homophobia (or racism or religious tolerance) is the sort of argument only the barking mad might make ...

After all, prattling Polonius himself continues to live amongst leftists and greenies and gays, though he seems continually agitated by the way they keep on putting the boot into his ponderous, pedantic self ... whatever putting the boot in might mean ...

Which is just the sort of cheap rhetorical flourish Polonius might mock in others while indulging in himself ...

The pond could helpfully provide some examples.

Such as Lyle Shelton cruelly saying that unthinkable things are happening in Australia in the same way that they happened in Nazi Germany, and that it's the work of homosexuals, never mind that the Nazis persecuted and slaughtered people for their sexuality. That's putting the boot in, metaphorically kicking innocent people for no good reason ...

Well the pond found that definition here, and since it seems that Polonius isn't able to understand BrE, preferring AmE, deplorable chap that he is, is there a cartoon showing plenty of boots?

Oh right, and now it would be remiss of the pond not to farewell Stephen "a great big filter for everyone" Conroy, and his legacy ...

Strange, those Pope cartoons didn't have much to do with Conroy or his legacy, but never mind, his legacy has been turned to copper and HFC, and there's plenty more authoritative Papal advice here ...