In which the pond dallies with the dog botherer's denialism ...

Relax, relax, the pond is taking a break from the hagiographic, Uriah Heep-like knuckle-cracking, and forelock-tugging, the uxorious fawning of the bromancer over his new bro, the most excellently dinkum  ScoMo …

There's only so much even the surrealist pond can take in a week …

Watching The Ballad of Buster Scruggs last night, there was much talk of the uncertainty of life and thought, and assorted grim dramatic illustrations were provided, to the pond's amusement … but, it has to be said, without convincing the pond entirely (though that episode about death in the frontier made a powerful case), because it's safe to say that if, the sun rises on a daily basis, then the bromancer will daily, routinely go to that place where the sun doesn't shine and crawl up it … because that's his reptilian duty, that's his lizard Oz job, and he's diligent about his reptile obligations …

But enough of being able to replicate an observable bromancer experiment in a scientific way, because this day there was much to read, and top dog in the opinion pages, at least for a nanosecond, was the dog botherer …

 

Oh fucketty fuck, the dog botherer doing climate science for the umpteenth time, and blathering about climate science? 

Wouldn't the pond be better off kneeling beside the bromancer and worshipping in an ever so humble way at the church of the fine job ScoMo?

Well yes, perhaps, but the pond loves irony, and you see, the ironists were out in force at the lizard Oz this day…

The joke here of course is that Malware himself was incapable of doing anything meaningful about climate change and climate science, and the foolish fop was a complete waste of space and time … but he does have the likes of the dog botherer, cheering on the onion muncher, the lesser Craig member of the Kelly gang, and assorted others, as a handy excuse …

This has, of course, three fifths of fuck all to do with climate science, but that's the dog botherer, all apples and oranges and useless blather… 

Come on Malware, how do you deal with rampant denialism?

Ah you didn't manage it, and nobody can talk sense to a third rail. Might as well just do a Taking of Pelham 123, and step on it …

Well, that's true enough … how to talk sense to a loon blathering on about New Zealand apples as if that proves a point about climate science?

And what about those jokes about "believing in the science", as a way of provoking the pond, since science isn't a religion and isn't about beliefs, as opposed to replicable observation?

Why does the pond always take the dog botherer bait in a Pavlovian way?

Well, one thing that the pond can propose is that the dog botherer has even less in the way of scientific qualifications than the pond, who, for its enormous crimes against humanity, once taught geology to innocent squatters' daughters in a private school in Tamworth (well, just like the dog botherer, they were innocent in the matter of science).

Why does the dog botherer carry on so, without the weight of evidence, understanding, observation, or qualification?

How silly of the pond to ask … because that's what reptiles do, and besides, the dog botherer sees everything as a political or perhaps a religious experience, and he has his certainties and beliefs, no matter what tricks of fate that Buster Scruggs might line up against him as he floats off to some supposed clean-coal-laden heaven, angel's wings flapping ...

And there you have it … because does it matter whether it's a tech billionaire or a ponce from the eastern suburbs if the science is real, the observations genuine?

Weren't we going to be talking about science rather than doing the old ad hominem rag?

How many times can the dog botherer blather on about dinkum clean Oz coal, oi, oi, oi, and avoid the weight of evidence?

Silly question, might as well ask "How many times can the sun rise, and the bromancer peer up ScoMo's dinkum coal-loving arse?"

You see the irony in all this now, you see the simplistic, simpleton way the true believing dog botherer rails against those who refuse to embrace his coal-loving religion?

How weird that the reptiles should this same day recycle a piece from The Economist …

Luckily there's no need to run the rest of that piece in The Economist … it can be found here as California's wildfires and the new abnormal, and it's only a couple of days old, and outside the paywall at time of writing …

Here, have a cartoon …

And so back to a final gobbet of dog botherer climate denialism … though with an interesting spike in the dog botherer's understanding of the science ...

