In which the pond joins jolly Joe and pines for the fjords ...

Now there's a state of excitement, but let's not conflate state and federal issues.

Let's acknowledge that Tony was just too busy to pay attention to matters south of the border, and let the vote fall as it may, and let all enjoy a lamington as the pond's Victorian relatives are wont to do, and so let's turn to the excellent news that the conservative commentariat, heartbeat of the pond, has become the story ...

Yes the Fairfaxians finally noticed that Conservative commentators Bolt, Jones and Albrechtsen turn on Abbott (forced video attached).

And then came the news about Abbott Government's worst week (forced video attached):

Senior Ministers have privately blamed Tony Abbott's own office for creating this week's $7 GP co-payment crisis which raised tensions between the Prime Minister and the Treasurer and capped off what some concede was the government's worst week since being elected. 
The unprecedented criticism of the functioning of the government's highest office came after Mr Abbott walked away from the unpopular policy – outlined for the first time in the May budget – before re-embracing it just 12 hours later, without explanation.

Oh dear:

The confusion has further shaken confidence in the Prime Minister's capacity to control the political messaging around difficult economic policies. 
However others say the situation, dubbed the "barnacle debacle" because it flowed from the raised expectations from Mr Abbott's Tuesday party-room address, reflects a schism in the government between Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey – with the latter attempting to hold the line against pragmatism in order to secure necessary budget savings. 
The messy handling of the matter had government ministers and their staff bemused and unsure of the what Mr Abbott had meant in his "barnacle" reference.

The barnacle debacle! Will that be followed by the barnacle fenarkle? How about the farcical barnacle, or the anarchical barnacle or the barnacle oracle?

But enough of the Fairfaxians. As always, the pond's beat for the daily is made up by the many devoted, kool aid drinking reptiles beavering away for the lizard Oz. How fares the commentariat this fair election day?

How sayeth the portentous, pompous sooth?

Oh dear, missing its chance, but surely the forelock tugger and knob polisher, the bouffant one, will bring glad tidings?

Oh dear, the worst week, the problems many and varied, that sounds bleak. Surely someone can bring good news?

Oh dear, it's all so complicated and big, it's just too hard, and all Pooh wanted was some honey. 

But surely there's someone with a little more grit in the soul ready to gird the loins? Grace, are you there, Grace?

An insult? Oh bugger off Grace, we'll just call in Dame Groan for a fair-minded response:

Et tu Dame Groan? Daft, muddle-headed and unworkable? Why don't you tell us what you think?

Is there at least one kind word at the top of the fickle digital rotating finger of doom? How about that quisling and fellow traveller from the west?

Oh dear, a quagmire of its own making, and worse, the wittering, twittering prof. noticed what the pond had noticed:

Oh dear, everyone's a critic, and the reptiles have turned. It's a Peta hunt and a piñata-bashing fest of Abbott loathing.

It's a sure sign, the reptiles have swished their tails, flicked their forked tongues, and spoken ...

And if that wasn't enough, the anonymous editorialist at the lizard Oz was at it again in Stop the silly slogans, start fixing a damaged budget.

Since reading a reptile editorial is worse than watching paint dry, let's just take some highlights:

A chastened Tony Abbott ... leading a government that is hesitant, tongue-tied and confused ... its budget strategy in tatters ... simple slogans ... needs a fresh approach ... THERE MUST BE BLOOD ... overblown rhetoric ...distortion ... confusing for the electorate ... holding dear to his extravagant paid parental leave scheme ... eroded voter trust ...Mr Hockey has clearly little to say and the public has stopped listening to him ... Mr Abbott must leave the comfort zone of his beloved talking points ...

And so on. Okay the reptiles didn't capitalise their demand for blood, and they were in fact in full team coaching mode - go Team Australia, just follow the lizard path and all will be well - but the pond just loves any cry for blood, any reminder of that bowling pin pounding the preacher copped in There Will Be Blood ...

Well anyone can read any of the stories above, featuring the gnashing of teeth, the wailing and the moaning provided by the reptiles this kool-aid sipping Victorian election day.

Somehow it reminded the pond of that prescient Bill:

Domestic fury and fierce civil strife 
Shall cumber all the parts of Canberra. 
Blood and destruction shall be so in use, 
And dreadful objects so familiar, 
That mothers shall but smile when they behold 
Their infants quartered with the hands of war, 
All pity choked with custom of fell deeds, 
And Abbott’s spirit, ranging for revenge, 
With Peta by his side come hot from hell, 
Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice 
Cry “Havoc!” and let slip the reptiles of war, 
That this foul deed shall smell above the earth 
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

Ah Bill, Bill, in later, happier times, you could have been writing leaders for the lizard Oz ...

Meanwhile, on another planet, comes this news:

Yes, there's much more here, but it seems finally, inevitably somebody dropped a copy of the Lewis report on a Fairfax desk, and they even provided a link to a page here to prove it.

What's that you say, the Fairfax EXCLUSIVE was also an EXCLUSIVE at the Graudian here.

Never mind, that allows the pond to EXCLUSIVELY report that Fairfax and the Graudian have mutually INCLUSIVE EXCLUSIVES.

