Miranda Devine, Tony Abbott, Chairman Rudd, and the bogong moth reigns supreme ...

(Above: eek, more bogong moths here).

I'm getting worried.

Well I'm always worried, if not alert and alarmed, or perhaps profoundly disturbed. That's the way it is, when you keep reading commentariat columnists. The sky is always falling down, the world is always falling apart. It's a regular W. B. Yeats fest:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. (the rest here).

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The punch line for Yeats was of course a beast:

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

For Miranda the Devine, it's bogong moths, which always slouch towards Canberra, and that's why I'm worried.

The Devine has been increasing her output this week - driven on by some demonic editor - and in the process she seems to have set aside her sense of rage and impending doom.

As a result, in It was a week for bodgie batts, busy bees and bogong moths, it's almost like she goes through the moves by rote, begging for Friday to finish and end the scribbling week.

Sure she slags off a surreal, hair-shirted, mea culpa delivering, busy bee Chairman Rudd, but she's traumatised by the notion that somehow the Chairman managed to end the week feeling rather happy with himself, for not scalping the hirsute Peter Garrett, for spending even more taxpayers' money on the dodgy batts scam, and for the manna from heaven of the matter of Mossad and three Australian passports.

She can't even bring herself to mention Abbott's inept attempt to make hay out of the passport matter, which gave the stolid Stephen Smith a free kick:

"The last time I looked, Leader of the Opposition, in 2003 you were a minister in a previous government, a member of the executive which oversaw the issuing of that passport," the Foreign Minister told parliament. (here).

This kind of feeble pub pong is strategically inept, and suggests Abbott is still following the Bob Ellis line - ask a thousand women for a fuck, and if one agrees, it's win win. Abbott's corollary is that if you fling a thousand pats of mud, and one sticks, it's a palpable hit.

Poor Miranda sounds at the end of her tether, as her warrior prince struggles:

By question time, Rudd had found his lost mojo, having made it to the end of the sitting week relatively unscathed, despite Abbott's valiant efforts.

Oh dear, can she sense the impending doom of another term of Chairman Rudd, with perhaps Julia Gillard her best hope to end the reign of the Mandarin monster?

Look how he smirks and chuckles in his infuriating geek way:

Rudd was pleased enough to laugh at Treasurer Wayne Swan's attempt at diversionary humour in question time. Swan declared that shadow treasurer Joe Hockey had been the ''champion bogong moth eater'' at St Aloysius College.

Oh dear, the humanity, the humanity. And the cruelty. And the fiends have recovered enough to make bogong jokes.

The ''erratic behaviour of the opposition'' was down to the fact that Hockey had ''been eating too many bogong moths,'' Swan said.

Boom boom.

Oh the suffering Devine. Worse still, there's evidence that the jokes about bogongs are a socialist conspiracy inspired by the loony leftists at the ABC:

The Speaker ordered the smirking Treasurer to sit down, on the grounds that bogong moths had no place in economic debate.

Hockey didn't see the humour either, explaining last night that the story was a ''complete fiction'', spread by his fellow St Aloysius alumnus, ABC radio host Adam Spencer, who might himself, be a secret moth muncher.

Eek! Adam Spencer. You can sometimes see him roaming around Marrickville Metro, scaring little old ladies and me, when he's not stripping down for an ice bath in Martin Place:

Dear lord? Is that man a radio announcer on ABC's 702? Long gone the days of wearing a tuxedo to read the news! No wonder society is falling apart, and the centre isn't holding.

As for secret bogong muncher? No, he's public, like a pagan druid in an orgy at Stonehenge. He was in the thick of it when the ABC that organised a public moth eating feast, with chef Jean-Paul Bruneteau whipping up some tasty crunchy popcorn moths and foisting them on an unsuspecting public (here).

Yes, an attempt at mass poisoning in the name of celebrating Australia's wildlife!

Remarkably, the Devine didn't make the connection to the ABC conspiracy, and to latte sipping chardonnay swilling inner west dwelling conspirators most recent plan to take over the world. A bogong moth led recovery.

Hockey declared, for the record, he had never eaten a single bogong moth.

Proving that jolly Joe is no gourmet, has no sense of humour, no sense of fun, and no desire to experiment. Except when it comes to dress ups. Proving that you can take the boy out of the chorus line, but you can't take the chorus line out of the boy.

As a bogong moth lover from way back, the least I can do is stand up for the culinary treat they present to the world.

* A generous handful of moths
* 1 cup plain flour
* 1 cup self-raising flour
* 1 cup powdered milk
* 1/4 teaspoon raising agent
* water

Using a mortar and pestle (or near equivalent) pound up the moths with the powdered milk. Mix in the remaining dry ingredients. Add sufficient water to make a stiff dough and shape into a ball. Flatten the ball to a height of 2.5 centimetres, lightly flour the surface and cook in ash, camp oven, or domestic oven until cooked through. Serve hot.

Oh yes, just one note of caution - watch out for the arsenic they carry these days. Meanwhile, back to the Devine:

It was a long week in Canberra.

Sigh. Oh the poor thing.

A long week, and the Devine forced to scribble on like a relentless writing machine, without any splenetic fury and rage, and Abbott sometimes aspiring to be Mark Latham, and the baleful Rudd still boring everyone to bits. Is this what it's like to be trapped huis clos with Jean-Paul Sartre?

It's almost possible to feel sorry for the Devine sometimes, but not to worry. Tomorrow is always another day, and surely once she's regained her strength, lycra clad lout cyclists and greenies and vile ABC lovers and Chairman Rudd will feel her lash, and there will be no mercy, no pity.

Onward ride the commentariat columnists to bring us news that the liberals are bringing about the end of the world as we know it. Remember, hell isn't other people, hell is liberal bogong moth munchers...