Gerard Henderson, Kathy Lette, and bring on King Chuck of Australia ...

(Above: no hot links, screen cap, twitterer here).

You can barely begin to imagine the excitement at the pond as the first tremulous tweets began to spread the news into the digital ether.

At last salvation is at hand, perhaps redemption, perhaps a chance never to visit Murdoch la la land again, because the pond will never pay for the pleasure of the company of the commentariat.

Oh sure, the pricing was announced way back in June, as you can find here at Gizmodo, but there's no news like old muttonish, hard to chew on news dressed up as spring lamb.

$7.95 for all you can eat?

Is this some kind of degustation, good sir, where delicate morsels tease the tongue for hours on end, an Albrechtsen oyster here, a Sheridan foie gras there (what's that you say, the fiendish PC fanatics are banning foie gras in California? Oh no, say it ain't so).

Or is it more like Homer Simpson, that fanatical relentless remorseless eating machine, more beast than man, cleaning out the Frying Dutchman? (No pun about Andrew Bolt's ancestors intended).

Will we want to gorge ourselves silly, and all you can eat for a mere $7.95?

Well good luck with all of that. The pond looks forward to an impenetrable bamboo curtain (succulent tips available for delicious stir fry), roughly equivalent to the shroud that embalmed The Times in complete irrelevancy. Bring it on ...

You see, we'll always have our very own prattling Polonius, Gerard Henderson, free at Fairfax. Oh no, the horror, the horror. Quick Fairfax, bring on a pay wall ...

Before they do, rush off to read Henderson's In times of uncertainty, these hereditary celebrities reign. You'll be so glad you did.

We'll take bids as a way of assessing its intrinsic value and pleasure. Do we have five cents at the back? Okay madam, we'll start it off at a cent ... A cent, anyone a cent? In the front, thank you sir, a ha'penny ... now will someone go a penny? Anyone?

Oh okay, you're right. At best it's a nickel and dime job with a completely meaningless header, as Henderson broods about a palace reception, attended by the likes of republicans Geoffrey Robertson and Kathy Lette. Apparently Lette turned up in a corgi-covered dress, but the dour Henderson can't see the benefit in a picture telling a million words. Not so the pond:

Eek, a bubble headed booby. Danger Will Robinson, danger!

Henderson seeks to make a point about bubble headed republicans, citing Lette's thoughts on a Windsor-ectomy, and partner Robertson's rage at Britain being ruled by a white Anglo-German Protestant mob, replete with embedded anti-Catholic Act of Settlement.

It's an easy shot to point out hypocrisy and contradiction in the likes of the air-headed, pun-addicted, vacuous Lette who left her past behind long ago, and now has settled for being a tame corgi designed to please the British public with idle vicarious chatter of a Carry On Kathy and Pompous Geoffrey kind (leaving behind the serious one in the antipodes).

Plumbing Lette's views is a bit like taking Shane 'the king of spin' seriously, when his proper turf is hair plugs, weight loss, teeth whitening and Elizabeth Hurley ...

Henderson fancies himself as a rank and file republican (you can find out more in his 2007 republican lecture if you have the courage to wade into the morass known as the Sydney Institute) but in the usual Henderson way, most of his column is spent explaining why the British monarchy is as solid as a rock, so long as the Queen lives, and why republicanism is a lost cause, and why nothing can be done, and why direct election republicans ruined everything (as if actually allowing people to vote in a democracy was some kind of outrageous conceit).

Yep, it's all the fault of radical leftists like Phil Cleary joining up with avowed monarchists, as opposed to elitists who wanted to keep the appointment of an ersatz GG within the club, at the beck and call of bureaucrats and politicians. Apparently some Australians are deluded in thinking they might actually want enhanced democratic processes, and truth to tell, it could have been resolved simply except for the stubbornness of the elitists (eg politicians and bureaucrats select five tame, neutered corgis, and Australians get to elect the one with the prettiest coat and nicest bark to preside over nothing much for a fixed term).

Instead the elitists sabotaged the deal, on the basis the Australian people couldn't be trusted to vote for a figurehead in a sensible rational way, but instead might elect Adolf Hitler's grandson to the job, seeing as how they're so easily beguiled by celebrities ...

Not that we'd ever label Henderson an elitist, seeing as how he spends so much time in Penrith and other outer western suburbs.

