Gerard Henderson, the good old days of the Cronulla riots, and donning the tin foil hat for The Punch ...

(Above: the pond goes clubbing with Pickwick. The first is a print by Charles Waltner, while the second is a Robert Seymour illustration for The Pickwick Papers).

The thing about Gerard Henderson as a member of the commentariat is that while he might be insidious, he always tries to be polite, even ever so 'umble in the noble Uriah Heep tradition.

One could imagine - if one was given to wild imaginings and pompous regal locutions - sinking into a snug, well worth leathery chair in an elite inner city club (with Boz and Pickwick somewhere on the side), and tossing down a nice dry, biscuity, nutty flor fino sherry, served by an obsequious manservant, before heading off to a nice plate of roast beef, followed by port and cigars in the billiard room, a portrait of Ming the Merciless beaming down as one tries for a delicate cannon off the side, while talk turns to the need to ensure labour is free to move around, and become as cheap as seagull-attracting chips, and bemoan the way the elites do harm to the long suffering dwellers in the outer 'burbs.

No good ever came of this kind of class warfare, especially when one recalls with nostalgia the way a tug of the forelock could show respect, and Islamics were just a distant dream somewhere in the middle east ...

Well you might imagine like this if you were a man, but I dare say the club would take an attitude to anyone bearing a female name attempting an entry ...

Lordy lordy, lah di dah, I really don't know where all that came from - must stop reading Dickens - but I do declare it has absolutely nothing to do with the text for the day, which features Gerard Henderson getting terribly concerned about activist judges and insisting Explanation required when a judge's verdict gives rise to disquiet.

Disquiet? Yep, an absence of peace or rest, anxiety, perhaps a wringing of hands, and a querulous column or two. An uneasiness, a queasiness, and so the insidious Henderson column is filled to overflowing with unquiet disquiet.

The last par - let's cut to the end to save the tedium - is a beautiful evocation of this unhappy disquiet:

In recent days, the Attorney-General Robert McClelland, the ASIO director general, David Irvine, and the head of the Australian Federal Police, Tony Negus, have all warned that domestic terrorism remains of concern within Australia. In such a climate, Judge Flannery's decision in R v BUSB warrants full explanation and an open debate.

Yes, egad, wot wot, a full explanation and an open debate, no quarter given. Naturally at that point, when a robust scribbler might have made a point or two and begun the open debate, Henderson falls silent.

He's already made his point by deflections off the side ...

You see, the hapless judge (that'd be Judge Leonie Flannery, not Judge Judy, though we sometimes marvel in a Samuel Johnson way that women are judges at all) mentioned in her consideration of the matter at hand in Henderon's column, that at the time, way back in 2005, there was some anti-Muslim feeling in the air.

Naturally this brings Henderson out of his chair in a state of extreme agitation:

Judge Flannery did not state how she came to the conclusion that, in 2005, there was a climate of anti-Muslim feeling in the community which would affect an individual's reaction to a request by police to stop for questioning. Some of Australia's most successful figures in business, sport and the professions, then as now, were Muslim. Moreover, there is no evidence that police have been tougher on individuals of Muslim faith than other believers or, indeed, non-believers. Certainly the judge referred to no such evidence in her judgment.

Indeed. One can only conclude that the Judge is a regular reader of Gerard Henderson (or perhaps listens to Alan Jones), and at some time caught up with Jones' helpful actions in relation to the Cronulla riots:

The riot was still three days away and Sydney's highest-rating breakfast radio host had a heap of anonymous emails to whip his 2GB listeners along. "Alan, it's not just a few Middle Eastern bastards at the weekend, it's thousands. Cronulla is a very long beach and it's been taken over by this scum. It's not a few causing trouble. It's all of them." (Alan Jones: I'm the person that's led this charge)

Back in the day, Henderson also explained it all in A no man's land in our ethnic mix:

... some Australians of Lebanese Muslim background, who were born in or after 1975, have not pursued education and, consequently, have found themselves unemployed or in low-paying and/or insecure employment. Some of this group are involved in serious crime against people and property and, in recent years, a small minority have flirted with radical Islamism.