Astute observers will note that the dog botherer has now shifted to "given the scientific consensus about the impact of anthropological emissions on climate", it might be thought that - in his theological and ideological terms - he's become a believer, or perhaps adopted a scientific attitude to observable things going on in the world … but he's just doing the old snakes and ladders routine …

There needs to be a new stage, call it 4 (a). Allow the pond to paraphrase it so the dog botherer can make use of it:

Deep down I think climate science is bunkum and a load of hot air, and I've never really accepted the science, even if I'm about as much of a scientist as the bromancer heading where the sun don't shine, but if I wave my arms about and blather on about "myriad policy options, from adaptation to rapid decarbonisation", and talk sagely of such things warranting "cost-benefit calculations and pubic debate", I won't sound like a bullshit artist and can talk of leftists and catastrophism, and quickly move on to point five, and urge everyone to keep on with keeping on with dinkum clean Oz coal, oi, oi, oi …

Well yes, so much bullshit, and so little time ...

And anyone who made it through that epic amount of dissembling might now need another cartoon …

Heck, once the pond gets a taste of a Donald cartoon, it tends not to stop …

Oh okay, that's not directly about the Donald, but it does remind the pond why it hates Facebook so …

And now, just in case anyone missed Colbert's exposition on toilets, time-travel and big foot. It's a few days old, but in its own way, like time-travel itself, it's timeless ...

In which the pond sails on the good ship Britanic with our Henry, the perfidious French, and the bromancer

Trust the immortal Rowe to hit the mark this morning, with more immortal Rowe here …

With a steady stony glance— 
Like some bold seer in a trance, 
Beholding all his own mischance, 
Mute, with a glassy countenance— 
       She look'd down to Camelot. 
It was the closing of the day: 
She loos'd the chain, and down she lay; 
The broad stream bore her far away, 
       The Lady of Shalott. (more here, and let's not quibble about creek v stream)

You see, the pond woke groggy, battered and bruised, like a stunned mullet this morning ...after a hard-core night spent binge-watching Theresa May and the British parliament do their thing …

What a show, and it has to be said, what a performance. As the good ship Britanic took on water and began to list and sink, May and her small band performed admirably, and the deck chairs were shuffled about with a sense of British aplomb and style …

And what a cast … the whining Scots, the needy Welsh, the mad Northern Irelanders, and then stood Rees-Mogg, in sinister, angular style, with a lean and hungry look.

Why Shakespeare himself would struggle to conjure a greater villain …a perfect ponce, righteous and indignant …he clearly thinks too much, but only in the manner of a dangerous fundamentalist …

The pond had only one complaint. Being madly infatuated with the British Speaker, the pond had hoped for more one-liners, quips and put-downs, but that maddening British capacity for reserve meant that the baying herd sipped at May's rich blood as if politely dining with the Queen, and so the mighty Bercow only had a few lines …

Above all, the pond loves the way the meerkats bob up and down in a futile bid to attract the attention of the Speaker. So many meerkats standing, so many meerkats reluctantly sitting, so few given the Bercow nod …

Yet again, the pond was reminded of how its entire approach to politics had been ruined by reading at an early age the venerable Dean Swift, and his dissection of the camps that formed around the big and the little endians, with the pond learning early the fun that could be had arguing for the big end cause, before switching to the other side and insisting that the little end was the only way to cut the Brexit egg ...

As usual, their ABC seemed to miss the coverage so it was off to France 24, Euronews and the rest, because the pond refuses to indulge in anything to do with the Murdochian Foxtel, and refuses to pay for its pleasure, and no longer thinks the ABC worth checking out…

It's taken the pond some time to get down from its high, which is usually induced by watching some perfectly formed movie, and the thought of returning to the reptiles filled the pond with misery…but lo, look who sailed into view, and speaking of the perfidious French …

We are glad the Dauphin is so pleasant with us.
His present and your pains we thank you for.
When we have matched our rackets to these balls,
We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set
Shall strike his father’s crown into the hazard.
Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler
That all the courts of France will be disturbed
With chases.

Set to, our very own hole in the bucket Henry, such a mighty wrangler … blessed as you are by the Lobbecke of the day, and so given the reptile sign of elevated cult status ...

Ah, the pond immediately knew what had rubbed our Henry up the wrong way … you see, the hole in the bucket man has steadily turned Trumpian, and of course, Macron wasn't really having a semantic dispute about the meaning of a few words, he was waving a few coded flags at the Donald … and really, that's a form of Gallic impudence, up with which our Henry will simply not put …

Whack a few more pedantic tennis balls into the stand ...

