David Flint, Tony Abbott, the banns published, and the celebrations begin ...

(Above: the pond is pleased to celebrate the Judaic Christian Roman tradition with a mention of Juvenal this fine day).

Loon pond is pleased to announce the engagement of the honourable David Flint to the even more honourable Tony Abbott.

The banns have been published in The Punch, under the charmingly besotted header The Tony Abbott I know, as David Flint seeks to learn if anyone might raise some canonical or civil impediment. Such ruckus-making muck rakers should be aware that in this case a similarity of sex, vows of celibacy, lack of consent, or prohibited degrees of kinship will not be countenanced as meaningful impediments.

Now please join with us as we learn more of the gleam in Flint's fevered eye.

Open, honest, ready to catch the 389 bus, fireman, lifesaver, an athletic man subject to tedious, inexplicable, un-Australian budgie smuggler jokes. Yes, you bloody un-Australian larrikins with your knockabout sense of humour, bugger off and leave the betrothed alone.

What a gem he is, such an athletic hunk. It seems Flint first met him one enchanted evening, across a crowded room, when dear sweet Tony was executive director of the Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, valiantly fighting for the preservation of the right for the talking tampon to long rule over us, happy and glorious. Amazingly there was an Australian of Chinese origin present on this momentous occasion.

A modest becoming office he had, but such a friendly young man with a firm handshake - not ostentatiously so, in the manner of a crude Latham boor, but politely so and thus, and with rugged good looks, and a solid chin that might melt the heart of any constitutional monarchist addicted to talking tampons.

His ears - ah those ears, so cruelly compared to those of elephants, but really more like a manly pugilistic type, perhaps a Gentleman Jim, like a boxer, in a way just like my father, a boxing champion himself, but please no crude oedipal suggestions on matters of singular import.

The point, and there can be no other point, is that the camera lies, and those ears flap with all the charm of Prince Charles flapping on about the joys of Victorian architecture up against the wretched modernists who have quite ruined the world. You see the camera draws attention to the ears - the formidable pugilistic ears, which can knock a mosquito to hell in a nanosecond with a simple flap more potent than a fly swat - when it should draw attention to his wonderful honey nectar charisma, that sweet soulful charm that lures bees to feast in the delicate flower of his close bosom'd autumnal charm ...

Pardon, I'm so sorry that little bit of drool escaped my lips, but you get the point. A professional friend tells me that the camera loves some faces - models less attractive in real life - when it should be in love with Tony and his formidable charisma. But how to snap that charisma, preserve it in amber, bottle it, pickle it, save it for future generations in a silver bromide bath ... perhaps only Susan Sontag could tell.

I remember as clearly as the day that it happened the day that we dined together, as people rushed up in the street to worship him and bathe his sweet feet, and I must confess I could not fail to notice the walk, the steady forthright striding manly limbs, the angular sharp hewn backside, the casually muscular body ... an obviously athletic body which could only be described as excruciatingly achingly unmistakably masculine.

Indeed, sweet Tony, oh let a thousand angels sing him to his sleep, that noble prince of gentlemanly charisma, must be the most masculine and athletic of Australia's politicians, and not boringly so, but winningly, excitingly, fervently, passionately so. I have often thought that had he been on the left he would have been the media's pin up boy, but thank the absent lord he was spared that ugly fate, and now instead is my pin up boy. I know, I know, a wall of lovingly collected photos suggests compulsive obsessive behaviour or the activities of a serial killer, but that's to ignore the charisma and the manly, did I mention masculine, charm that exudes from every pore of his manly body ...

Of course some ruffians mistake his style for that of a pugilist and a rowdy boofhead, but that was but a fleeting moment long ago when he was chief headkicker for some nonentity now long and happily gone from the nation's political life.

Sure he might have been suspended from the House, but it was a mere vexatious trifle. From the moment I first met him and became infatuated with him, I knew him to be a highly principled intellectual with the common touch. He understood that what boys needed was a firm hand and a good strapping every so often, so that the stripling might grow into a sturdy oak tree in the very best British fashion - mens sana in corpore sano, we used to say in the Scouts and the Carlton Football club, without having the first clue as to what Juvenal might have meant in his satire.

I should add that I have found Tony to be tolerant, in no way sexist or racist or guilty of any other sin, and with strong moral qualities, of loyalty and strong attachment to principles. Along with a hatred of great big new taxes.

Never mind climate change, which as we all know is utter crap. As a result, the dear sweet boy - oh he's so charming and utterly delightful - only resigned from the Turnbull ministry as a matter of principle, and not for any leadership ambitions. That he became leader utterly surprised him, as it surprised us all, and the knifing was done in an utterly principled way ... and without a single shred of coarse crude ambition. He merely has to smile at us mortals in his sweet winning way, and we dance in the street for joy to shelter within his beaming rays of love and hope ...

