A little operatic fervour to kick off the week ...

(Above: more New Yorker cartoons here)

The pond deeply desires that the Fairfaxians make squillions from their engagement with new forms of interactivity, tricks and devices now on the web for the presentation of interesting journalism.

A little value adding is no doubt part of the way forward in terms of subscription.

The New York Times has been fiddling around with this sort of thing for quite a while - take a squiz at its interactive on The Bloomberg Years: Reshaping New York. Or its more recent interactive on Thanksgiving. (though you might need a subscription if you tarry too long).

Heck just google New York Times interactive feature, and you'll find all sorts of subject matter - from the Euro Zone crisis to a Year at War, to Front Row at Fashion Week to Riding the New Silk Road. By golly there's even a site which features ten inspirational NYT multimedia and interactive features, here.

So what have the Fairfaxians offered up for investigation? A three part - to date - report by Peter Hartcher on the ALP's The Meltdown, Inside the ALP's Self-Destruction, with the promise of two more parts to come.

Three parts already, oy vey, and two to go!

The pond has absolutely no idea of the intended demographic, except to know immediately that the pond isn't one of them.

An interactive that begins with this image?

Dear sweet long absent lord, it's a trip through a haunted house. Or a nightmare.

Why they might just as well have done an interactive about Michael Costa not knowing that Eddie Obeid didn't know nuffink about nuffink, and no doubt there'll be more about that plenty of nuffink today.

The Fairfaxians could have done an interactive on the changes to the shape of Sydney, the wonders of Antarctica, the spring explosion of colour in the bush, but instead they indulged in ALP navel-gazing, conducted by a man who was himself at the heart of many affairs, and who copped this line of doggerel on the weekend from Annabel Crabb, joking about Chairman Rudd delaying his departure until he could indulge in a full-fledged bout of narcissism in federal parliament:

To such a huge Kevelopment would normally accrue 
An exordium of heraldry and archers. 
But not this time; no hints leaked out, no Twitpic with a clue, 
Or tantalising scoop of Peter Hartcher's. (Now not knocking on Kevin's door)

We'll forgive the wretched scanning for a more general point - you'd have to be the most devout of political junkies, someone who's done a mayoral tour that takes you past alcohol and cocaine to pure crack - to wend your way through five parts on the ALP, conducted by one of the chief conduits of Kevin's scheming ...

Indeed, the addle-brained, gormless Henry "flat tax" Ergas, (the man whose company Concept Economics went bust and appointed an administrator - Concept Economics goes bust, appoints administrators, may be paywall affected) has proposed an alternative to the the Fairfaxian interactive.

Opera is on young Henry's desiccated coconut lips, though these days he seems driven by pure ideological rage, as you can discover in today's lizard Oz rag in Light on the hill flames out (behind the paywall because only the elite can be expected to pay for drivel):

It would be possible to tell the tale of Jules and Kev comically, pathetically, even savagely. 
A melange of error and inevitability, the story of their marriage of convenience has a compelling Wagnerian symmetry: he the false prophet who, once unmasked, turned mutual deception into mutual assured destruction; she the author of the most monstrous display of ingratitude since Shakespeare's Goneril and Regan turned on their father. The character flaws alone would justify the Australia Council commissioning one of those impenetrable modern operas.

You see, there's a profoundly stupid mind at work.

If Ergas thinks Nixon in China or Einstein on the Beach are impenetrable, Henry must have a bloody thick noggin.

Henry is in fact a man too thick to realise how having a cheap shot at the 'leets sets himself up for a cheap shot, because the silly old bean ends his piece by quoting from one of those impenetrable twentieth century modernist poets, Robert Frost (well if the likes of Harold Bloom and William H. Pritchard and Joseph Brodsky considered him a bleak and unforgiving modernist, here, who's the pond to argue?)

Poor old Henry has adopted the Chicken Little persona - perhaps his company's misfortunes have something to do with it - and has now become a reliable fixture amongst the reptiles at the lizard Oz, pronouncing doom and gloom for all time:

Great parties do not die; they merely shrivel into irrelevance. That is the risk with which Rudd and Gillard leave the party they once led.

Not so long as Peter Hartcher is on hand to dissect it endlessly, young Henry.

Young Henry has himself - if you'll forgive the pond for entering the poetic operatic mode - begun to sound like an Ancient Mariner, constantly pointing his desiccated coconut finger at the Labor party, and more and more his commentary has started to resemble the ramblings of football partisans. Oh yes, that Collingwood or Manly footy club is certain to shrivel into irrelevance.