Now it's wholly admirable the way our Henry allows women into his idea of the "nation", but he's also perfectly correct to ask what happens when male privilege is swept aside, and women assume some virtually automatic right, when everyone knows that they're difficult and uppity, and best kept in the kitchen, as they so famously and properly were back in 1882 …

By golly, the pond weeps tears of blood each time it hears of someone having a go at the angry Sydney Anglicans for their enthusiastic devotion to complimentary women, when after all they're only treasuring a rich legacy of memories, born of centuries of Calvinist endeavours, sacrifice and fundamentalist bigotry …

And so to our Henry's last gobbet, which will reassure all who worry about the way that Britain is sinking under the waves of pesky furriners inundating its glorious shores ...

Good old Henry, with his yearning for ancestral soil. The pond hastens to add that it was him that introduced "blut und boden" into the conversation, and as the Welsh, the Irish, the Scottish and the English show how admirably a nation state can pull together, the pond went looking for another Friday treat …

At first it seemed obvious enough …

How long is it since the pond paid attention to petulant Peta, and it seems she's offering to help out the Victorians, when surely a half-priced telly is more than enough of a bribe? Still the pond decided to tip a toe in the water…

The pond had to stop right there. The notion that petulant Peta and the onion muncher had the measure of anyone was too richly comic for the pond to go on … oh they knew how to play the perfect political pincer, and how it must have hurt when they got into self-mutilation of their genitals …18th September 2013 to 15th September 2015 …barely a blip on the radar ...

Stick to half-price tellys is the pond's advice to the Victorians, though as election day looms, why not just make them free? If you're going to offer a bribe, why be half-hearted about it?

No, the pond had to look elsewhere for its jollies, and luckily the bromancer strode into the room, talking on a subject dear to the pond's heart …

Now the pond had only one reason to persist to the end with the bromancer, because it made a bet with itself that by the very end, the bromancer would be doing a Rees-Mogg or a Boris or a Nigel, and urging a crash through or crash out, hard Brexit, because when it comes to sailing around or into an iceberg, the bromancer is a Britanic sort of dude …

Why there's no way a bloody useless iceberg is going to get in the road of the SS Britanic ...

The pond hopes that our Henry is chastened … after all, if the Brexit vote now stands as the biggest democratic exercise in the nation's history, all the pond can think is ….some democratic chicken, some democratic neck …

Oh okay, the pond had another reason for tracking the bromancer … for too long it's ignored the Graudian cartoons available here …

Ah she still floats … but fear not for the Lady of Shalott …

A hit, a palpable double hit, and now back to the bromancer doing his own number on the fried shallots ...

By golly, for a moment there, the pond started to worry about its bet, with the bromancer blathering on about how both remainers and Brexiters and Endians would prefer to remain in the EU than go with May's deal. 

To console itself, the pond turned to another cartoon, celebrating the man who helped construct the deal, then felt compelled to resign at the sight of the strange deal he'd constructed, and so consigned the pond to a late hours televisual binge …

And so back to the bromancer for a last gobbet, and surely he'll see sense and support a no deal hard Brexit, and give the pond a winning bet ...

Phew, the bromancer came through, as the pond knew he would, and even better, he offered up the quaint notion that a "no deal" Brexit would doubtless be temporary and its effects overstated …especially as, to quote the words he seems to have forgotten, the moment he wrote them, "it is only five minutes ago that the May government even began such a preparation …" for a no deal.

Not a clue, what a mess, what a cosmic fuck-up, and as usual, the Murdochians have played a role in it …

   

And so on and so endlessly forth, and down under the bromancer squeaks in unison as he runs up the mooring rope to join the good ship the SS Britanic …and now they all inherit the wind and the iceberg ...

And after all that, the pond knew it needed a distraction, a way to return home to its nation state and how better to do that than with a papal pleasure, with more Popery always to be found here …

In which the pond licks the spittle with the bromancer and the reliably rolling Stone ...

