Wild Tales redux and farewell to the year ...

This being the pond's last outing for the year, we wanted to go out with a bang, like a plane descending on suburbia - well we couldn't leave the last post in the hands of the dog botherer - and what better way to do it than with trusty tabloid key board warriors of the raving rant kind ...

Heroic champions of blather ... a trio, a triptych of the journalists you know, and trust will preen and ponce ...

Yes, if anyone should stumble across the pond on the break, we want it to be fully representative of the swill the pond has presented on a daily basis throughout the year.

Even if the pond wanted to keep on blogging through the break, it couldn't.

It's going to a part of the Victorian world, another Malware outpost, where broadband is something they have in South Korea and even mobile connectivity is tenuous and inclined to break mid-phone call, in the way most callers drop out for Phillip Adams, thus providing some light moments amongst the tedium ... (yes, the pond is still Jonesing for the Bolter as his replacement).

The pond will resume in the new year, assuming it survives the Hume highway; the roads of south east Victoria - anything less than a Hummer or the jihadist vehicle of choice, the Toyota Hilux is a risky proposition; the brawling with the Shortenistas in the extended family; rural Victorian medical facilities, or perhaps just being in Victoria again.

Meanwhile, the pond would like to thank readers for their many useful links and their comments, which it has to be said - without the pond wanting to sound like a big suck - are much more elevated, dignified, informative and useful than the crap that passes daily down the flusher known as News Corp.

Even better, this blog doesn't attract the attention of crazed loons of the ratbag Murdoch kind, which is just as well, given how it is full of crazed loons of the ratbag Murdoch kind. As a result, the reptiles can be examined in their native habitat in relative tranquility.

So happy Xmas to all - put what you like in place of the X and happy holidays, or if you will happy holydays, and as Dave Allen always said, may your god go with you, whether that god be a good piss up, a good meal, a bit of fishing or a tour of Melbourne's fine art galleries and street art (oh yes, the old girl still has its charms).

And so to the question that has been tormenting the pond all year.

How long will the Murdochians persist with the blogs that hang like limp appendages from their main publications, offering a backdoor way behind the paywall so that all can read for free the dullard thoughts of the resident raving ratbags?

The front door looks like this ...

Which leads to this sort of paywall nonsense ...

Journalists you know and trust and Turnbull the Liberals' Gillard? More of that bizarrely obsessed man later, but let us first turn to essence of Devine poison ... courtesy of the back door, for which the pond maintains a taste, if only because it makes a mockery of the front door paywall ...

Ah, there wasn't much point reading past the first few comments, was there ... who would contribute actual cash from the paw to the Murdochian hate media?

And so to Akker Dakker, maintaining the rage, as only a Bunter, a fat owl of the remove, frustrated at the thought of sharing multicultural delights from the tuckshop, can do ...

Not another rant about teh Islamics?

Sure thing ... though if the truth is unspeakable, how and why does this ponce, this egregious loon, speak of it in such a regular basis, like cannon farting a fireball into the air in the noon day sun?

Talk about a hive mind with just a few bees in the bonnet busy buzzing away over and over again.

And what's with this work ethic?

See you in February?

We have to wait that long for a rant about the need for people to give up their weekend and holiday loadings and entitlements?

And speaking of the hive mind, and a bonnet with just two bees - love of the wall puncher, hate of Malware - it's farewell to the Bolter for the year, though he's gone terribly quiet since he started working for the ABC ...

Why it occurs to the pond he might just love his cardigan time.

Still, the old obsessions keep shining through ... it seems any story can be turned against Malware ...

How did he manage to turn an award for a biography into a knife-twisting assault on Malware?

It took some doing, but the Bolter managed it this way, when talking about Olsen's inclination to domestic violence and a sharp knife left in the bed as a warning to his wife...

...Bungey offers not the slightest moral judgement of this episode. No judge of the Prime Minister’s book prize noted it, either. Nor did Turnbull himself, who announced the prize given in his name, three months after making his big stand against domestic violence. 
I don’t think anyone’s life should be judged solely or even largely by two such incidents, and surely not when it’s a life as productive as Olsen’s. But I wonder how many other Australians - those outside the charmed inner circle of our culture - would be granted such mercy. 
UPDATE 
Artists of all kinds seem excused from the usual norms. Tim Blair: A group of “progressive, left-leaning, uni-educated men” who became “five of the most successful young comedians in Australia” are accused of covering up repeated domestic assaults committed by a colleague: “They must have known, and they still stood by him.”

This is about as bizarre and as strained as holding the Bolter to account for Puccini's affairs.

Why here he is talking about a link to a Puccini piece ...

The love duet from Act One of Madame Butterfly. Can you possibly beat it? I love Pavarotti’s version best of all  ...

And with not a single mention of Puccini's sordid personal life!

The marriage between Puccini and Elvira was also troubled by infidelity, as Puccini had frequent affairs himself, including with well-known singers such as Maria Jeritza, Emmy Destinn, Cesira Ferrani, and Hariclea Darclée. (Greg Hunit it here).

Put it another way:

...the Bolter offers not the slightest moral judgement of these episodes. No scribbler in Murdoch la la land noted it, either. Nor did Turnbull himself, who announced the prize for best aria selections, awarded to the Bolter and given in Turnbull's name, three months after making his big stand against domestic behaviour resulting in suicide.

Or some such thing, because the absurdity proved too much for the pond. Yes, Puccini led a wild life - there's a lot more here at the Independent about it ...

...as he himself put it: "I am a mighty hunter of wild fowl, operatic librettos and attractive women." It was Puccini's pursuit of women that created the great crisis in his life. 
This is a tale of infidelity, jealousy, vengeance and despair. It goes a long way towards explaining the composer's fallow period. Its repercussions are still being felt on the lakeside today.

Well yes, and of course that tale of domestic tragedy is remarkable, but harping on about would be as tedious as listening to the Bolter blather on about Malware.

Yet if we follow the Bolter's logic, it's the very first thing that the Bolter should have mentioned.

Even if he'd done it, it would still take a lot more to convince the pond that the Bolter or Tim Blair give a flying fuck about domestic violence .... as opposed to using it as an easy way to mount an assault on the usual target of progressive, left-leaning men and Malware ...

This is more the standard Bolter tone ...

I’ve never quite understood why Rosie Battie is an oracle on violence against women. What happened to her son is a ghastly tragedy, a shocking crime, but that does not mean she is herself wise. And as we see here, she most certainly is not fair.

Because apparently the Bolter and Tim Blair are feminists of the first water ... who could doubt little Timmie's credentials... except if you cross the line, and speak against the wall puncher.

All of which leaves only one thing that's certain in the new year...

That the reptiles will display an astonishing capacity to sound like bees with a hive mind, and the Bolter will continue endlessly to parade his new obsession ...

Say what? He's even obsessed by a black bird called Turnbull ...?

Oh dear. Barking mad. 

No wonder the radio ratings are in the toilet.

And so there's nothing else to do except urge hope, and agility, and innovation, and belief to all ,because never have we existed in more exciting and reptilian times as this, and that includes the age of the dinosaurs, so magnificently captured in Andrew Hastie's preferred scientific textbook, which explains creation and global warming, though it struggles to explain teh Donald ...

Could it get any better or worse?

Well it depends if you scribble about loons and you want to keep a prize loon in the banner at the top of the page ...

Enjoy the break and summon up the strength. Devotees of reptiles and loons will need it in abundance in 2016 ...