And so to our very own prattling Polonius ...

(Above: just what every home needs).

James Spigelman is right, of course, and it's good he said a few words on the subject. (ABC chairman fears for freedom of speech).

Being offensive, offering offence, or taking offence, is not a good enough grounds to limit speech.

The entire commentariat would be grounded, out of work in an instant, if this sort of guideline were to be applied.

On a daily basis, the likes of Akker Dakker, the Bolter and his acolytes, Miranda the Devine, Alan "chaff bag" Jones, the Tim Blairites, and assorted other blatherers and numbskulls routinely set out to be deeply offensive. And routinely succeed.

That's their day job. You can imagine them lying in bed contemplating the day ahead and thinking, "now who can I offend today?"

Gerard Henderson is always offensive, whether taking snide shots at luvvies or berating inner city elites or celebrating the outer suburbs while being aware that dragons lurk in Penrith and Auburn and Blacktown.

What to make of his outer suburban taste for Nescafe (relax you can get a great coffee in Auburn), or living life never having known the joy and pleasure of having an idle chat over a chardonnay or a luscious passionfruit-inflected sav blanc (hold on, what's this inflected nonsense, just shovel the passiona down the throat please).

On the other hand, once offended by this motley offering of tripe, kidneys and offal, it's the joy and delight of the pond to be offensive back, and to say a few words about the coxcomb mouthings of desiccated coconuts like Henderson, now an aged mounteback and prattling Polonigus poseur.

So if being offensive is enough to stifle chat over a chardonnay, where would that leave the pond?

Why as dry as a Hanrahan waterhole in a once in a lifetime drought.

So the pond welcomes Gerard Henderson, if only so it can be pointed out that the emperor wears no clothes.

Henderson knows just how to make the pond take offence, and sometimes even a gate (and if you don't know that chestnut, you clearly missed out on an education for life at Tamworth Primary School).

But why, you ask, should you have to read all this padding before getting to the substance of the latest thoughts of Henderson?

And you should have known the answer, which is that there is no substance, no fresh insight, no startling intellectual advance on view in Royal prank should trigger media soul-searching, but not regulation.

Yes, the sombre old prune has decided to pontificate about the 2DayFM saga, as if there's not enough blather already doing the media rounds, and in the usual Hendersonian way, reveals more about his own anal retentive, obsessive compulsive monomanias than he does the topic to hand.

Take this doozy as a warm-up:

The tragedy should not be used by the regulators in our midst to introduce even more controls over the media. There are more than enough in this area already. As Professor Barbara McDonald pointed out on ABC News Breakfast on Monday, it is possible the incident has involved breaches of the NSW Surveillance Devices Act. Also, 2DayFM may have breached the commercial radio code of practice, which is monitored by the Australian Communications and Media Authority. The relevant authorities will determine these matters under the existing law. 

The relevant authorities? Everybody knows that ACMA is about as useful as a dunny door in a gale, flapping away for years without doing anything meaningful about incidents that turn up from time to time.

Will it ever take away a licence? In your dreams. But why should taking away a licence be its only meaningful action or penalty?

Do you ever wonder why the anti-regulationists talk about how we've got plenty of regulation, and routinely fail to note that in the case of ACMA, there may as well not be any regulatory authority, for all the good it does? It's about as effective as Fair Work Australia in pursuit of Craig Thomson.

Now the pond knows a few people in ACMA, and they're good-hearted souls, diligently working away compiling files - the world can never have enough files, especially when it comes to Kyle Sandilands - and truth to tell, as a make-work scheme, it's much more sensible than making lawyers go out and do street-cleaning duties, or send them off Mao-style to work in the fields (on the other hand, don't put temptation in the way of the pond).

But why does Henderons pretend, in such a pompously pretentious way, that the relevant authorities will determine inter alia and ipso facto these matters from time to time as they come under consideration  under the existing law? It's meaningless mumbo jumbo as the startled ostrich-like flap doodle response has already made clear.

