Please, stand well clear and allow Polonius to shirt front history ...

'Tis the season to be merry, but the pond is over-whelmed by the excruciating workload ...

The commentariat never rest, there's never enough days to cope with the flood of reptiliana, and as a result, the pond is ashamed to admit that these days it regularly overlooks the sublime work of the prattling Polonius.

But here, better late than never and never better than when late, is an example of the master ancient mariner stopping one of three weekend readers to deliver one of his wonderful guides to history.

Now there's a particularly choice moment in this screed. Others will have their favourite passages - Polonius is always generous in his droning - but we must wait a little while until we reach it:

There, did you agree? The most successful Liberal Party leaders are those who led their party into government from opposition; namely Robert Menzies in 1949, Malcolm Fraser in 1975, John Howard in 1996 and Tony Abbott in 2013.

Ah, burnishing the legend, and the legend in the hallowed company of legends, while the callow, wretched assassin, the vulgar Brutus lurks with a dagger waiting to stab the rats in the arras.

Or some such metaphor.

You know the drift ... how the valiant Abbott warned off the influential cockies and saved the day.

Oh wait, how did that illustration get in there, what with the hint of the sniping and the white-anting and the undermining and the petulance and the jihadism ...

Shocking.

The man is a legend, a huge success, two great and glorious years that put him up there with Ming the Merciless.

Sadly, after that, it's all downhill for Polonius ... but as any reptile lover knows, to get the real pleasure from the asp, you must clutch the viper to the bosom for many a long-winded, wordy moment ... because it's history lesson time ...

Oh yes, friends, Sydney Instituters, Catholics, countrymen, lend me your rears, I come not to praise the wicked Malware, but to praise the finest achievements of this honourable man ...

Now don't take this as sniping, but there is likely someone who will try to fill the role of leading the conservatives out of the wilderness and into heaven ... because it worked so well last time, and was acclaimed by the people in poll after poll after poll ...

Put it another way ...

I speak not to disprove what Malware spoke

But here I am to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause:

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?

Oh judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,

And men (don't worry about the women)

Have lost their reason. Bear with me;

My heart is in the coffin there with Tony,

And I must pause till it come back to me.

Or Tony come back to us ...

Hmm, pity about Macca's tricky switching this very day, but as Pinky and the Brain knew, there will come another time, and then there's no doubt that Tony will once again rule the world ...

Now back to the Xmas cheer ... with another duty done, another reptile read, another history lesson absorbed ... and another cartoon in the making ...