Or even worse, supporters of Australian cricket, who can only look back with nostalgia to the good days when Lara Bingle inspired the team to victory.

Meanwhile, the world has moved on, and there are more immediate and compelling stories to hand as you can read here:

Why the pond would almost rather read Paul "there needs to be flexibility in the work force and people in permanent part-time work on limited contracts, instead of those slack, bludging Greeks and Pommie bastards ruining the world" Sheehan, instead of brooding about the departed Ruddster.

Almost.

Maybe not, given that today Sheehan is suddenly wringing his hands and moaning about how Housing crisis locks out Generation Rent.

Second thoughts, the pond can't go there either, as it's just another variation on the Fairfaxians ongoing interest in Sydney real estate, which once delivered them rivers of gold, and which now flow right past their door without stopping.

Oh and it allows Sheehan to indulge in his usual xenophobic alarmism:

Demand is being driven by high immigration, government tax policies which encourage people to buy properties for superannuation investment, and the weight of money coming from China and the Chinese diaspora.

Never mind that only a couple of months ago the likes of Alan Kohler could be proposing that values are just back to where they were three years ago (here).

When you're a paranoid Chicken Little the sky is always falling in, especially where furriners are involved, but it's the bleeding and the hand wringing for the people that are forced to rent that really sticks in the craw, given that everything about the labor market flexibility demanded by conservatives like Sheehan is certain to force people into unstable penury ...

It's a bit like American republicans bleating about food vouchers and the underclass, when that's really the government being forced to step up to the plate because the likes of Walmart rely on their workers slaving for a pathetic wage that forces them onto government programs, which in turn constitute a substantial proportion of Walmart business (Walmart: America's real 'Welfare Queen'). What an unvirtuous circle ...

But back to speaking of opera, because the pond loves a good opera (and had to bid sad farewell to Vladimir Ashkenazy on the weekend).

Just yesterday the pond was intrigued to read of the activities of that denouncer of elites, that shameless panderer to the good and wise working class folk, that expert climate scientist, the Bolter, as encapsulated in Oh, wonderful.

It turns out that the man was cooking while listening to a piece by baroque composer Riccardo Broschi, and even embedded a link to the song on YouTube and never mind any intellectual property rights that might be involved, since the Murdochians really only care about Fox, and it is only for purposes of review, and certainly has nothing to do with making money by way of clicks, and let's forget that the Bolter doesn't have the grace or style to mention that the track is available on Simone Kermes' album by Sony, Colori D'amore.

Sony? Talk to Fox ...

For those who feel tempted to sing along, the English translation of the lyrics helps explain the depth of dolour and grief required:

He, who at my pain feels 
no sorrow in his heart, 
let him go down to the valleys, 
stray through their black horrors and sigh. 
My beloved, my father, my realm 
were robbed from me by a villainous fate. 
 Highest gods, if you are
righteous, put an end to my suffering

If only the righteous gods would put an end to the Bolter's suffering ...

But that night, over a moussaka and Moroccan meantballs and Greek salad and home-made pasta sauce with tomato sauce for entree, the Bolter was planning to sip on a bottle of Grange, which luckily some careless soul had left about the house - as you do.

Why the pond is always picking up a bottle of Grange some careless guest has left behind the lounge. Or hid amongst the Chateau Cardboard on a whimsical night ...

So there you go, young Henry.

The pond is thinking of whipping up a comic opera about a Grange-sipping, baroque opera loving, foodie who constantly rails at the insidious elites, while living high on the hog by indulging in a most curious form of anger, resentment, and rage.

Surely we can do something with a ranter lathered in a demagogic foaming frenzy? A man with absolutely no credentials in science pronouncing on science with a theological certainty, a religious fervour and a profound sense of personal infallibility?

What's that? They've already written one about a man who majored in political science and then earned a law degree and called it Jerry Springer: The Opera ...

Ah well, back to the drawing boards and the Chateau Cardboard, while marvelling at the way some of the elite can fool some of the sheep all the time, with the sheep unable to work out why you can rarely spot the difference between the farmer and the pigs ... except when they relax and let their guard down on an incautious wonderful opera-laden Grange-saturated weekend.

(Below: another opera waiting in the wings? More David Rowe here)