In which the fat lady sings and the tears and the tributes flow ...

The pond is today in deep mourning, suffering from an extraordinary sense of loss ...

Besides, we had a great set of images saved up. What will happen to them now?

Wasted. Useless. Destined for the rubbish bin.

And what of the flags? Won't someone think of the flags?

And then came the fatal choice:

Ah well, it's time to celebrate. After all, the man who destroyed the future of fibre, and so the NBN, for the country can surely be celebrated:

But what of the Chairman and his minions?

What of the Bolter?

What does he have to say? Is he mourning the loser? A loser no doubt seething with cold Kev fury, the sullen resentment of a vanquished loser, so bitter and crestfallen he didn't even have the grace or the style to front the cameras and take his medicine:

And so on and tediously on, as might be expected from the star of Falling Down. 

But then the Bolter seemed to have second thoughts:

Is it time now to tarnish Tony?

Well Dame Slap has already fallen into line.

Le roi est mort, vive le roi !

And hope surged in the reptile loins. A new brand of kool-aid, one you could believe in!

Oh it was a time to feel good, to feel alive, to dream the impossible dream ...

Volatile thoughts of presumptive action. Febrile environment designed to feed superficiality and paranoia and bizarre leadership decisions ...

... or put it another way, now the reptiles must hope to elect a Republican who accepts gay marriage and the seriousness of climate science, and whose chief qualification in recent times has been the wrecking of fibre to the home with a botched mess of multiple medias that will take a decade or more to unpick and expensively fix ... a decade after the mess of spaghetti continues to roll out and unravel ...

Never mind, there will be time for all that.

There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a fibrous node question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a copper toast and tea.

And time now for testaments and tributes ...

Oops, we have to interrupt that tribute from First Dog to cut to a crocodile story about the rich eating the poor:

And a reaction from a keen observer:

Now back to the First Dog tribute:

But wait, that lacks a certain Disneyesque quality.

A Spielbergian touch of forgiveness and celebration.

And for that we must turn, snorting over lattes, to the Pope du jour, and more Pope here:

Touching and sweet and yet, we haven't heard from the skulker and the sulker.

The pond never liked the band, but could Creedence Clearwater be on to something?

Is the infallible Pope giving us a gnomic clue? Is all that blather about living in exciting times hiding something else?

I see the bad moon arising. 
I see trouble on the way. 
I see earthquakes and lightnin'. 
I see those bad times today. 
Don't go around tonight, 
Well it's bound to take your life, 
There's a bad moon on the rise. 
I hear hurricanes a blowing.
I know the end is coming soon. 
I fear rivers over flowing. 
I hear the voice of rage and ruin. 
Well don't go around tonight,
Well it's bound to take your life, 
There's a bad moon on the rise. 
Hope you got your things together.
Hope you are quite prepared to die. 
Looks like we're in for nasty weather. 
One eye is taken for an eye. 
Well don't go around tonight, 
Well it's bound to take your life, 
There's a bad moon on the rise. 
Don't come around tonight, 
Well it's bound to take your life, 
There's a bad moon on the rise.