Christopher Pearson, Mike Carlton, an elevated debate, and fresh demands for a return to the Latin mass ...

(Above: it's not too late to plan for the next Lake Bolac eel festival, due March 26th 2011).

Well it's time to leave "door" David Campbell - the magic land at the top of the faraway tree is always on the move - and for a reliable alternative, we can always turn to Christopher Pearson.

Groan. Sigh. Club sensible is up to its usual trick of Chairman Rudd bashing.

This is rather similar to what we used to do in the good old days of eel bashing. Find one creek replete with eels, deploy one large axe handle, bash eels, eat eels.

The end result? When you get to eat Japanese unagi, you feel like you've come home. Is there anything better than glaze grilled eel, unagi no kabyaki style?

Well it's certainly more tasty than Pearson's predictable canter around the paddock, with an extensive comparison between Chairman Rudd and Tony Blair, under the header Sins of spin the hallmarks of twin prime ministers.

You might as well read Christopher Pearson's Why I truly hate the guts of Chairman Rudd for inspired political analysis, but it's reassuring that the bitch from hell still has claws:

... can the decision to stay away from the funeral of a Labor hero such as John Button and instead visit Cate Blanchett in the maternity ward be seen in any other light?

She had been, after all, a presiding genius at the 2020 ideas summit, where the hitherto solitary Kevin got to meet hundreds of notional new best friends, almost all of them carefully vetted on politically correct criteria.

Or as we used to say, mrrraaaowww. Poor lonely Kevin, heavy and lonely is the head that wears the crown.

But a tad ironical for Pearson, insofar as he's one of a number of members of the SBS board, said appointments carefully vetted on politically correct criteria, and a board which happens to have plunged the now wretched network into a spiralling crisis from which it will be hard to recover.

But I guess this week it's wise for the feral attack dogs to focus on Kevin, seeing as how Tony Abbott has had his troubles lying straight in bed. As the irrepressible Mike Carlton explains in Another bedroom brohaha let loose in our lounge rooms, he knows how to tell when Tony Abbott is telling a porkie or stretching a truth:

... there's an easy way to pick it. Watch his lips. When People Skills is about to lie, or to "go a little bit further", to borrow his own exquisite phrase, a strange thing happens. He flicks his tongue like a lizard. It's a nervous tic I have noticed often over the years, and a dead giveaway every time.

There's the tongue, in and out between those oddly dysmorphic lips. Next a splattering of ''ums'' and ''ahs''. Then away he goes with the porky. Abbott's floundering admission on the 7.30 Report, that you shouldn't believe a word he says, was riveting stuff. The tongue popped out, the ums gathered pace, disaster loomed. It was like watching a skier whoosh down a slope and crash into a tree.

Or as we used to say, mrrraaaowww.

Ah, there's nothing like sophisticated, elevated discussion of policy matters in Australian politics. Inspired by two inspiring leaders.

There was one another Pearson Club Sensible thought bubble that got us all agog:

Some readers may well have thought I was getting a bit ahead of myself, but in the wake of Rudd's collapse in the polls that view has rapidly become the consensus in the commentariat. In the past three weeks a page on Facebook, "Kevin 07 gone by 11" has gained 2545 members.

+ 2.5k in members in 3 weeks! Why the lad is surely doomed. His doomsayer page is, at least for a Pearson agog with love of irrelevant statistics and meaningless factoids, streets ahead of the Facebook page that attracted over 100,000 users by encouraging them to post images of Muhammad, thereby arousing the ire of the Pakistani government (here), and providing further inspiration to Senator Conroy on how to filter the internet.

Ah well, it's not news that Pearson is both an optimist and a gherkin, but sadly his new focus on being a feral attack dog week after limp week means we're missing out on important news about the Catholic church. Pearson has even got to repeating himself, as if somehow idly burbling a mantra will make it true:

Four weeks ago I described Kevin Rudd as a bureaucrat out of his depth who had already done his dash as Prime Minister and was friendless in the parliament.

And four weeks later, he still thinks it's true! Strange, such unerring consistency. Who'd have guessed it?

Moving right along, we have to turn to the front page of The Australian, to discover the culture wars continue and baby boomers and postmodernists remain the enemy. Of the Holy Roman Church.

In an attempt to displace the The Catholic Weekly, which can only offer an official framed print of the blessed Mary macKillop this week, the Oz is hot to trot with Catholics reach back to church tradition:

The Weekend Australian today provides an exclusive and comprehensive preview of the changes, which are the biggest revision since Pope Paul VI approved the current Roman Missal in 1969 after the Second Vatican Council. In style, the new translation of the mass is reverential and traditional, restoring emphasis on the transcendent and the sacred, and replacing words such as "happy" with "blessed" and phrases such as "this is" with "behold".

Lo and behold, it's a verbal, linguistic revolution, and Pearson goes missing in action. Hold the front pages, scoop, stop the presses!

Because, you see, the church has discovered it's gone soft on sin and redemption! Even worse is the taint of "sacro-pop" and "emotional primitivism". Damn all those baby boomers, and to hell with their 1966 call for Catholic worship to employ the language of the Beatles.

Is it wrong of the pond to urge that we should these days employ the language of Justin Bieber?

I keed, I keed. Rush off now for the Oz's extensive coverage, which also includes Fresh embrace of everlasting salvation, wherein you can find all the revelatory and revolutionary word changes. It was right at that point that the dream shattered:

3. LAMB OF GOD:

Now: Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. Lamb of God, you who take away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

New: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.

WTF? The supper of the Lamb. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb!

Gone all the poetic repetitions and petitions, to be replaced by the supper of the Lamb! Like we're supposed to be attending some bloody barbecue.

Worse still, it seems that we can't use barbecue talk to converse with the absent god. According to Tess Livingstone, She hates the idle chatter of beer-soaked Australians shoving a sausage with sauce down their throat:

Barbecue lingo it is not, but when the new translation of the Catholic mass is introduced, its striking changes may prove to be a "barbecue stopper" at church gatherings and possibly beyond. Because, in introducing them, the church has struck a powerful blow in the culture wars against postmodernism and meaninglessness in favour of rigorous scholarship and precision of language.

Sheesh, barbecue stopper! Isn't barbecue just another word for supper of the lamb? Where the hell is Sam Kekovich when you need him? He'd put the theologians straight on the meaning of supper of the lamb!

Never mind, read Livingstone and her revelations, has she got a good used church to sell you, with new tyres, a polished duco and a stunning return back to the future. And damn you postmodernists, damn you and your meaningless barbecue lingo and gibberish to hell.

Oh dear, and then in the same breath, the Oz feels the need to run 'I never covered up abuse', says Archbishop Philip Wilson.

Could postmodernism and the Beatles and a form of words and perhaps even the humble barbecue also be responsible for current traumas, and all that's wrong with the modern church?

Who knows, but bring back Christopher Pearson demanding we bring back the Latin mass! Bring back the Romans! Bring back the ancient Greeks! Bring back erastês and erômenos!

Wait, don't bother, we have the Catholic church for that ...

(Below: how to look fashionable in the inner west. Sydney siders, why not don your T and take a walk on the wild side past the Moore Theological College on King street?)