Time for a little slap and tickle and wot you fancy and an epic howl of pain ...

(Above: more Moir here)

Okay, the pond will bite.

The pond is routinely an all-day sucker, biting and slurping, so when Tony Abbott came out with this on the TV last night, the pond bit deep and hard:

I think that we've got to treat our kids well, but I don't think we ought to say there's no place ever for smacks. 
All parents know that occasionally the best thing we can give is a smack, but it should never be something that hurts them. (Tony Abbott admits to smacking his children, rules out ban)

What the flying cosmic fuck? A smack that doesn't hurt? What sort of smack is that?

As always, the pond reverts to the dictionary.

Now smack has certain meanings that we can rule out - Abbott certainly wasn't talking of giving a child a noisy kiss, or to smack the lips, or even smack the chops while contemplating a tasty plate of fresh oysters with a dash of ...

Okay, the pond has stopped dribbling about the oysters, the point is that a smack should here be understood as meaning:

A sharp resounding slap or blow with something flat, or the sound of such a blow
To strike sharply and with a loud noise, to slap smartly, with or as if with the open hand
A sharp blow or slap, to strike forcibly and loudly

As always, the immortal Lewis Carroll got it right in a poem whose original text is known only to the pond:

'Speak roughly to your little boy, 
 And slap him hard when he sneezes: 
 He only does it to annoy, 
 Because he knows it teases.'

It is of course a profoundly stupid and fatuous remark by Abbott, whatever your position on a smack, which isn't a tap, not even a love tap, and it's why the knob polishers and hagiographers have such a difficult job with Abbott.

He wanted to dogwhistle about the nanny state and political correctness, and how he's a common and garden member of the smacking brigade, but then to mollify and to soften the apolitical incorrectness, he comes out with a concept of such profound inanity, as to make his original position beyond the valley of the insanely stupid.

Unless of course, we construe it in a zen Buddhist way, as in the gateless gate. So we have the smackless smack, the hurtless smack, the smack that isn't a smack. Come on down Chance the Gardener ...

It is, in microcosm, why Abbott has proven so inept, and it explains why the likes of Akker Dakker have narrowed down their focus to a relentless, repetitious, monotonous, dullard, so nakedly obvious it's pathetic, crusade against the ABC:

Does broadening the ABC's horizons involve getting Akker Dakker on to insult Dame Elisabeth Murdoch, or raising questions about the sexuality of Tim Mathieson?

Only if you construe broadening as meaning jumping into the gutter, or the cesspit, of rabid mendacious ratbag ideological zealotry.

Oh wait, a smack doesn't hurt, and reading a blow-hard windbag is a way to broaden and dull the mind.

You can see why it gets hard for the hagiographers, the difficulties with language, which recently have been reaching Humpty Dumpty proportions.

Even the bouffant one is finding it hard to muster enthusiasm:

Oh dear. Why that's almost a smacklette ... or a smack lite ...

The pond hates being caught admitting to listening to Phillip Adams, but Laura Tingle caught the mood right, when she noted that Abbott and his cohort seemed constantly surprised that when in government, shit keeps happening, and people expected the government to do something about the shit. (that's a completely inaccurate paraphrase, but you can hear the original comments here).

Tingle might have added that even if not in control, then at least the appearance of control and a disciplined approach is handy, but Abbott is such a confused bear, he can't tell the difference between a smack and a love tap.

Where does this leave us? Well on the one hand it leads to hate speech. You see, Abbott was such a good and hard hater, such a smacker and smoter, such a smiter and slapper, that it's hard to resist giving the tyke a whack across the chops.

It is becoming apparent that, while they were an excellent opposition, the years of reflexive, unthinking negativity, of framing all arguments in soundbites and all outcomes as crude win-loss scenarios have not well prepared Abbott and his colleagues for government. 
Whether bullying East Timor, picking fights that they can't win with Beijing, humiliating themselves over Gonski or mugging childcare workers while debauching their own travel allowances, they approach the governments of the Commonwealth with all the witless hysteria of amateur night in a Chechen bordello. Sometimes it's embarrassing. 
Sometimes amusing. And sometimes it's just a tragedy. (here)

This is outrageously unfair. The pond understands that amateur night at Checken bordellos are well organised, and great fun, if you don't mind a little exploitation of women, and John Birmingham refuses to provide any evidence to the contrary.

But it does point out a deeper truth.

These only people giving the government a more than fair break reside at the ABC. Last night Malcolm Turnbull turned up on the Leigh Sales' comedy show (aka 7.30) to break a coupe of promises, not just small ones but big juicy ones.

Was he given a short, sharp smack, perhaps even a spanking, not just in a love tap way, but in a bloody big smack over the ears way, and sent to the corner to consider his many present and future sins?

Nope, it was just another eastern suburbs love-in, as you can remind yourself by watching the painful video here.

It turns out that the pond, along with many other users, can expect the NBN to devolve into HFC, which already passes our door, which was long ago dismissed as a useless notion (Turnbull's HFC plans 'doomed to fail': industry).

Sadly, you could almost hear Sales' eyes glaze over - a curious whirring and clunking noise - at the mention of technology and digital this and that, and so rather than put Turnbull to the sword over his lies and deceptions - soon enough he'll be matching Stephen "have I got a filter for you" Conroy's record - she moved on to the Holden saga as quickly and as indecently as she could.

And they say the ABC is full of leftist bias.

Yes, they do, they do. This very morning the editorialist at the lizard Oz has provided us with an epic poem, of a size and immensity of thought and logic and grace and poetic words soaring into the sky that made Wordsworth blush with envy at having made The Prelude so short, while Dante recalled his divine comedy, an inspired Milton scribbled Paradise Found, and Lord Byron hailed a new Don Juan.

The original is here,.

But the pond felt the need to make a few felicitous editorial amendments and adjustments, to bring out the intent of the original in a finer way, a few subtleties and nuances having been lost in translation (perhaps Sofia Coppola would be interested in making a boring epic movie of this ullalim epic).

Here you go, Allen Ginsberg, learn how to do a proper Howl of pain and despair:

ABC chairman Jim Spigelman is right
To sing the praises 
Of the hours of blameless programming,
From gardening and kids shows 
To drama and music productions,
Though the gayness of Bananas in Pyjamas continues to disturb,
And the naked frolicking of passion fruit in the garden
Is the sort of unseemly sight
That Auntie's listeners and viewers enjoy every day.

For all our favourites and annoyances,
Few people could say that somewhere,
Sometime on the national broadcaster
They can't find worthwhile content
Without ideological blemish.
If they take a microscope and spend hours
In diligent examination of their fundament and anal area
Perhaps hoping to find the prostrate gland of the lizard Oz editorialist
And give it a tickle

Yet this misses the point about ABC bias,
Which is a vital discussion
Because of the corporation's role
And its obligation to objectively cover
News and current affairs,
And fawn all over Tony Abbott and behave exactly like the reptiles
In Murdoch la la land
So that between Murdoch and the ABC
You couldn't split two more alike peas from
The gardening shows pods, unless they happened
To be pyjamas on bananas, 
And how offensively gay is that,
To a sensitive Murdochian.

Many would detect a slant
Well if you mean by many the zealots and ideologues
Who infest Murdochian la la land like lizards
Lolling in the sun,
Except when lolling in 
Some of Auntie's other programming -
Be it a couple of ratbags like Akker Dakker 
Or Hendo on The Insiders,
Or a windbag like Malcolm Turnbull 
Extolling his own promise-breaking, cheating virtue
But if limit our focus to news and current affairs,
No one who regularly consumes ABC fare
Could mistake the reptiles' routine monotonous, repetitious
Complaints about green Left leanings.

In his address to the National Press Club yesterday,
Mr Spigelman conceded the point.
"The allegations of bias are, I believe,
More often a function of the topics chosen for reporting,
Than of the content," he said.
Journalists were more likely to be interested
In social issues such as gay marriage, he suggested,
Than electricity prices.

But the chairman's prescription
To tackle this weakness
Seems wrongheaded.
He trumpets audits on bias
As well as research projects and briefings for staff
On what issues are important to all Australians.

This is typically bureaucratic, process-driven activity
Rather than effective action.
What the ABC needs is leadership.
Or a merger with News Corp,
With Chairman Rupert in charge.

Never mind that the circulation of News Corp newspapers
Is in free fall and we don't have a fucking clue what to do about it
And we resent the ABC as an unfair, government subsidised competitor
Which has lately displaced the useless Ten network,
With a Murdoch helping run the show,
From third place on the ratings totem pole.

And never mind that The Australian has run at a loss for years
Propped up by tabloids and pay television
Let us give, in a condescending, smarmy way,
A real insight on how to truly fuck it up
And alienate a substantial part of your
Original demographic and market 
In the process.

In commercial newsrooms
It is not the disposition of journalists alone
That sets the news agenda,
It is the direction of editors and producers
Masters of the hive mind,
Zealots, narrow-minded ideologues all of them,
The strict requirements of the crusade
Embedded in their chips, where once brains resided 
Who task journalists, 
Always with an eye to news judgment, the views of Chairman Rupert
And the mainstream concerns of Chairman Rupert,
Because Twitter can never be enough
Or carry the truth so deeply embedded in the hive and the chip.

Next week, of course, we will belabour
The directions issued by the editors and producers
Who work at the ABC
But this week we have stared into the flashing stick
Held aloft by Tommy,
And must ignore these fiends

So long as ABC management adopts a hands-off approach
Instead of the Stalinist approach developed at the lizard Oz
And instead allow the organisation to operate
As a collection of staff-run silos, free of censorship
Free of the thought police and the Stalinist News Corp jackboot,
All producing content they and their collaborators
Would wish to enjoy, and which their audiences will enjoy
There will be far too much happiness

And the corporation will remain distant
From corporate thuggery and brutality.
Unlike the fucked up commercial operations of The Australian
And the fucked up failure of the Ten network.

It is true, as Mr Spigelman hints,
That journalists tend to have a
Socially progressive
And politically liberal disposition.
Which is why in Murdoch la la land,
We put them through a rigorous course
Of hive mind thinking
(Tommy we need that stick that flashes)
They are also susceptible to incessant lobbying
By special interest groups
And other public relations operatives
Offering pre-packaged stories.

We know this, because the lizard Oz
Is always open to special interest groups
Of an industrial employer kind
And other political public relations operatives
Offering pre-packaged stories.
And we religiously run them in their glossy splendour
And sometimes even remember 
To call them advertorials

Just as the ABC is always open for animal rights groups,
So we are open to "kill all animals and animal lovers" groups,
They to environmental activists,
We to 'destroy the environment',
'Especially the whales and the useless polar bear' activists
Or gay marriage advocates looking for easy coverage,
Instead of our hard coverage of 'kill teh gays',
Stuff gay marriage ...

Other media organisations unhappily can be
Without leadership of the Murdoch crypto-fascist Stalinist kind.
It is the role of editors, hopefully with KGB experience
Though other organisations might suffice
To direct journalists to follow up on stories that matter,
Endless shit about the ABC for starters
And the follies of the NBN and climate science
And not to reveal unpalatable truths, break stories
Or other shit that disagrees with the cloud cuckoo
Land of Murdoch
Where whistle blowers are a nuisance and a disgrace
Especially when others get the scoops
And we're left spewing into our cornflakes ...

While others allow themselves to be mere clarions for special pleading,
We'll have none of it,
Unless it happens to be the special pleading of
Liberals, Chairman Rupert and employers intent
On nailing employees to the world.

Managing director Mark Scott, as editor-in-chief, 
Should become lizard in chief.
Invite lessons from Chairman Rupert,
Beam up Scotty, to the hive mind,
You should drive this 
And demand as much
Propaganda, ideology, and relentless zealotry
From your editors and producers,
Who didn't exist a moment ago but now they do,
As the head honchos of News Corp demand
Of its mind-numbed, brain-deadened pawns

So long as bosses are willing to accept
Advocacy masquerading as journalism,
That is what many journalists will proffer.
And you'll end with endless amounts of
Garbage,
Ripe, rich, smelly garbage,
And The Australian's editorials
And content-free coverage
And an endless obsession with the ABC.

Another way to combat this drift
Is to deliver on pluralism.
Not that News Corp can show how it's done
The national newspaper is replete 
With editors and a crony commentariat,
Strongly identified with raving ratbag
Right wing views
And no dissent allowed at all ...

Contrast former Labor staffers
Kerry O'Brien and Barrie Cassidy, for instance,
Who bring undoubted experience to their roles.
How we hate, resent and envy them
Locked in our one-eyed bunkers as we are

Rather than purge such jaundice
Or pretend it doesn't exist,
The ABC needs to recruit voices
From the centre-right.

Oh for pity's fucking sake, don't you realise
How tough it is slaving here deep in the hive
With no joy or laughter or love or life
In this vale of tears?

It is beyond amusing
It is painful to contemplate,
That an organisation with 4600 employees
Can point to only one right-of-centre presenter,
The former Liberal minister Amanda Vanstone,
Who is on air for an hour a week on Radio National.
Yet it boasts a veritable army of hosts,
Reporters and personalities constantly spruiking
For a carbon price, gay marriage
And even the right for Australians
To fight jihadist battles in Syria.

Why we don't even have a leftie Amanda
But now we have Hendo, 
Our very own pompous Prattling Polonious
Nah nah.

Oh for pity's sake, for the love of god, give us a gig
So we can turn the ABC into a carbon copy
Of the lizard Oz
And thereby denude it of any relevance whatsoever
Much like we've already done for our rag

Just as the ABC looks to recruit
Ethnic, indigenous and female voices,
It might occasionally think
To recruit someone capable of
Seeing the world
From a Coalition voter's perspective.

Fucked in the head, already deeply gloomy
Profoundly disturbed but never mind

Pick Me, Pick Me, Pick Me,
Not Hendo, Akker Dakker, or Donkey
Pick Me, Pick ME
And I guarantee I'll make the ABC
A pale shadow of News Corp
And if it fucks the demographics,
So what, we've fucked our own ...

Auntie portrays this newspaper
As some sort of undeclared partisan pamphlet.
And indeed it is, and proud of it we are.
Yet The Australian is clear
About its standpoint and standards.
Hate the ABC, hate the NBN,
Hate the climate science
Hate the whales, hate gay marriage
Hate, hate, hate

We support Australian interests and prosperity.
Well at least the interests of Australians
Who take up American citizenship
And the prosperity of the idle rich
And let's hope it trickles down
Even though it's not trickling down to me

Oh for the love of the lord,
For pity's sake, pick me, Pick Me

We will cover all the relevant news
But in our own arguments support those
Who make a cogent case
For national development
And the betterment of the population
Of American owners and the idle rich
Not a big population,
But a most choice and select one.

In doing so we also give voice to
A wide range of voices,
Provided they agree with us.
Many permanently on staff,
With connections to all sides of politics.
Except of course, leftists, greenies and whale lovers.
There's only so much diversity and pluralism
Anyone can take.

There is not a sensible proposition
That cannot withstand or be improved
By intelligent scrutiny.
Except of course this newspaper

The ABC, by contrast,
Prefers a self-delusional echo chamber.
Completely unlike
The self-delusional echo chamber
We prefer.

This extends even to self-censorship,
Dramatically revealed
When every journalist, editor and producer
Decided to ignore the important AWU revelations
That connected then prime minister
Julia Gillard to an alleged union fraud.
Which is to say we connected her
To a man she'd fucked, who is connected
To an alleged union fraud
But we'll keep digging

Because when you're on a crusade
In a self-delusional echo chamber
You keep hearing strange echoes
And voices
And suffer a righteous sense of paranoia.

This is not the behaviour of a national broadcaster 
Committed to fearless, objective and pluralistic coverage.
More the gutter crawling of rabid ideologues
And we will go on being rabidly ideological
And zealots
And never mind the fall out 
Or the decline in the circulation.

The Australian has never advocated privatisation.
Perhaps a take over or a merger.

Oh for the sake of the long absent god, pick me pick me

Rather, the ABC needs to find ways
To embrace the suburbs and the regions.

They're far too close to Holt street
And surely that is our only office
And we're centralising even more
And the ABC has regional offices all over the place
And a footprint throughout the land
And circulation in country towns
Unlike the lizard Oz

Oh pick me, pick me

Too often, senior editorial staff
Are schooled in journalism
Through hipster radio station Triple J
When we all know that pop music
Is satanic and the work of the devil.

W hen a stint at a regional station
Would better acquaint them
With mainstream views.
Because after all it's well known that
The vast bulk of Australians, the hugest number
Live in the bush,
And some even hail from the centre of the known universe
Tamworth
And so have astonishingly
Mainstream views

Unlike the pitiful wretches in the hive mind
In Holt Street.

Permanent tenure on public service conditions,
It's just so unfair, 

Oh pick me, pick me,
Send me bush, save my soul,
With a growing concentration of staff 
At Sydney's Ultimo 
And Melbourne's Southbank,
Why it's just like Holt street,
(Oh send me to the bush),
Increases the list to the Left,
In exactly the same way
As working in Surry Hills
Has ensured a list to the rabid rightwing right
Oh there's way too many inner urban
Elitists
Working at the lizard Oz

Pick me, pick me, send me to Tamworth
To report on the nation
From the heart of the nation,
And I can guarantee to make
The rest of the organisation feel inconsequential.

Overseas, the ABC's correspondents
Engage with popular media
And local communities to cover their beat.
At home, too many ABC reporters
Define themselves by placing themselves
Above their countrymen.

And let's not talk of country women
With their useless lamingtons and scones
They're worse than whales
And yes the reptiles at the lizard Oz
Define themselves by placing themselves
Above these wretched country women
But we'd become far less chauvinist
Way more feminist
If you'd just send me to Tamworth
Oh pick me, pick me,
Do you have any idea what it's like
To be stuck inside of Holt Street
With the Holt street blues again ...

(Below: you made it this far? Have a cartoon as a reward. More Wilcox here)