In which the pond endures Polonius, marvels at our Gracie's ongoing radicalisation, and answers a truly stupid question ...

 

It took the pond a long time to work out why Polonius was prattling at such tedious length today, but it finally became clear.

First there had to be the usual interminable blather, and history lesson ...

 

Immediately the pond spotted two bonuses ... Polonius was ready to regurgitate the bleeding obvious to fill in the time, and for once, it wasn't the ABC's fault, and amazingly there had been no mention of the ABC up to this point, and likely enough the ABC would get off Scotty free for once ...

But already there was a hint of where Polonius was heading, albeit via a lengthy detour into the past, a kind of reenactment of Guy Pearce with a time machine ...

 

Only five crises? What happened to Vietnam? Oh that's right, in Polonius's mind, it was a successful and righteous war, one we should look back on fondly. And how about the treatment of the indigenous population? Did 1967 fix everything? And so on and so forth ... no doubt others will remember potential and actual crises that seem to have escaped Polonius's mind. You know, the dismissal, whatever ...

But what's the point of this meandering exercise? Soon all will be revealed ... but again there has to be a tedious history lesson, reminding us that Pig Iron Bob didn't get to run the show way back when, and thank the long absent lord for that ...

 

 

And there we have it. The whole thing has been to explain poor SloMo's impotence. His hands have been tied, there's nothing he can do, it's all the Premiers' doing, and the High Court ...

 

That was it, that was the entire point of the exercise? Has there ever been a more interminable explanation of impotence? Did we have to suffer through that history lesson just to be reminded of how Scotty from marketing palmed it all off on the state premiers, and could indulge in a blame game?

 

Why the pond could have helped out with an immortal Rowe, showing a dynamic federal government in action, with more dynamic stuff here ...

 

 

Observers will note a curious figure under the desk, which provides the pond with a segue to another intriguing mystery ... the ongoing radicalisation of our Gracie ...

The pond doesn't know what caused it, but it gets worse by the week ...

 

Yes, yes, all that, but then for no reason in particular, our Gracie drags the Bolter into the lesser Kelly affair, as if the Bolter was somehow responsible for featuring nutters, fruitcakes, and loons on his show, indeed, as if the Bolter himself might be something of a nutter, fruitcake and loon, parading about on Sky after dark, where the loonery is fierce to behold ...

 

 

 

You see, it wasn't just the lesser furniture salesman Kelly. The Bolter was also gung ho ...

 

 

Well no, the pond won't watch, and won't join in the Bolter conversation, but you can see where this form of radicalisation might end up. In the dangerous arena of listening to experts, doctors, and lordy lordy, what next, climate scientists?

You can see why the pond was so alarmed by our Gracie's radicalisation and her apparent unawareness of the company she keeps, what with her and the Bolter being kissing cousins so to speak, being News Corp brethren... but no, on she went, talking up scientific research and such like, as if that meant anything up against the scientific expertise of a former furniture salesman, and the Bolter, with his stout-hearted defence of the lesser Kelly and his explanation that vaccines won't save us, what we need is News Corp's patented snake oil ...

 

Led by a few? Please, Gracie, say hello to News Corp, home of loons, publisher and promoter of loonery ... and please, remember where you are, and who you scribble for ...

And so to end on a light note, with a note about the y'artz the reptiles borrowed yesterday by the reptiles from elsewhere in the empire ...

 

 

 

 

The pond wanted to run it, because it had thought of an alternative title ... pudgy old white newspaper columnists can't jump ...

 

But in answer to the question when did art get so establishment, was it when sculptors did idealised statues of Roman emperors, or was it when Diego Velázquez lived with the royal family and painted them, or was it when Goya offered up this portrait of Charles IV's family ...

 

 

 

 

 

Or was it when Beethoven dedicated a piece to Napoleon, until he decided he wouldn't ... but do go on, showing how you really hate wealthy white artists hanging around with former presidents, who happen to be black ...