And the EXCLUSIVE story EXCLUSIVELY proves - if any proof was required - that Malcolm Turnbull is a scandalous and specious liar. Remember all that whining and moaning from the poodle Pyne about production in SA? One of the key recommendations is that the ABC outsource production and strip itself of the capital costs of maintaining a capacity for production.

And so on and on ... hypocrites and liars and luddites, with all sorts of fancy schemes to degut the ABC. Get out of digital radio (so much for the government's ostensible push to embrace digital radio), charge for catch up services and otherwise punish digital ... and so on ...

But where oh where did the government get its marching orders from?

Why the pond is exceptionally glad you asked that rhetorical question, because it gives the pond a chance to run the bilious, frothing and foaming reptile editorialist, full of hate speech and demanding that there be blood.

Yes, the reptiles are at it again.

How bizarre does it get?

Why they go Aussie boxer and proclaim their love. We loves youse, we loves youse all, they shriek, as they deliver smacks to the chops, and steel-capped boots to the temple.

Here it is in full:

Providing digital services constitutes a slide towards irrelevance?

Barking, sublimely, fucking mad ...

Now the pond grieves for the loss of FM classical music field recordings and their re-broadcast in digital, whereby they sound mighty fine.

But then what can you do? Play a little Peter Sculthorpe in the morning and some dickhead complains about Sculthorpe being gloomy. Next thing you know we're back to listening to Offenbach, Strauss and Lehár ...

But the way the reptiles write it up, you'd swear they wanted the ABC to transmit the field recordings to the pond's trusty AM receiver, with its trusty valves (it sounds so much warmer, don't you know, not like that chilly, cold digital muck).

Now the pond is of an age, but even the pond these days gets out the tablet and catches up on all sorts of things, because that's the way it is, and that's the way it will be in the future...

The reptiles have never got the full to overflowing intertubes, they've never got the new world of digital. They've feared and resented it, and like their master, they've clung to their tree killer ways, no doubt in the hope that newsprint will some day return to cult favour like vinyl and the eight track cassette. Will anyone ever explain to them that a few LPs on vinyl in cult stores doesn't constitute much of a new business model ...

The pond doesn't mind hipsters clinging to nostalgia, but the sight of angry old white men doing it is faintly ridiculous ...

That a newspaper should in this day and age, with their old business model having had the stuffing knocked out of it by the intertubes, should resort to the jeer of "just another groovy, urban digital player" explains just why the reptiles are so fucked in the head ...

Just another bunch of old fashioned, out of touch urban Surry Hills dickheads ...

No wonder the circulation for the lizard Oz is falling, no wonder the Murdochian newspaper empire is sliding into hysterical irrelevance, a bunch of commentariat losers shouting at the loser government they demanded be elected ...

After all that, the pond needs a cleansing cartoon, perhaps a little dry, with an aftertaste of fruit, like a good Clare reisling ... take that, you fuckwitted reptiles, what's wrong with a reisling or even a chardonnay ... 

Oh perhaps, since the pond is on the wagon, we should just sip and savour a David Pope cartoon, and more Pope here:

The worthy Pope acknowledges a debt to Python, and the pond has noticed an upsurge in Python and Gillard jokes in the past week. 

Inter alia, the inestimable Pope is referring to the Dead Parrot Sketch (here in written form to aid recitation):

Customer: Now that's what I call a dead parrot. 

Owner: No, no.....No, 'e's stunned! 

Customer: STUNNED?!? 

Owner: Yeah! You stunned him, just as he was wakin' up! Norwegian Blues stun easily, major. 

Customer: Um...now look...now look, mate, I've definitely 'ad enough of this. That parrot is definitely deceased, and when I purchased it not 'alf an hour ago, you assured me that its total lack of movement was due to it bein' tired and shagged out following a prolonged squawk. 

Owner: Well, he's...he's, ah...probably pining for the fjords. 

Customer: PININ' for the FJORDS?!?!?!? What kind of talk is that?, look, why did he fall flat on his back the moment I got 'im home? 

Owner: The Norwegian Blue prefers kippin' on it's back! Remarkable bird, id'nit, squire? Lovely plumage! 

Customer: Look, I took the liberty of examining that parrot when I got it home, and I discovered the only reason that it had been sitting on its perch in the first place was that it had been NAILED there. (pause) 

Owner: Well, o'course it was nailed there! If I hadn't nailed that bird down, it would have nuzzled up to those bars, bent 'em apart with its beak, and VOOM! Feeweeweewee! 

Customer: "VOOM"?!? Mate, this bird wouldn't "voom" if you put four million volts through it! 'E's bleedin' demised! 

Owner: No no! 'E's pining! 

Customer: 'E's not pinin'! 'E's passed on! This parrot is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!!

Why thanks to the new digital world, you can even buy a celebratory T-shirt:

Wear it with pride, luddite Murdochians ...

And now please pardon the pond if it passes on a word of advice to the hapless commentariat, and the wretched reptiles as they contemplate the digital train still bearing down on them, and they refuse to adapt or acknowledge the existence of the train, and they conspire with Malcolm Turnbull to ruin the NBN, and they think that the only way forward is to degut the ABC, so that they might flourish in their monopolistic ways ...

In your dreams ...