Hagiography, the historical genre which is the subject of this (day's pond) comprises narratives concerned with the saints and their achievements, especially the miracles which God has performed through them and on their behalf. Six basic types of hagiographical ‘story’ or ‘scenario’ may be distinguished: first, the vita, the story of the achievements that a saint performed in his or her lifetime; second, the passio, similar to the former, but about a martyr who has died a violent death for the faith or for some other God-arranged reason; third, the inventio or revelatio, the story of how a new saint or more often a saint’s bodily remains were discovered; fourth, the translatio, the story of how a saint’s relics were brought to a church or moved to a new shrine; fifth, the visio, the story of how a saint appeared to someone in a vision; and sixth, the miraculum, the story of how a miracle was performed on the saint’s behalf by God. Miracula are typically concerned with the wonders that were performed after the saint has died and become a resident of the heavenly kingdom. A hagiographical text might well combine many of these stories or ‘scenarios’. Many vitae continue on, for example, well-beyond the scene of the saint’s death to describe how his or her corpse was lost, re-discovered and then brought and enshrined in the church where it now rests. In these texts the true climax comprises the saint’s translatio and enshrinement. Miracula, furthermore, were often combined to form libri miraculorum, ‘books of miracles’, which sometimes (but not usually) extended beyond the usual few dozen items to encompass hundreds of episodes. 

Now students wanting to know more about the original source can head off to Lancaster University here, but the pond is interested in the art and science of historiography as practised in the here and now down under, the miracula, as it were of ScoMo, and is there a better historiographer to be found than the bromancer?

First the pond must require students to abandon apocrypha, 

Apocrypha are works, usually written, of unknown authorship or of doubtful origin. Newspaper apocrypha is a set of texts included in the Graudian and or the Fairfaxians or the ABC or even Crikey, but not in the lizard Oz bible. While middling sane readers considers some of these texts to be deuterocanonical, devoted far right lizard readers consider them apocryphal. Thus, lizard Oz writers do not include the books within the their texts, unless to consign them to hell or to include them in a separate section. Other non-canonical apocryphal texts are generally called pseudepigrapha, a term that means "false writings". (Go Greg Hunting here for the original).

As concrete examples speak louder than dictionary definitions, here's some recent apocrypha, as seen in Fairfax, the Graudian and Crikey …

 

What's that, the cawing Crowe is now talking of ScoMo's foreign affairs brand of knighthoods? By golly, abstaining from the reptile holy water can work wonders ...

Well the pond could provide links to these texts, but surely only deviants, preverts and Satanists would go there, or spend a nanosecond googling them up, when they might instead be improved by encountering the perfect reptile exponent of the art and science of hagiography …

Now here the pond must again warn against deviants, preverts, Satanists and inner city 'leets. Why there are even some heretics to be found amongst the reptiles, with this turning up in today's lizard Oz editorial …

Alas and alack, there is a tendency to fall into error and heresy and deviancy at the drop of a hat … and yet the genuine hagiographer fits comfortably into a role and a tradition long established by an historical awareness ...

 In its various manifestations hagiography was the mode of historical discourse most frequently deployed in the lizard Oz pages, generating many thousands of vitae and miracula and contributing substantial passages to many chronicles and rhetorical histories. The similarities (and sometimes, the lengthy verbal affinities) between these narratives naturally lead to the suspicion that most, if not all, instances contain much that has been borrowed from earlier examples or which has been re-fashioned so as to resemble the scenes found in key archetypes—such as the millennial Life of St Onion Muncher by Bromancer of Surry Hills—which exerted great influence over the development of the genre. This conclusion seems inescapable; but the process might sometimes involve an oral phase, prior to the writing up of the legend, in which the hero’s story assimilated many standard elements or was gradually re-fashioned with each act of re-telling, bringing it ever closer to the recognised archetypes. The few texts which admit importing episodes from the lives of other saints invariably claim that the story was true of some saint if not of the saint with whom the text is chiefly concerned or that there is so little doubt about the subject’s sanctity that the mis-attribution of a few stories will scarcely make any difference to his or her cult. As such admissions show, hagiography’s claim to authority rested, as in the case of ecclesiastical history, on its claim to record actual events—actual moments of divine intervention in the world.

