The pond was astonished to discover what the reptiles got up to in the wee hours ...
Sure there was the ongoing, never-ending war on China, but an invitation into the world of a "tastemaker", promising travel and luxury, alongside an offer of specious health advice, with caveats? Oh there were rotating stills promising glamour and grog ...
Are things that desperate now in reptile land? What next? Didn't they hear that Paltrow's Goop vagina-smelling candle exploded? That "tastemaker" offered an exploding candle for US$75 ... now there's some fine travel and luxury.
Never mind, on with the usual Friday bilge, and our hole in the bucket's man fine array of prejudices and classical references ...
Nothing would be easier than to say in the marketplace publishers and other folk can hire or fire who they like, and publish what they want, and refuse to publish what they don't like.
But these days in white grievance culture, the grieving and the resentment is enormous, especially amongst older white farts of the grieving 'hole in the bucket' man kind ...
Really? The fucking bible, and Adam and Eve, and Eve copping the rap for all the failings of men, and St. bloody Augustine and pioneering scholars of Jewish mysticism, and then the usual worship of Goethe?
More at WaPo here (may be paywall affected), but speaking of abrasive and unpleasant men, on we go, in the hope that there's a chance to humanise our Henry ...
Oh fucketty fuck, Susan Sontag (and Foucault of course) as the death throes of the unity of mankind? But please, proper and due credit, as the pond asks where did it all begin?
Yes, credit where it's due, it's God wot done it, and don't try to undo what She has determined is right and proper with blather about world literature, and what a fine tower of Babel that malicious fucker made ...
Wiki Bruegel here, as the pond makes the observation that She and her stooges have always been a wretched bunch, but please do not attempt to undo what the Lord has ordained. We wouldn't want our Henry caught out in a state of hubris and defiant pride ...
And so to our Henry's last gobbet ...
What remains? Well there's always the Tower of Babel, thanks be unto the lord, and twits in their dotage rabbiting on in the lizard Oz ... and speaking of that, this week has been a bad week for the reptiles.
The pond would like to spare a thought for all those who work away tirelessly in the bowels of Pravda, all the more so when the unthinking SloMo actually dragged News Corp into the whole sorry unfolding events, in a snapping turtle, hissy fit.
Oh yes, it's tough times for the propagandists ... just look at the way Shanners last night moved heaven and earth to look on the bright side of things ...
A feeling of relief! And how right to talk of the unfair attacks, and brave SloMo rallying the troops, because it's not as if the government is the actual government, and is expected to do a bit of governing and cleaning out the Augean stables every so often ...
Please then admire the work of the bouffant one as he diligently goes about his hagiographic duties, though wisely he kept it short ...
Thank the long absent lord that after that litany of despair and epic failure, the bouffant one could drag a moth-eaten John Howard out of his hat - an old but venerable trick - and raise his own spirits and that of SloMo and his colleagues after a tough month.
Of course it's all done and dusted now, all those troubles can be put aside and forgotten, uppity, difficult women have had their say and now should return to silence, and the nation can move on to the budget test without the foggiest recollection as to what's gone down ...
What's that you say?
Never mind, it's been a tough month, but it's all behind us now, and the budget is the next test ...
The pond rarely pays attention to the loyal reptiles in the engine room, shoveling coal and keeping the boiler full of hot air and steam, but this Friday it would like to honour Shanners, and his dedication to duty ... he should have a Rowe as a reward ...
Shanners can always find more Rowe here ...
And so to the bonus of the day, and the pond approached it with a heavy heart ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, they didn't drag that moth-eaten, irrelevant, tiresome, epic failure of a Bullingdon prat out of the cupboard did they, as some kind of inspiration for Tories down under?
If you want to catch up on the fate of all those fatuous fops, there's a good guide at ITV here ...
One thing's certain. If you want to get women somewhere, you wouldn't start with Dave and Boris and the rest of that gang ... but do go on ...
Actually, forget the Caterist Menzies Research Centre, always with its hands open for more government cash in the paw, and forget behavioural economics and forget blather about real-world experience, let's just remember that David Cameron was responsible for the single worst politically expedient decision (even counting in Tony Bleagh's Iraq adventure) in recent British politics ... and the country will be living with that for a long time to come ...
If he's the model, then the Tories down under are fucked ... almost as fucked as the country that decided Boris should be the substitute captain, a man who can barely remember or speak of the women he's had and the children he's produced ...
But the pond does appreciate the chance to revisit Boris's many hits, with many more recorded here ...
The pond could go on and on, just like Boris, but best wrap things up ...
Really clever people learn from Dave and Boris? No wonder it's hard yakka for poor old Shanners and the other reptiles these days ...
Nicolle Flint? How did she get into the story? Yes, what's super funny is that the reptiles, true to form, true to nature, made sure we didn't see a snap of Flint as the pointer in the commentary section.
She was erased, cancelled, and Jason was given the nod ...
And they probably didn't see either the rich irony or the rich comedy ... but it made the pond's day, and that was the reason the pond ran with the nonsense, just to get to that punchline ...
UPDATE, later in the day:
Do the reptiles read the pond? Do they ego surf? Or is just being a reptile sufficient for them to understand their inherent bias and fundamental silliness? Who """ knows, and in the end, who """ cares ...