Sadly this means that Australia's head of state remains quintessentially a British figure, which leads to the one bright spot in the column, with Henderson slagging off the incredibly silly Professor Flint, doing his best to sound like Kathy Lette:

On Sunday, Professor David Flint argued that Australia is "already a republic … we're a crowned republic". This is quite misleading - as Flint's very own position indicates. He is national convener of Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy. He does not claim to represent such an entity as "Australians for a Crowned Republic". Britain is a constitutional monarchy. So is Australia...

Indeed, and as Henderson points out, that's why David Cameron's government will need the consent of all the constitutional monarchies at CHOGM (some sixteen) to change the succession so as to allow gender equality (Cameron consults Commonwealth on royal succession reforms).

For reasons known only to themselves, the British occasionally get agitated that such tinkering might lead to a fresh republican campaign in the antipodes (Royal succession rules unlikely to change soon). As if they should care ... as if anyone in Australia gives much of a toss about the British, outside of cricket and Shane Warne getting hitched to Hurley ...

But Henderson's real concern is the way there's a ban on Catholics becoming king or queen, or even marrying into the royal family. According to Henderson, in her previous fifteen visits to Australia, the Queen of Australia has never attended a service in a Catholic church or a synagogue or a mosque.

This sounds dangerously like sectarianism to the pond, a thought crime that Henderson is always banging on about. Why should the Queen attend strange rituals, when it's theologically proven that people outside the Protestant fold are destined for an eternity of hellfire (if you doubt this, just ask the Sydney Anglicans).

Poor Catholic Henderson is in turmoil:

The 1701 Act of Settlement is very much extant. The likes of Robertson rail against this but they attend receptions at the palace, which suggests that celebrity matters above all.

Never mind, and there there poor possum. We're very pleased to learn that the Sydney Institute is off the Queen's visit list, and Mr Henderson himself will not be presented to the Queen (in much the same way that she skirts the waters of the pond, and never settles in for a nice squawk).

We commend the thoughts of Stuart Reid's thoughts on the matter. He's a most peculiar Catholic, as you'll gather from reading The Act of Settlement is just fine. In Reid's world, the monarchists are better company than the vile agnostic liberals and secularists

The Act of Settlement is good in so far as it reminds us Catholics who we are and what we believe. It reminds us that we reject the Protestant settlement and the Glorious Revolution – and, for that matter, the American and French revolutions. It reminds us that we are Europeans, not Anglo-Americans, and, if we are old enough and pompous enough, it reminds us also that England was once known as "Mary's Dowry".

Indeed. And once more sectarianism raises its ugly head:

Even if she is far too polite to say so these days, Rome regards Anglicanism as a heretical sect, and its bishops as no more than laymen in drag. Reflections of this sort might lead to the sort of insupportable tensions that can arise from cognitive dissonance.

Indeed. And vice versa.

And so it goes, with Henderson proving that a gratuitous sideswipe at Kathy Lette is a lot easier than looking at the absurdity of Protestant and Catholic sensitivities, which continues to complicate the monarchy long after it matters.

The result? Well forget the Protestant issue. At some time in the future we're likely to see the man who aspired to being a talking tampon being crowned king of Australia ...

And for that, we can thank John Howard and his ardent supporters, like Gerard Henderson, not the thankfully absent Kathy Lette and the eternally remote Geoffrey ...

Now you have to admit, each day spent in the land down under is another day at the Mad Hatter's tea party, and think of it, no need to pay for Chairman Rupert's thoughts, you only need to rustle up bed and board ...

At the Frying Dutchman, Homer continues to eat everything in sight. The waitstaff look on:
That man ate all our shrimp! And two plastic lobsters!
Captain McAllister: 'Tis no man. 'Tis a remorseless eatin' machine!
(approaching Homer) Six bells! Time for closin'!
Homer: (with mouth full) Can't talk. Eating.
Captain McAllister: Fairly warned be thee, says I!
Captain McAlister snaps his fingers. The waitstaff forcibly remove Homer from the table and drag him outside. However, Homer breaks free and runs back inside to shovel more food in his mouth. Again, the waitstaff drag him away.
Homer: (whining) But the sign said "All you can eat!"

Relax Homer. All you can eat of the minions of Murdoch? Indigestion for sure, possibly constipation, and likely enough such an aggregation of misinformation, misrepresentations, distortions, political campaigning dressed up as news reporting, and a collected anthology of blaggard opinion, you might begin to think you've lost your mind ...

(Below: hit me with your rhythm stick, hit me, hit me, Je t'adore, ich liebe dich, hit me, hit me, hit ... Hit me slowly, hit me quick, hit me, hit me, hit me ... It's nice to be a lunatic ... or match dress wits with Dame Edna).