Now any speaker in tongues would understand that a new revelation is at hand, and with the onion muncher now wandering in the wilderness, the speaker of tongues has arrived, and the bromancer is just the right man for understanding the divine intervention that now strides across the land, by bus, or perhaps preferably, by plane … because after all, you can only be dinky di and true blue for a little while ...

Truly there is such infinite, Trumpian wisdom in all this, and somehow it reminded the pond of a relatively ancient Wilcox cartoon, with fresher Wilcox to hand here …

Of course Wilcox couldn't find the room for the peanut-flavoured Gado Gado fudge, but now it's back for a final gobbet of pure, undiluted hagiographical delight ...

Of course heretics, deviants, preverts and Satanists might suggest his biggest impediment is his undiluted fuckwittery, but that's why they need a daily dose of the bromancer's expert hagiography … and why the lizard Oz editorialist could also do with a dose.

While the sceptical editorialist did the very best to put lipstick on the pig known as the Donald, the sunny side up, glass full to the brim, full as a goog optimism of the bromancer passed by in a cloud of unknowing and uncertainty, with dire warnings of pitfalls …

Oh pish posh and tish tosh and mish mosh, everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, as the speaker in tongues travels amongst us and pursues his saintly mission abroad, and all can relax knowing that his faithful hagiographer will record his miraculous deeds …

And be warned, gentle passing stray read,er, there'll be a hell of a lot more hagiography to be done and read before the federal elections …

And now, as John Oliver might say, this …

The pond makes no apology. The rolling Stone has long been a regular feature and a reliable favourite, and when he's not explaining climate science for dummies, anything else he has to say is a matter of keen interest.

It turns out that the rolling Stone is still grieving for some of that good old onion muncher moss, and the loss still runs through his scribbling like a trickle of tears ...

This inspirational text immediately moved the pond to run a few cartoons celebrating the Donald's latest doings …because he's not just building a wall and deploying the military and bashing refugees ...

Alas and alack, that was a lengthy distraction from the final thoughts of the rolling Stone ...

Yes, where there's hagiography, there must also be an undiluted strain of bigotry, and blather about the Australian way of life (who can recall the days of three veggies and a chop?), but as usual the rolling Stone saved the day by brushing the moss of some splendid forms of abuse ...

Chucklehead? Why the rolling Stone still yearns for the greatest chucklehead of them all, the onion muncher from Manly, and yet the pond has a deep affection for the term, as it still turns up in all sorts of places … as cited here …

...Many years of study of conspiracy theory lore leads me to suggest that Donald Trump is a co-opted sycophantic con man chucklehead, put in place to further an agenda. The "conspiracy's" end game: rule the world through China. To do that, America, its institutions and its standing in the world must be destroyed….

…Never underestimate Boris Johnson, at least not if the criteria you are using to judge him on is: "How awful has that chucklehead been today?" In years to come I imagine symposia of HR professionals will meet in hotel conference rooms to discuss the eternal mystery of "What does Boris Johnson have to do to get sacked?" Undermined your boss with loose-cannon newspaper articles? Not an issue. Made jokes about dead people in war zones? No probs. Potentially added to the jail sentence of an innocent Briton in Iran? Heck, we all make mistakes. 
This level of awfulness is a boon to me in a number of ways. As a bumbling incompetent of long standing, it is greatly encouraging to see that being a Grade A Ding-Dong is no barrier to holding some of the highest offices in the land. And as a smartarse newspaper columnist, this stuff is gold.

Indeed, indeed, and somehow this mix of hagiographers, saints and chuckleheads and Boris and Brexit sometimes comes together in a perfect onion munching storm …

More here, but that was back in June. How have things been progressing in this wonderful moment, as the Brits stride towards global success?

Well, the pond has a secret vice, routinely watching 4 and the BBC on YouTube as things unfold on a daily basis, which is coupled with a secret yearning … that soon, very soon, the bromancer will turn his hagiographical vision on this global success and the most excellent contributions of the onion muncher …

But there's only so much hagiography that can be fitted into any day, and really, Rowe put the business of chuckleheaded hagiographical foreign affairs into a cartoon nutshell this day, with more nutters reliably to be found here ...