The anonymous editorialist at The Australian, with and without royalty and links ...

(Above: Neville Chamberlain holds up a piece of paper first exposing to the world substantial criticisms of the ABC's coverage of news events).

Usually we compose long, almost endless rants - there's something in the water of the pond and the foam-flecked hysteria of the commentariat that's to blame - but we'll keep this one short.

You see, there's the sullen anonymous editorialist at The Australian, beavering away as he explains that the ABC's failing to deliver on its promise as national broadcaster, in Time for some tough questions.

It seems the ABC's not asking the tough questions about the carbon tax, and never mind that the anonymous editorialist thought a carbon tax was the way to go, because what's needed is a kind of demented hysteria and whiplash questions worthy of a tea partier ...

The ABC must demonstrate its firm commitment to capitalist right wing principles by ravaging the Gillard government. Never mind that when the ABC asks tough questions of politicians, it invariably cops a slagging from the commentariat, it must put away the lettuce leaf and get out the whip and join the baying pack of hounds known as the minions of Murdoch.

The anonymous editorialist beseeches, nay demands tough questions:

Set construction, wardrobe selection and publicity campaigns aside, taxpayers expect that when momentous political events are unfolding, the ABC will use its leading political interviewers. Their overdue return will be welcomed by viewers, if not the politicians.

Yes, and by the Murdoch commentariat, because The Australian doesn't have its favourite whipping boy and/or girl to berate for failing to perform to The Australian's expectations ... because you see once the top guns return, they too will be revealed as having wielded a lettuce leaf when a shotgun was required ... and so the never ending virtuous circle can carry on to the end of time.

Meanwhile, there's more of the same in Mark Day's Not a good look for Aunty as top guns fail to fire.

It's an extended rant about the absence of the 7:30 Report, as if it's ever been anything other than a dull diminished show in recent years (complete with star fucker interviews), but then Day elevates himself into a special category by praising the stupidity of reporters for Today and Sunrise out and about and getting wet reporting on Cyclone Yasi ... As if gherkins in a storm is somehow virtuous, as opposed to storm chasing, Twister style. Oh look there's a flying cow ...

It's just more tiresomely predictable nonsense from the minions of Murdoch as they run down their bete noir, yet somehow always seem to have spent endless hours watching the ABC (in much the same way as you can catch Gerard Henderson rabbiting on endlessly about the ABC, but find nary a word from him about the hideousness of Alan Jones. What's the odds Henderson never listens to the shock jocks?)

Naturally Day has a go at News 24, but if it's such an inept beast, why do News Corp and Sky keep getting so agitated about it, compared to the supposedly splendid job that Sky's doing? Not that you'd find me crossing the road or forking out a shilling to watch Sky ....

So the festering white anting and back biting goes on ...

Meanwhile, I was pleased to stumble across Christopher Hitchen's campaign against the historical inaccuracies in The King's Speech, in the lizard Oz, in History campaigns against King's Speech.

Oops, it was there, and then it got yanked, disappeared, vanished. You can still find it here under the Oz banner, and it shows up in Google, but it's gone, gone, gone ... one of the minor mysteries of the universe.

Never mind, hey ho on we go ...

Hitchens gives the scriptwriter David Seidler a right bollocking.

The only trouble is, I first read this under the header The King's Speech Revisited, the movie's screenwriter goes too far in defending his version of history, in Slate some seven days ago.

And within that version of the story, you can find links that will take you to crucial bits of the back story, including the foam flecked interview in the Puffington Post that caused Hitchen's ire to increase (you can find it here under the header Culture Zohn Off the C(H)uff: David Seidler Protects and Defends the King's Speech).

And naturally Hitchens links to his own piece that helped start the kerfuffle, in Churchill Didn't Say That The King's Speech is riddled with gross falsifications of history. As well as a link to Isaac Chotiner's Royal Mess 'The King's Speech' is an ugly distortion of history.

Of course there's a reason that The Australian strips out the links. Readers might discover that there's much more interesting reading out there on the full to overflowing intertubes. And it lands in the antipodes instantly, without need to reference tired, lame, late reprints in The Australian seven days after the world has moved along ...

That's why they're right to be paranoid and derelict and seek a walled garden without links.

And which is why reading The Australian berating the ABC is so amusing. It's rather like a dinosaur having a go at another dinosaur for being a dinosaur ...

And the point is?

Well, if you want to be up to date with Hitchens, with links, read Slate or Vanity Fair.

If you want to be update with the world, read anything on line other than The Australian ...

But if you want to be up to date with the minions of Murdoch abusing the ABC for being slackarse and tardy, just like the Oz reprinting stale commentary, the Oz is your journal of record ... without links of course ...

And now they've gone and bloody yanked it. Not only late, but unutterably mysterious in their ways ...

(Below: the anonymous editorialist at The Australian sweeps out the ABC trash. Or is that George V deciding he's no longer German? Click to enlarge).