In which the pond assails Presbyterians, the 'fellow travelling with terrorists' Greg Sheridan, foolish climate believers unable to understand the insights of Dennis "cola" Jensen, and triumphantly scales the Everest heights of a Caterist column ...

(Above: to get the show underway the pond attended a values class with Moir, and more Moir here).

Speaking of values classes, the reptiles today announced yet another exclusive EXCLUSIVE:

Of course you'd have to be deep into kool aid to think it was an actual SCOOP.

Let google show the times:

But in any case who cares? Who cares what a minority in decline, a blathering of bible thumpers, has to say?

If they want to opt out of legal weddings and adopt strange exotic rituals, if they want to go illegal and underground, like a gang of Weather people, why let them, says the pond, let them don sheets and do it in Roman toga style if they want, followed by strict missionary position coupling for the rest of their monogamous lives ... like that great Presbyterian, the Donald Trump ...

And the reptiles had other scoops, even though it involved what anyone with half an eye could have seen on television last night:

Oh wait, that's just an entry in the funny Barners photo competition which routinely bobs up in the pond. Here's the Graudian entry:

Ah the deferential, creepy crawling, obsequious, fawning, slithering on his belly Barners ...

As for the other, there was a lot of hand-wringing at reptile central about the childish, petulant ban, as if the hapless lizards had suddenly discovered their emperor was a foolish, prideful man with a love of skimpy clothes.

Worse, it turned out that one of their very own, one Greg "the bromancer" Sheridan was in fact a terrorist, or at the very least, a lick spittle running dog consorter with a terrorist organisation, and so, by appearing on the show, became a participant in undermining the very fabric, the warp and weave of a decent Australia, where bannings and shunnings and banishments should become major policy achievements.

Look, weep at the anguish of the bouffant one as he scribbled more in sorrow than in joy with Jared:

Yes, as Media Watch said last night,  while noting big Mal's electorate seemed to like the ABC, watch the big Mal space.

Will he fold? Will he roar? Is he a lion or a mouse? Or is he the mouse that roared? Or is he just Peter Sellers and wants to spend his time dressed in a funny frock?

The pond just flung that one in for any stray film buffs out there. More to the point, do the reptiles have a clue?

Ah yes, the treacherous, traitorous bromancer Sheridan, consorting with a terrorist organisation.

So will big Mal have the guts to join this traitor? Bring it on. Either way, the pond can dance for joy.

Meanwhile, let's ignore Barner's agricultural policy paper - if he can't be bothered talking about, why should the pond give a fig? - and briefly mention with admiration the way the climate denialists keep simmering in the Abbott government:

Yes, Dennis and Chris are still maintaining the rage, as you can read in the ABC here. But they still try to don the fig leaf of respectability:

Thanks reptiles for that, but the pond still doesn't know why they keep carrying on. 

Things are going very well, spiffingly strong, and the feeble bit of window dressing deployed by the obsequious wiki man, is already looking threadbare, and should expire, as planned, just after the election:

You can Graudian that story here, and Greg Hunt's other strategies are going swimmingly well.

Why there's The climate one year on: exit carbon tax, enter brown coal - how the pond's Morwell frequenting relatives just love the news - and Power sector's emissions accelerate one year after carbon tax's demise and thanks to private suppliers Victoria's electricity prices continue to soar and investors are happy, and it's coal, coal, coal for Australia ...

But enough of the frivolity and light-hearted romping while we prepare to fry like a crisp and join the crustaceans in a light acid bath, because there is a solemn duty for reptile cultists, and that's to do their duty for the long absent lord, remote queen and banishing country, and make it through a Caterist column.

This duty is reserved for the pond elite. The toughest of the tough, the SAS of blog readership, the willing grunts who take the ball up the middle and can do the hard yards, and stomp on toads and ...

Well you get the drift, and lesser souls who have much more important things to do in life - clipping toenails, picking pimples, sweeping up leaves - can consider themselves dismissed - but there is a reward at the end of the haul.

And it should be noted up front that in the usual way the Caterists don't ask the most salient question.

To wit and to woo, as the pond's unendurable uncle used to say, what on earth are the Caterists good for? What earthly use is served by a Caterist column?

Is it true that reading one Caterist collation of incoherent burblings can reduce a reader's IQ by ten points, and that prolonged exposure can induce terminal gibbering senility?

What would happen if the ABC went away, and all that was left on the desolate, blackened earth were Murdochian reptiles and 'short of a picnic loaf' Caterists?

With that warning in mind, we must plunge on:

Oh it's simply unendurable.

The half-witted fool thinks that a little alliteration, as in "barmy bohemians" passes for bien peasant wit.

And what a cheek for the head of a taxpayer funded non-think tank - yes the Menzies Research Centre scored a handsome amount of cash in the paw - to talk of harlots? What, it's only the ABC that's a slut on the taxpayer dime, and not the Menzies Institute sluts?

And when it's not direct cash in the paw, private donations cop a tax deduction, meaning we all pay - coming and going - to keep the harlots in the money and the lifestyle that befits bien peasants...

Anyway, what's wrong with being a decent sex worker? At least of the ABC kind - at least they're not Murdochian whores, in the generality, and they discreetly fail to point out the uselessness of Caterists and instead invite them on sundry programs to burble and bore their viewers silly ...

Oh dear, it's working. Shortly the pond will be fully exorcised and ready to do a useful day's work.

But first the final duty, the final bite of the lemon. What's the bet words like "luvvies" will flow from the wan fop's foolish lips?

Should the ABC promote farming? That's the best joke of the lot. Well you can take the ABC away from the agrarian socialists, but damned if a lot of them don't actually like their ABC in rural and regional areas ... the pond's male relatives get quite excited and unseemly about sweet Pip's hat:

You can Landline here, and it reminds the pond that we stopped listening to RN when they got rid of Bush Telegraph.

But it's typical of the bien peasants in their remote, elite, taxpayer funded Canberra eerie that they'd be stupid enough to question the usefulness of catering to an audience of farmers ... or children ... or any other demographic outside the fluff-gathering, navel-gazing, anal retentive Caterists ...

But hey, the pond promised not to discuss Barner's useless agricultural polices, so let's round it out with a First Dog, always a treat at the end of a hard and useless slog.

Come on little dawgie, sock it to that doofus Caterist, and more First Doggie here and thank the long absent lord you're a gluten free kale lover. That news will send the bien peasant Caterists into a wittering frenzy.