Quality weekend time with the completely clueless prattling Polonius, thanks to the reptiles of Oz ...

Oh dear, the HUNsters are on the march:

Shameless HUNsters, please, pay attention:

Ah, the Captain, always willing to go the last yard with his team, even as he hears the remorseless sound of the slow tattoo of the drums of Canning:

Could that swan be the sound of one hand clapping?

But enough of good humour, because the weekend is a time of reflection, and who better to reflect with than prattling Polonius?

Now we have to acknowledge the superior insights of Polonius, especially when he admits he's completely clueless ... devoting an entire column to pure guesswork.

He doesn't have the first clue, no matter how hard he fossicks through the entrails and contemplates the chicken giblets.

So it's all entirely consistent with the Menzies tradition, yet apparently we don't have a clue how Menzies would handle a conscience vote.

Time to introduce some obfuscation and distraction and confusion...

Uh huh. But discovering Ming the Merciless was indeed Merciless apparently doesn't give our historical guide - or should that be historic? - the first clue about Ming the merciless's capacity to be relentlessly conservative and dismissive, while fawning all over the British.

Yet Ming's position seems clear enough ...

Why, if he'd had the bright idea of knighting Prince Phillip, he would have done so, but instead he settled for the Cinque Ports.

But do go on with the humbug notion of Menzies own cheap rhetoric about being progressive, an experimenter, in so sense reactionary, when he was out of the game and could attempt to burnish his image, as if such humbug actually meant anything.

So there you have it. Polonius actually does have a fair idea of what Menzies was like. Not in his humbug, but in his deeds, and in sending off innocent young conscripts to war, while many who favoured the war - fit for military service - stayed at work in government or politics or did service as a bureaucrat.

But now Polonius purports not a to have a clue.

He's completely and utterly clueless.

Not the foggiest idea. Not the faintest notion.

Really.

Not the faintest awareness that Ming the merciless would talk the talk about small 'l' liberal, but when it came to walking the walk, he'd send his opposition, like a Sir Garfield Barwick off to other work, and so denude his government of talent, that it would end up with Harold Holt being kidnapped by a Chinese submarine because even the Chinese were appalled at the way Holt governed ...

And not the faintest clue that Dr No would have likely tackled the Commie crisis in the 1950s in a way that would have made Ming proud.

Instead Polonius protests that he doesn't have a single, solitary idea that Abbott, follower of Santa, lover of Franco, would have been there at the barricades, offering an abundance of nattering negativity, shouting from the rooftops for a referendum ... like the one he's calling about the threat teh gays pose to marriage and civilisation ...

Ming the merciless would be proud ...

... the Cold War atmosphere of the 1950s ushered in a new climate of intolerance towards any signs of non-conformism or radicalism. All things perceived to be morally or politically 'deviant' were a target of sanction. Communism and homosexuality were considered close associates - 'Reds
 and 'Pinks' equally suspect and both a threat to the nation. This suspicion played out within government bureaucracy, particularly those agencies concerned with national security. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) put requests to the Federal Cabinet on more than one occasion to disallow homosexuals from employment in the Federal Public Service ... While homosexuals were never banned from Australian Government jobs, in the early 1960s, Prime Minister Robert Menzies issued a directive that no homosexual would be allowed access to classified information. Further, heads of departments were directed to observe staff to detect character defects such as homosexuality, drug addiction or serious financial irresponsibility. (You can Greg Hunt the source if you like here)

Seems clear enough, seems like a couple of PMs were threatened by the sight of gays, but Polonius doesn't have a clue, and so the ponderous, pontificating, prattling prat walks away with the perpetual Alicia Silverstone trophy for clueless reptiles ...

And that's as classy a prize as the current exhibition of sculptures being held in Canberra ...