More to the point, why is Henderson listening to ABC News Breakfast, instead of listening to what commercial radio has to say about itself?

And there's the rub. Henderson doesn't have the least bit of interest in listening to commercial radio. Turn it on, and the pond fondly imagines him running shrieking and howling from the room. Why we might even share a latte in the lane way outside.

It's part of his ABC bias, which turns up a little later in the piece.

Yep, when discussing commercial radio, by hook or by crook, Hendo will drag the ABC in to the discussion:

On The World Today on Monday, the presenter of ABC TV's Media Watch, Jonathan Holmes, confidently declared that before Saldanha's death it was generally thought that the hoax was ''pretty damn funny, one has to admit''. Well, this does not have to be conceded because it is not accurate. 
It is true, for example, that some ABC programs initially joined in the fun of the hoax. But not all. On 702, for example, Linda Mottram considered running the Christian/Greig interview but decided not to. A wise decision at the time - which looks even better in retrospect. 

With due respect to Jonathan Holmes, his sense of humour is really beside the point, at least when it comes to discussing how 2DayFM legalled the prank and then decided it could be aired and the role of management and what exactly went down in the place, though there's already been some sturdy attempts to blame the victim of the prank and the hospital and security and almost anyone except management.

And really is the way Linda Mottram decided not to run the prank germane to anything at all?

The pond decided not to run the prank either, and you could compile a list as long as your arm of people who decided they wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

Has Dr. No so reduced us that where not running something, where not doing anything, is worthy of Hendersonian commendation?

And so we cut to the real ABC-related chase, and a time for a little payback:

It's much the same on the taxpayer-funded public broadcaster. For years, the ABC's Chaser team was given permission by management to trespass on private property - despite the fact the ABC has elaborate security to keep trespassers away from its own premises.

Yep, what better way to discuss pranks on commercial radio than to drag in the Chaser lads (how Henderson  hates to hear these middle-aged adults called lads), while failing to note that for years Henderson has whipped up a deep-seated fear, loathing and intense dislike of the lads.

Also, the likes of Julian Morrow, who supported the Christian/Greig stunt before it turned sour, invariably humiliated receptionists, police, even sick children and others in their unsuccessful attempts to confront the powerful and the wealthy.

Yep, when wanting to discuss decades of commercial radio pranks, start by berating the ABC and the "likes" of Julian Morrow.

And then a heartfelt confession:

From experience, I know even some of the seemingly most confident media personalities are remarkably sensitive to criticism or ridicule. 

Uh huh. The poor sensitive wilting flowers.

Apparently, they even spend endless hours sending endless letters of protest and complaint to ABC management about all the shocking this, that and the other bibs and bobs that turn up on the ABC, perhaps because they unwisely spend too much time as a self-appointed guardian of the ABC, and not enough time to listening to soul mates like Alan Jones.

That's why we all have to be so careful in the modern age about the feelings of others. Perhaps the best way to prevent improper media behaviour is to encourage a sense of self-awareness among presenters, editors and managers alike. 

Self-awareness!?

From a man who doesn't show the least sign of self-awareness or the dark demonic drives that force him compulsively to write about the ABC week in, week out, even when the subject is commercial radio?

What a fawning, droning, beef-witted, fen-sucked, flap-mouthed, fly-bitten barnacle he is.

Yes you too can google a handy set of Shakespearean insults - the internet that so confronts and challenges Henderson, along with social media, twitter and the like, is full of insult generators of an Elizabethan kind.

Which is why James Spigelman is right. Imagine locking up Shakespeare for simply providing the necessary tools for approaching a column by that prattling Polonius, Gerard Henderson ...

(Below: yes you can get Shakespearean insults as fridge magnets, playing cards and T-shirts. Never leave home without one, because you never know when you might bump into Gerard Henderson in the inner city, well away from Penrith and commercial radio. Naturally any with "loon" in it scores double for Scrabble).