Five bells, and all's well in the west ...

The pond is indebted to a correspondent who alerted it to a most valuable magazine, essential reading for anyone interested in the care and maintenance of the lizards of Oz, especially when the reptile keeper is in town and angry about being gazumped.

But sadly the excellent magazine failed to answer a key question: what happens when your reptile develops schizophrenia?

You see, the digital news is all triumphalism and glory, a wedge here, a knockdown of unions there, a backing of perceived bias paying off ...

The rose-coloured glasses of mania are on full display ...

But then the chemical imbalance sets in, and gloom descends, and eerie voices begin to mutter to themselves?

Clean the cobwebs! Well we all know what that means:

Researchers have long wondered what such weirdness meant, and the pond now wonders if someone has been feeding its lovely, caring reptiles unusual and offensive urine, as scientists  did way back when, as you can read in Urine in the Web.

Of course under the threat of Canning, and the influence of drugs, or urine - who knows what reptiles get up to when you're not watching? - strange things can be written to convince sandgropers that they live in the best of times:

If you like to tweet, you can twitter along here, and for this day only, you can discover near the top of the page a link to a heart-warming, heart-rending tale of astonishing care and love:

Please, prepare to be moved and amazed by the sight of a man striding into Perth on a road bedecked with palms:

Well yes, no doubt Barnett is shattered by the way the federal government has been taken over by hardline right-wingers, though how this will help in Canning is something of a mystery to the pond.

Could the premier be suggesting that the party is inflexible and has held a hard line on social issues?

It seems the pond has entirely mis-read the premier, who is such a softie, he makes marshmallow feel like stainless steel:

Oh come on, petty minded critics, give the guy a break. Col's doing his very best to make sure that the stadium is known as Perth Stadium, and tourists from around the world will troop to WA to marvel at the wonder of the structure, because nowhere else in the world is there a football stadium like this one.

Oh sure, Col has been in the news for odd reasons - Colin Barnett told to 'grow a pair' after attacking merit of WA Labor women, sure there are restless reptiles scribbling furiously How Colin Barnett is plunging WA into $36 billion debt:

Who would have thought that unparalleled commodity prices would lead to Standard and Poor sending us from AAA to AA+, with a negative watch thrown in to boot? 
SandP also add that unless decisive action is taken to constrain spending and debt, another downgrade is on the cards. 
 If this all sounds like esoteric, fiscal nitpicking, don’t be fooled. It’s part of the reason that this year the taxpayer is up for $1.08 billion in interest payments on our debt. 
It’s the reason Colin’s team has no more money for 12-year-old children to go the Royal Show and it’s the reason he’s been forced to break another election promise and raise the electricity prices to more than double the rate of inflation. 
It’s also the reason financial counselling services were cut for those who needed it most. 
It’s the reason the TAB will be sold, along with the Fremantle Port and a host of other government office buildings. 
This debt burden means the sale of Princess Margaret Hospital, the Shenton Park Rehabilitation hospital site, the historic Deaf School and the beach-side McCall Centre in Cottesloe. 
There’s even talk of flogging Western Power’s transmission lines in a bid to raise funds. It’s a grab for cash to pay back the banks and nothing is off-limits. It doesn’t seem to matter than many are public assets that can never be retrieved. 
For Colin Barnett nothing has changed since 1998. It’s the same undisciplined thinking and action that led John Langoulant to conclude: “The end result is a budget which is now displaying significant structural weakness”.

No more free entry for kids at Perth Royal Show???!!!!

The pond guesses that means the marshmallow doesn't have the money to spring for a free tooth-rotting fairy floss for every child.

Oh dear, please, please, is there a hagiographer in the house?

It's about this time that the pond began to shed a gentle tear. Was there a more kindly premier ever in the history of the nation?

But what was all the sounds of fuss and noise that wafted over to the east, of the Colin Barnett pushed as anger erupts at protest over communities closure kind?

It turns out that everything can be easily and sympathetically explained:

Bald rhetoric, but done with such great sensitivity.

And there's your answer to any fears you might have had about your reptile showing disturbing, spider-like behaviour, and a tendency to divergent, irreconcilable forms of web-weaving.

Feed them the right kind of urine and they can come up with copy designed to win them the pond's "hagiographer of the month" award ... and surely Paige Taylor is a wonderful winner, just as Colin B Barnett is a tremendous premier ...

And with such impeccable logic at play, because a bankrupt state will really be able to look after its citizens.

Now there's a knockdown legacy for you.

And it seems voting in Canning the right way will ensure that sandgropers will continue to be loved by their deeply social, amazingly sensitive and caring, wildly liberal federal government, at the cutting edge on social issues and with strong appeal to under thirty voters.

And if you believe any of that, why not let the pond measure you up to see if the logic in this Leunig cartoon suits you:

But what, you ask of Dame Slap and her cobwebs? Well as reptile lovers know, each day is a chance to discover more!