 

Yes, we're in for a classic failure to understand that the artist telling tales is not the same as the artist living life ... you know, because Kafka was never really a beetle ... but even worse, there are artists who hang around with former presidents, who just happen to be black ...

 

It's such a stupid and inane question, "when did art get so establishment?" that the pond hardly knows where to begin ... but will start by deleting the very same reptiles trying to get a little attention by publishing a tweet featuring a Springsteen song. 

After all, if the reptiles have been born to run wild, what the fuck are they doing featuring a song titled The Middle? Couldn't they just have run Titian's portrait of Isabella of Portugal?

But here you go ... it takes sheer genius, and a deep hostility to wealthy singers hanging around with former presidents - did the pond mention he was black and could shoot hoops? - to drag in a reference to climate science and white privilege ...

 

Oh just fuck off ... what a pity it is that you didn't die before you got old and full of fatuous, fuckwitted nonsense ... and don't get the pond started on Bob Dylan's born again Xian phase, because who knows he still has time to turn full Trumpist in the moronic Baker way ... 

But speaking of art and rappers and such like, it did remind the pond of this story here, and these jokes ...

And now because a reader asked for it, here was Akker Dakker, a long time ago ...

 

The pond apologises for it being shorn of the original illustration featuring power lines, still to be found around Sydney to this day ...

Little did Akker Dakker realise that he was right. Imagine if Malware had placed fibre underground. Instead we have two sets of cables strung from power cables around Sydney, one abandoned, the other HFC useless, but an important part of Malware's solution ... cheap and nasty comes to mind, but ugly, inefficient and ultimately more costly is closer to the mark, and all thanks to Malware and Chairman Rupert desperate to avoid competition with Netflix ...

But now, since climate change has been mentioned, why not end with an infallible Pope?

 

 

In which our Henry does his usual meandering, but everyone ends up with cash in the paw and having a great time ...

 

 

 

 

There's nothing else on a Friday for the pond but to spend time with pompous, portentous Henry, the hole in the bucket man who wears his book larnin' heavily ... 

Having allegedly defeated Facebook and the Google, it was only natural for the government to turn its attention to the wicked ways of universities, and their refusal to embrace clean, dinkum, pure Oz coal, which caused much trouble in their past, and their awful treatment of the Riddster, as if climate science denialism and creationism and heck, Sydney Anglican complimentary women all didn't deserve a home in higher learning ...

It turned out that our Henry had developed a case of the collywobbles when it came to the Riddster, so he quickly moved on to musing about medievalism, in the way that our Henry is wont to do ...

 

 

Dear sweet long absent lord. What a tedious, self indulgent old fart ... and it so happens that as well as a book on the English civil war, the pond has had an ancient textbook, by C. Warren Hollister, Medieval Europe A Short History, as its toilet reading and intends to inflict it on innocent stray readers ... or at least a little bit ...

 

 

 

 

Say what? The pond can hiss at our Henry and perhaps even pelt him with stones? 

 

What a splendid response to his wasting the pond's time each Friday with his pretentious pontificating ... but now we must get back to his whining and moaning ...

 

 

 

Luckily the pond hasn't been wasting its time on German universities, but it does know the solution for the treatment of dissenters and outsiders. Chemical castration! After all, it worked for Turing, and it might well work for academics ...

Some might think this a tad extreme, but what else to do when confronted by an extended bout of our Henry?

 

Why does the pond love Henry for all his flaws?

Well inevitably at some point we come to a billy goat buttism line that makes a nonsense of everything that he has scribbled up to that point, and so we came to ...

"...None of that implies that competition is a panacea, much less one that is easily implemented."

Quite so, though Henry's notion that the University of Sydney should sell off all its property and head off to Alice Springs so that it might hire the Riddster and practice climate science denialism and Todd River reef studies in peace will be a relief to those who struggle to survive on the fringes of what was once the suburb of Darlington ... 650 dwellings, shops, post office, town hall and some 2,000 citizens gone, so the wiki says, and still the monster marches on into Newtown and Camperdown ...