Here I must confess that at night I still writhe in mortification at the shocking realisation I was once a socialist in my youth. Each night I whip my back until it's red raw, but even if the stain never goes away completely, how joyous to know that Tony's principles are not those of the elites. He is instead committed to the lumpen proletariat notion, in the manner of a Trotsky, oh verily and in truth, to the completely egalitarian notion of a ruling class and a ruling monarch, long may the talking tampon rule over us, happy and glorious.

It's true he's a Catholic, and worships an egalitarian pope and the Pellist heresy, but not in a Catholic cafeteria way. No, whatever profound theological absurdity and nonsense that's been doing the rounds these past few thousand years, he's up for it, and will scoff down both the smoked salmon and the lamington. Bring on transubstantiation, the assumption of the Virgin, and the resurrection, coming some time soon to a church near you, and he's up for it.

Not that this has anything to do with running the country:

It is only in those right to life issues that there can be any crossover, and then most of these issues are matters for the states. On abortion, Tony has never suggested this be criminalised. He says it should be discouraged. This is entirely consistent with the views of most Australians, except perhaps among the tiny number who are confirmed atheists.

Oh you tired tiny cynical small number of atheists, who actively encourage abortion as a lifestyle choice. How could you be so callow and vain? Surely you must realise it would have prevented the talking tampon from walking amongst us, saving us from modern architecture, and destined to rule over us, happy and glorious.

Let's hear a resounding shout of joy for good Christian gentlemen, and drown out the plaintive cries of those filthy atheists and their abortion loving, promoting ways. Heave to it, they say, and with a bit of luck you'll get preggers and so need an abortion and so keep the medical profession gainfully employed, they spitefully contend, as opposed to using some contraceptive device, and of course if you understand the holy trinity, you will also understand how the Roman church profoundly disapproves of contraception, and so discourages abortion by preaching good Christian values and abstinence, since it's better to marry than to burn, but if you must then bloody well burn, and any suggestion that this might be keeping the abortion industry going is utterly vile and ill founded, since the church makes so little from its adoption services. And as we all know:

This firm belief in the values of our Judeo Christian heritage is a virtue and not a vice.

Let me count the ways the virtuous vice-free Abbott should be praised, him and his tremendous flexibility:

Tony is not a straight up and down conservative. Like most politicians today, he would see the views of orthodox federalists as an exercise in academic nostalgia. He would probably not agree that the role of government in modern society should be reduced.

No, no, the role of government should go on consisting of middle class welfarism, but only for the middle class who do the right thing and vote the right way. Fear not big government worshippers and haters of states, big Tony will deliver what you want, while also delivering freedom from taxes. And did we mention that you will be regularly bathed in his winsome smile?

Tony is a fine, committed, principled and loyal Australian. That does not mean Australians should vote for him. Kevin Rudd’s political assassination confirms that unlike the US president our prime ministers do not have tenure.

Unless of course you happen to be a Kennedy.

But their vote should in no way be coloured by any misrepresentation about Tony Abbott’s character and competence.

Which is why, as you can now so clearly see and understand, that I intend to marry sweet loving caring Catholic egalitarian prince royal Tony as soon as he will consent, and with the banns now published, it seems there remains only the minor matter of changing the law to allow for consenting adult males to consummate their love in a way celebrated so long ago by Juvenal in his satirical musings:

Are you even in this day and age preparing both a prenup
and an engagement, and getting a trim from a master
barber, and you have even perchance given the pledge to her finger?
You certainly used to be healthy. Postumus, are you getting married?
Tell me by what Fury and by what vipers you are goaded.
Can you endure any Master-ess when there are so many good strong ropes,
When high, vertiginous windows are wide open,
when the Aemilian bridge offers itself to you – just right next door?
Or if from so many options no mode of death strikes your fancy,
Surely you think it better that a supple boy sleep with you?
A boy, who does not conduct a nocturnal lawsuit at you, who wheedles
no little gifts from you as he lies there, and neither complains because
you are going easy on him, nor because you don’t gasp as much as he demands. (here)

Let it done, make it so, and so forth and etc, and let the trumpets resound, and the celebrations begin ...

What are you waiting for Australia? Surely David Flint's amore now nestles firmly in your bosom, a cherished pugilist intellectual capable of embracing contradiction and infatuation in a way that makes Walt Whitman seem like a rank amateur ...

(Below: and even yet more class, as we jump from Juvenal to Aubrey Beardsley's illustration of Juvenal's VI satire, featuring Juvenal scourging woman. Ah, such a nice Catholic thing to do).