Here, have a celebration of women and News Corp and love and pain and the whole damn thing by First Dog, with the full cartoon here ...
So, ex the Henry: "...Gilbert Murray -- ascribed the collapse of Roman civilisation to a failure of nerve" in the face of mounting threats."
ReplyDeleteWell, far be it from me to deny the infallible memory and omni-cognition of the Henry, but I kinda understood that a series of devastating plagues together with a touch of climate change screwed the Romans. See:
How Climate Change and Plague Helped Bring Down the Roman Empire
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/how-climate-change-and-disease-helped-fall-rome-180967591/."
We should forgive Henry's inexhaustible appetite for one line stupidities, inanities and historical inaccuracies, because each Friday he provides excellent entertainment of the pompous, portentous kind ...
DeleteVrai c'est si bon, DP. How else to fill in a TGIF.
DeleteHi DP and GB. Whenever I see Holy Henry mention “the West” I translate that as “the Church” and applaud anyone he sees as destroying its very fabric.
DeleteCan only agree with that, Kez, but at least Holely Henry acknowledged William Tyndale of 'English vernacular bible' (and a whole lot of creation of English vernacular, not only 'scapegoat') fame.
DeleteBut I have some quibbles; consider:
"To a large extent, the Rubaiyat can be considered original poetry by FitzGerald loosely based on Omar's quatrains rather than a "translation" in the narrow sense. FitzGerald was open about the liberties he had taken with his source material."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubaiyat_of_Omar_Khayyam
Now I can't read Khayam's original, only Fitzgerald's "translation". So really, I, and millions like me, have never read The Rubaiyat at all.
Ok, but what about Don Quixote de la Mancha ?
"When first published, Don Quixote was usually interpreted as a comic novel. After the French Revolution, it was better known for its central ethic that individuals can be right while society is quite wrong and seen as disenchanting. In the 19th century, it was seen as a social commentary, but no one could easily tell "whose side Cervantes was on". Many critics came to view the work as a tragedy in which Don Quixote's idealism and nobility are viewed by the post-chivalric world as insane, and are defeated and rendered useless by common reality. By the 20th century, the novel had come to occupy a canonical space as one of the foundations of modern literature. "
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote
Well then, what constitutes an actual 'translation' of Don Quixote ? Do even people who have shared the same language since birth 'translate' (into their own internal world and subconscious language) original works into the same expressible meaning ?
So what exactly is this thing called 'translation' ?
Dorothy, I agree with you about the Henry and stupidities and inanities, but I feel their entertainment value is diminishing. He places, at the heart of Western thought, the Bible saying ‘the whole world branched out from the single seed of the sons of Noah’. Fortunately, a lot of those scientist people did not take this as - excuse the familiarity - ‘gospel’, and inquired into our genetic makeup; something which the putative creator neglected to impart to those who wrote the books of the bible.
DeleteI will concede that what the Henry considers ‘Western Thought’ shows negligible understanding of what we know (and the science IS in) about our genetics - how often do we hear someone claim that some characteristic has ‘gone into our DNA’, or some manufactured object ‘retains much of the DNA of the previous model’. It is not even effective metaphor, it is myth - and the Henry is simply reiterating myth, right through this weekly earner.
The Henry might also chat with a few linguists about his assertion that we have ‘the capacity to meaningfully render in any one language the outstanding literary works of any other’. Or he could just read a little about ‘code talkers’ in the US and Canadian armies, and work up from there.
Much of what he has written here could benefit from competent translation - into English - but that would be a daunting challenge.
No need to go on - if his aggregate of words gives some reader the virtuous feeling that they have read a learned and uplifting work - then we suppose he has justified the weekly transfer to his electronic bank. It is unfortunate that none of that promotes useful thought in the west, or in any of the other points of the compass.
I will keep Kez’ observation in mind.
I did not know about 'code talkers', so thanks for that Chad.
DeleteBut talk about the creator neglecting to impart things to those who wrote the books of the bible, he/she/it had to wait 200,000 years (or more) until we humans had developed a language sophisticated enough to receive and convey even the simplistic contents of the bible in the first place.
I think it's clear though, that no two or more people ever read exactly the same work of literature, even if they, and the author(s) share the same 'native' language.
Oh Chadders, Chadders, don't despair. If our Henry fails to entertain, then surely today's bromancer will hit your sweet spot ...
DeleteIf the pond had wanted to be uppity, it could have recommended any number of articles in the New York Review of Books dealing with assorted issues of translation ... just google ... but remember the pond is only in it for the pratfalls
A truly wondrous exposition from Nicolle and Jason: "When it comes to challenges of equity and fairness, Liberals throughout history have always led to way. The time for the Liberal Party to engage fully in these issues with positive proposals has never been more urgent because the competition of ideas is where we excel."
ReplyDelete"Liberals throughout history" ? Pull the other one. But how come such a venerable and "way leading" party has been so disconnected as to make the need for its renewed engagement so urgent ? Falling down on the field of battle yet again ? Not actually managing to 'excel' ?
Have to say, though, that it's a fine example of the First Rule of Wingnuttery: all that is good comes from us, all that is bad comes from them.