Pesky Muslims.

Along the way, Henderson managed to absolve Alan Jones of any blame:

It is unfair to blame the mainstream media for what happened. For example, a re-reading of Sydney's Daily Telegraph indicates that it reported the lead-up to last Sunday's events quite responsibly. Likewise, talkback radio did not spark the violence.

Insidious and disingenuous. If you want some real insight into talkback radio at the time, why not revisit Mediawatch, which ran a series of pieces, including Front page - Jones and Cronulla, and More Selections from 2GB on Cronulla.

So it's exceptionally pleasing to learn that in 2005 it was all the go to talk about Muslim sporting, business and professional heroes.Why as late as April 2007 the NSW Police were celebrating sporting heroes, and showing their respect for Lebanese Muslims, albeit in a slightly strange way (Police deny harassing Bulldogs' El Masri).

But back to Gerard. Remind one once again of how the simmering tensions of 2005 eventually erupted in December in Cronulla?

Television viewers witnessed quite shocking scenes as young out-of-control Anglo-Celtic Australians inflicted extreme violence on anyone they deemed to be of Lebanese background.

No doubt the useless layabouts deserved it.

Well the pond doesn't have much time for fundamentalist Islamics, nor any fundamentalist in any other church except that of the FSM - we do it in an angry atheist way, by abhorring the sinful theology not the individual sinner - but surely blather about 2005 as a year of celebrating the achievements of Muslims is exquisite nonsense of the first degree ...

As for the matter of R. vs BUSB, not being fully briefed, we leave it to the courts and the learned judge, and urge them not to consider the views of any member of the commentariat given to insidious rhetorical tripe and the re-writing of history.

Meanwhile, to return like a dog to old buried bones or vomit, today in The Punch, Tory Shepherd attempts to explain and justify the publication of a piece of birtherist nonsense by Hereward Fenton, Why I became a September 11 truther, which has scored - at time of writing - a splendid 327 comments.

According to Tory's Why September 11 'truthers' cling to conspiracy theories, truthers are tin-foil hat wearing nutters, with a substantial element of crazed paranoia, inviting frank contempt.

They are roughly equivalent to UFO believers and Christian prophets of the Apocalypse, may be suffering from a persecution complex, contain a kernel of disillusionment with government that has accreted layers and layers of unknown unknowns, find safety and comfort in huge evil, may be in the grip of mental illness, perhaps even paranoid schizophrenic, and maybe - just maybe - they might even be right.

Oh and 9/11 is the greatest conspiracy theory of all time, and prominent people like Mahathir Mohamad believe in it, even if it means they're batshit crazy.

So there you have it. The Punch is looking for columns from people in the grip of mental illness - paranoid schizophrenia would suit down to the ground, but please don't think a simple case of megalomania rules you out.

You'll easily qualify for publication if you know that wearing a tin foil hat is the safest way to walk in a world full of deadly alien radiation.

Or some such thing. Talk about a sucker punch. Lie down with the minions of Murdoch and you'll get up with mentally ill fleas.

What poor old patsy Hereward Fenton makes of this traducing of his character and his beliefs is entirely another matter, but at least he knows that when it comes to the trawling and the trolling for hits, the editors of The Punch will go fossicking in the dankest parts of the back yard, and then use the oldest Bart Simpson defence: it wasn't me, I didn't do it.

Put it another way, sure the maddies are as mad as hell, but you deserve to read maddies because the inmates are running The Punch as a home for wayward maddies ... because maddies crank up the hits and then we get to write about the maddies being maddies and that cranks up the hits even more, and suddenly you have a virtuous circle of complete and utter inanity, with the wise, insightful Tory leading the way into the undergrowth to come to grips with the bat shit crazy...

(Below: it's a few years since we've published this handy advice, but you'll need to know if you want to write for The Punch. Just tell 'em loon pond sent you along well prepared).