And now, as we're into distraction, what with sex in parliament all the go, it will be noted that the reptiles also led with universities this day ... what with all those frisky young things frolicking about in the quadrangle as the pond wanders by, what a way to duck what's been going down in Canberra ...

 

 

The story was cobbled together by simplistic Simon, so the pond could be assured that it was a faithful regurgitation of the deepest thinking of the government, because if nothing else, Simon makes a wonderful parrot ...

Is it wrong of the pond to note that everything our Henry scribbled would be in trouble if tied to a grant? The pond's own textbook toilet reading came from the street library, thrown away and picked up for free, and almost everything else in the y'artz is equally useless ...

But perhaps that's the entire point ... what use is meandering philosophical nonsense of the Henry kind when universities might be better employed coming up with a decent U joint for plumbers? And once discovered, it might be commercialised and corporatised, because who knows, when you score a Princeton University or Harvard Law School degree, you might end up with a Ted Cruz, or with the help of Standford and Yale Law School, a Josh Hawley ...

And they say a university degree works wonders for the rule of law ...

Yes, to be absolutely clear, we do not want or need international students in Australia because that business model is outmoded and unsustainable, and yet we do want and need international students in Australia, because what a great and sustainable model they represent ...

The reptiles themselves could take only so much of this Yes Minister blather, and seized the chance to insert a click bait video, so the pond decided it would cut that out, and run the next two gobbets together ...

 

Uh huh, corporatisation and monetisation ... and there's poor old Henry rabbiting on about medieval universities trying to make a quick buck by shifting towns ...

Did the dear old thing have the foggiest idea of what he was letting loose, a fine old Tudging of the university sector?

 

The pond is reminded, as it frequently is by the current government, of that great old TV show, and in this case, the lines ...

The Master of Ballie College: How might one set about persuading a Minister of the importance of Baillie College?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Oh, I don't know. Why don't you get him down here to a High Table dinner?
The Master of Ballie College: Is he of the intellectual caliber to understand our case?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Oh yes. Well, surely our case is intelligible to anyone with the intellectual caliber of of Winnie-the-Pooh.
The Master of Ballie College: Quite. And Hacker is of the intellectual caliber of Winnie-the-Pooh?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Oh yes. On his day.

And by golly so is our Tudge ... on his day ...

And so to a wrap up of the Facebook and Google affair ... and the pond couldn't help but notice this story in Crikey ... Diversity hit between the eyes as old media pockets about 90% of big tech cash (paywall affected) ...

 

All that fuss for chump change of 50 mill?

But why did the pond interrupt Crikey, when it usually leaves the smaller players alone? 

 

Well it wanted to set the scene for a glorious cartoon by the infallible Pope, which really says it all, and in the friendly form of G. Zilla and K. Kong ...

 

 

The pond will treasure that image for a long time to come, especially what with all the reptile and government talk about the importance of a Chairman Rupert style education system... and now for the rest of the Crikey piece, just to round things out ...

 

Yep, fucked again, and fucked in a right royal way ... but at least the pond can go on hating Chairman Rupert and his minions, and that right royal Zucker and his minions in equal measure ... and after that,  what can the pond do but join the immortal Rowe in saying "merde", with more "merde" moments available here ...

 

Fuck submarines, fuck universities, fuck climate science, fuck the planet, and suck up to the Chairman ... what a fucking great fucking and sucking time we're having ...

In which the savvy Savva returns, and the bromancer serves it up to devious continentals, and the lizard Oz editorialist sighs over mums ... and who is not entertained?

 

Watching an air crash investigation show the other day, the pond came across the notion of the black hole illusion. 

Technically, this is about featureless terrain, and pilots thinking they're flying higher than they actually are (here for budding pilots),  but the pond thought it the perfect metaphor for reading the lizard Oz. Technically you think you know what they're saying, and then you and the planet crash and burn ...

But enough metaphysical musing, because for the first time in yonks, the savvy Savva has returned ...

