In which the pond is blessed by Karl and Lisa and Flinty and Prince Chuck and Dr. No, and Christopher Pearson isn't missed at all ...

(Above: the reason Tony Abbott gets up, and out of bed each day, and you can catch their viral video on curling here. As if mocking wankers looks funny).

Today was always going to be the cruellest day.

The golden thoughts, the dulcet tones, the insidious insights of Christopher Pearson, locked away forever behind a golden bar, trapped in a golden cage like a tweety bird kept safe from any stray Sylvester cat.

But surely, you say, it's just as easy to go off and read Tony Abbott's press releases direct, without an intermediary.

Indeed, but the latest one on the web is dated 20th September, a strangely slack way to keep reminding us we're all doomed by the end of this weekend, unless there's an election now, today if possible.

Perhaps instead you should rush off to the interviews page where you can learn, in a chat with Karl Stefanovic, what motivates the Dr. No of negativity:

Karl, you know I’m always happy to get up early for you mate. You and Lisa always get me out of bed, mate.

It seems Mr. Abbott can be as sucky about Karl and Lisa as Christopher can be about Tony. And if you're a problem gambler with a poker machine addiction that's ruining your life and the life of your family, Mr. Abbott has a hot tip:

Well look, everyone says Americain is going to be hard to beat. It’s got a very heavy weight so it’s obviously a great horse but maybe it might be beaten by the handicap. There’s something else called Dunaden which I’m told is going to do very well. It won the Geelong Cup and it could be a very strong contender but as I said, I feel that I really shouldn’t say this without signing my life away first. (here).

Yes problem gamblers, demand an assurance written in blood, a blood oath so to speak, and then you can sue Mr. Abbott should his promise of Dunaden prove false, and you lose your shirt and possibly your house on the beast ...

Oh it was all very fine and dandy, but you know, I couldn't resist taking a peek at the lesser Abbott, use 'margarine if no butter available' Abbott, so to speak, and sure enough there was the fickle finger of fate, the gold bar of doom, blinking away at me like the cursed Ancient Mariner:

But surely it's some kind of surreal comedy, some existential nightmare, some ghastly cosmic fraud, some bizarre visual joke of the Salvadore Dali kind?

Pay to read the thoughts of Christopher Pearson on the monarchy and the republic?

Actually pay hard cash to read meretricious, repetitious maunderings of a most predictable kind?

Spank the black snake, Karl and Lisa style, turf it out of the purse, dig out the coins and send the cash to Chairman Rupert? For Christopher Pearson ....?

Why the pond could write that kind of column, and rehearse the dullard arguments while locked in a very deep sleep ...

Why bother, when you can go directly to Australians for Constitutional Monarchy, and get latherings and foamings about the Queen? With video highlights ...

Or read David Flint writhing in exasperation at the Commonwealth Eminent Persons Group, who last March dared to warn the good Professor that:

"The Commonwealth is in danger of becoming irrelevant and unconvincing as a values-based association."

Not so, you eminently clownish clowns:

The Commonwealth may not be a perfect organisation. But in requiring compliance with standards, it is superior to most other international organisations. (Commonwealth not in danger).

Indeed. Each day when I think about the Commonwealth, I think about its heroic standards, and when the Commonwealth assembles once more in Glasgow, Scotland in 2014, how charming it will be to be reminded of that great bringing together of minds and bodies that took place in Delhi in 2010. What a triumph it was ...

Never mind, to make the pond's day complete, it was off to the sozzled Punch to be assured by Geoff Russell that carrots have no feelings, and we may devour them without compunction. (Plants do not have feelings), as he takes issue with Miranda the Devine and her claim that scientists have discovered plants have feelings:

...which diet reduces both plant and animal bereavement? It’s every kind of obvious. If suffering matters to you, then you should eat plants, even if the little darlings scream blue murder at every mouthful.

Which of course they don’t.

So the carrot argument is rubbish and wouldn’t cut jelly if it were true.

Cut jelly? Murder carrots? Listen to beans shriek as you munch on their corpses? What a fiend.

Well it's true that the wiki is inconclusive, and that even, as the wiki notes, Mythbusters is no sure guide ...

So inspired by thoughts of the good professor Flint (aaargh, me hearties) we turned to kindly Prince Charles and his desire for plants to be treated with respect:

"I just come and talk to the plants, really - very important to talk to them, they respond." (So Charles was right - you should talk to plants, scientists discover).

Yes, if you talk to your plants, the chances are good they will respond to you.

Take that, wretched Geoff Russell, and whatever you do, stick something other than tobacco in your pipe, then go smoke it ...

You see, plants have impeccable taste in classical music:

Researchers exposed rice plants to noise while they monitored levels of gene activity.
Using 14 pieces of classical music, they were astonished to discover the noise triggered a response in two genes, rbcS and Ald.

Classical music is noise? Oh wash out your mouth with soap:

Some frequencies made the genes more active, while others made them subdued.
Because the genes are known to be involved in the plant's response to light, the scientists repeated the experiments in the dark.
But the study, reported in today's New Scientist, found this made no difference to how the genes behaved.

Yep, plants groove on Mahler and Mozart and the beastly Russell wants to murder them, rather than consider Prince Chuck's poignant plea to for others to join in the chat. (More gardeners join Prince Charles in plant talk).

Speaking of plants, The Punch has a Laurie Oakes' story about former chairman Rudd and current chairwoman Gillard that assures us they have worked together as a team to make CHOGM a success.

It immediately became obvious that Oakes was a United Nations plant, or perhaps a Communist stooge, since this flies in the face of everything we used to learn when we read The Australian ... (Big guns down weapons for UN Security Council seat).

Hang on, the co-operation's only so Australia can win a Security Council seat so the former chairman can go off and grandstand in the world forum, which means he won't be resigning his seat by Friday and forcing an election that will bring down the government.

Sob, another Christopher Pearson prophecy bites the dust. Let's hope Mr. Abbott has more luck with Dunaden, and let's hope problem gamblers can continue to fill the coffers of the needy, vulnerable hapless James Packer, who after his futile forays into Vegas, is now down to his last billion or three ...

And let's hope we can all stay united under Prince Chuck in that great commonweal of nations, and talk to the plants.

Meanwhile, royalists unite, and delve even deeper into the thoughts of Prince Chuck at Charles, Prince of plants, is the talk of Chelsea, and before you rush out to talk to your trees - they do so love a chat and a bit of encouragement, and a deep Tolkien-esque hug - here's Prince Charles shaking hands and talking with a tree to show how it's done:

Oh yes, and they thought that the pond couldn't live without Christopher Pearson.

Hah, they didn't stop for a second to think of the good professor Flint, and Prince Chuck, and that nattering naboob of negativity, the real Christopher Pearson, Tony Abbott, and Karl and Lisa and the great commonwealth of nations and the Melbourne Cup and curling and tree hugging and ...

Okay, Mr. Zappa, the pond is feeling light hearted and light headed, in euphoric post-Pearson bliss, so take it away: