In which even the chief hagiographer has his doubts ...

Forget Bill Shorten and his Micallef approved zingers, forget the greenies lambasting Abbott ...

The pond knows they don't count, and headed off to the reptiles at the lizard Oz for a proper herpetological, serpentine perspective, and was shocked to discover that even the chief forelock tugger, the most diligent hagiographer of them all, was forced to remonstrate just a little:

As the chairman of the “most important meeting” in Australia Tony Abbott has challenged the G20 leaders to instil more confidence in the “people of the world”. 
In a close encounter with leaders only, the Prime Minister appealed for frankness and drew a global scene of the need for economic growth and job creation. 
Yet, curiously, addressing leaders facing crises of massive proportions with huge unemployment, inflation, territorial disputes, violence and financial stagnation, Abbott detailed his own difficulty in getting university fee reforms and a Medicare $7 co-payment through the Senate...

Curiously? Well to borrow from Paul Keating, getting done over by Shanahan is like being flogged with a warm lettuce, but still the point was made:

Given Joe Hockey has already signalled the expected agreement on the economic growth target of 2.1 per cent Abbott was confident of agreement among the leaders and a “success” from the Brisbane G20. 
His global vision was well founded but a repetition of his election mantra and detailing of his own challenges seemed out of place in his esteemed, and troubled, company.

"Out of place"?

The man with the three word slogans thinking that's still all that's needed?

Waiter, another warm lettuce leaf ...

The bouffant one wasn't leading with "weird" or "bizarre" or "graceless", though indeed, courtesy ABC24, it was impossible to escape the conclusion that Abbott's rambling account of his domestic problems was indeed weird and bizarre and graceless, and curious and out of place to boot ... and that listeners did their best to hide their real thoughts behind a front of glazed indifference.

And then there was the public shirt-fronting:

Oh no, et tu bouffant one, not another note about your idol's epic failure, with Obama taking the summit the place where Abbott least wanted to go ...

But how does the pond know for sure it was a shirt-fronting? Why as always, the pond turns to that sage, sober voice of Queensland. Oh you only need a XXXX joke, and they'll be putty in your hands:

Yes, it's beautiful one day, then Kenyan socialist worshipping the next.

Then came the fuss about whether Putin was going or staying - it seems Reuters broke the story on the basis of the words of a Russian official (or so Time said, with a link here to the Reuters piece, though others say it was Bloomberg), and you have a conference heading rapidly into Awlty Fowers turf. The comedy was everywhere:

Vlad the impaler showed he could be just as dinkum as the Kenyan socialist by offering up a two fingered salute:

If nothing else, this gathering has demonstrated just how lightweight Abbott is when he turns up on the world stage.

He had any number of opportunities to defuse the issue of climate change. He could, for example, have embraced it, while also down-playing it, but when he tried to rule it totally out of court, he was caught napping by both the United States and China.

The shadow of Julie Bishop grows longer ...

Meanwhile, since there's only so long that the pond can contemplate the Abbott follies - even with a toffee apple and fairy floss to hand - what a bummer it's been, this Philae lander ...

Now the pond is assuming it did actually land, and it wasn't in a studio, and that it did manage to download a couple of precious hours of data, but all the same, it seems like a fatal flaw not to contemplate that the lander might end up in shadow and need a little extra battery power.

Yet Australians have known the virtues of extended battery life since at least 1983, or so this Duracell commercial on YouTube here suggests.

What's that?

It's only a simulated demonstration? It's a kind of Tony Abbott battery?

Never mind, keep banging away, in a futile attempt to impress the world ...

UPDATE: by special request of Miss Pitty Pat:

A cunning move. The idea was, of course, that the patriotic koala would urinate on Vlad's shirt front ...