 

 

 

The pond has always enjoyed the savvy Savva, because she can be reliably relied upon to dump on SloMo, sometimes from a great height, and sometimes from a modest one, but always a dumping ...

 

 

There you go, a fine dumping, though the pond would amend at least one line to read "it is mystifying that someone as allegedly as politically astute (as only reptiles might allege) can make so many dumb calls, when really what do you expect of someone who hangs around Hillsong and calls Brian Houston a mentor and speaks in tongues to an imaginary friend?"

Never mind, it's the savvy thought that counts, and the future follies that are certain to follow ...

 

Somewhat cruelly, above all, the pond expects entertainment, a good in-house movie as the plane rolls upside down, and speeds towards the earth (there was another show where unskilled pilots couldn't handle a banking plane and fucked up the autopilot, but enough of reptile metaphors) ...

Phew, that's a fair dumping, but is it Scotty from marketing's fault that he stayed silent while gorgeous George and loopy Craig and batshit mad Barners stormed around the belfrey? And then inherited the wind?

Entertainment, that's what we want, and surely the savvy Savva has been entertained during her absence ...

 

Emphasis on lead? As in Pb, or plumbum if you will?

But he is leading, and there are followers and after robo debt comes dob in a bludger, and is not the infallible Pope entertained? Or is at least entertaining ...

 

 

And so to a quick survey of what else the reptiles had on offer this early morn ...

 

The pond would, of course, love to have what the lowing Lovell has been drinking, talking of unity at a time when the Nats are full of raving loons and the former furniture salesman has stormed off in high dudgeon, but amongst the thin pickings, the pond was entranced by one item ...

 

 

Sorry, the pond was just doing a little scene setting ... because the reptiles were in a quaint world of picket fence delusion from the very start with their header ... I say, egad, wot, wot, mothers ...

 

Oh the suffering of billionaires, oh the tragedy and the pity, as opposed to say a tranny getting bashed in the street ... but remember the black hole illusion and stand by for a trip with old white men back to a world where they feel safe ...

 

 

 

The pond was reminded of those old sketches by Harry Enfield... only these days it seems that trans folk must know their limits ...

And so to the bromancer, simply because he was also out and about today ...

You see, whatever the ostensible subject matter at hand, at some point the bromancer is sure to create a black hole illusion and send the pond flying off in some other direction. Let's see how it works ...

 

There you go, Brexit. The pond knew at once it had to head off to crash and burn at the Graudian here ...

 

 

 

There's more of course ... the pond rather cruelly jumped to the end of that bit of in-flight entertainment. and there's a wide range of movies available ... why not try I thought Brexit would be hard for small businesses like mine - but not this hard ...

 

In fact the Graudian has an array of stories tagged with Brexit, not least Boris Johnson a 'liar' who will blame Brexit costs on Covid, says diplomat ... Sylvie Bermann, former French ambassador, puts PM's handling of pandemic alongside Donald Trump's ...

Then there's the endless delays, and the waste and the loss of jobs, and the endless form filling, but now back to the movie we started with ...

 

Egad sir,  and with a single stroke of the keyboard, the bromancer managed to eradicate from Britain a long history of extremist politics, from the onion eater to the rivers of blood man to a pond favourite ...

 

When it comes to cliches, stereotypes, implicit and explicit racism and talk of damned furriners, the bromancer is in a class of his own ... as if the Poms never had their own civil war, and heroic statesmen stalked the land ...

Details and higher resolution here, and the pond must apologise because it's been doing a little reading on the English Civil War of late, which of course - it goes almost without saying - was the result of the importation of pesky furrin ideas from those damned continental furriners ... as were all those other riots and malcontent moments in British history ...

And so to a final thought from that ineluctable, quintessential English gentleman ...

 

 

 

 

Here's a thought. Is it possible to vaccinate the entire population against the black hole illusion induced by reading the bromancer?

Probably not, but if there was the foggiest chance, the pond would certainly make it compulsory ... just as it would make the odure emanating from a Rowe cartoon a compulsory thing to sniff, with more compulsive sniffing here ...