Another rich and full day at the pond, with nary a hint of a reptilexit ... just a good Dame Slapping ...

(Above: and more Rowe here).

So there was the pond sitting down to watch a little stress-relieving television when, to the surprise of all, up bobbed Lazarus.

Naturally Leigh Sales lobbed down an under-arm soft ball to start proceedings:

What do you think has been the single biggest change in Australian society since your election?

And naturally Howard whacked it out of the park with "Undeniably, the threat of terrorism."

Now at that pond the pond expected the natural follow up. "Then do you regret your involving of Australia in the Iraq war? Thereby paving the way for Daesh?"

After all, in recent days, the pond's news feed has been inundated by the Daily Troll going at Tony Bleagh very hard, with stories such as Sickening lies. Serial deceit. And proof Blair has blood on his hands. Just google and you'll cop A man without morals, the sickening truth about how Blair's made MILLIONS from doing dirty deals with dictators.

Never mind that wandering apostrophe, line up for A 'useless, useless' £10 million peace envoy ...

But no, instead of something penetrating, we copped this from Sales:

...we are all these years later and Australia is less safe from terrorism than ever. What did we do wrong? 

What did we do wrong? Like ask you insipid questions or vote for you?

JOHN HOWARD: I'm not sure... I'm not sure that we're less safe. In fact, I think we are less vulnerable to terrorism because of so many of the things you've talked about: the investment in our security agencies.

Yes, the goose had provided Lazarus with an easy out ... and so the pond abused its partner for leaving the FTA TV on the ABC, fired up the PBS app and watched the Republican party and possibly the United States drift towards fascism, torture, the KKK, xenophobia, paranoia, and the rest of the festering Trump stew ...

Much more entertaining and relaxing.

Well it could be worse, the pond could have paid actual hard cash to watch the Bolter report from Rome for Sky TV on a man who has perfected the Catholic, compassionate, deeply Christian art of nothing knowing, seeing nothing, hearing nothing and doing nothing... and booking his ticket for third place in Rome ...(George Pell wasn't much interested in stories of abuse by priests. Which was lucky for his career).

And so on, google if you like, but oh dear, even the reptiles seem to be having some doubts ...

But there was some good news this day.

Hoo roo Joe and make sure you slam the door hard shut on your way out, you useless prawn.

And there were other delights and temptations at reptile HQ:

Oh yes, please, pretty please, go the whole Kevin ...

And for those with a taste for the sickly sweet smell of bitter almonds - yes it's a common indicator of a TV trope - you could go the full neo-Oreo ...

And yet no stories, outside the pond, at the way that neo-delusional, neo-hysterical biscuits have hijacked the reptiles' opinion pages.

Speaking of which, by now many pond readers will by this point be chomping at the bit, waiting to get into a reptile of substance? 

Well, who better than Dame Slap, and on a topic rarely visited by the pond in much the same way as the pond only visits the old country, the old Blighty, to be reminded of the Irish and Indian massacres of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries ...

It transpires, as we started with Tony Bleagh, that Dame Slap has been swilling Newcastle Brown ale and eating warm baked beans for breakfast, and such is her unnerving capacity to relate to the common British folk, that she has emerged with a deep and enriching understanding of "voters", what "voters" think, the common herd wisdom of the "voters" ...

Please admire this astonishing capacity ...

Indeed, indeed. And it was even better in 1939 when nation states could do their thing! 

But please, we haven't yet seen how wonderfully Dame Slap is in tune with teh voters ...

Indeed, indeed. How shocking it was when the EU stopped Tony Bleagh from heading off to the Middle East in consort and conspiracy with George W and Dick Cheney. 

How dare the EU have prevented that little bit of colonial imperialism and adventurism. Why the failure to remove Saddam Hussein has seen the middle east spiral out of control into its current mess ... it certainly makes the pond wonder about the nature of politics, who participates in politics and for whom political structures are organised. Fancy imagining that it was for benefit of the Chairman and his minions ...

It's time to get Britain out of the EU so it can revert to colonial adventures, the Scots can leave to join the EU, and Australian voters can begin to wonder who organised the political structure that will see King Chuck on the throne, and no roundheads on the horizon ...

Indeed, indeed, it's called democracy and the right of Tony Bleagh to go to war on whatever devious grounds he invents.

As for the rest, it would seem that, unlike Gareth Gareth - oh aren't ethnic jokes so witty and so funny - Dame Dame Slap Slap isn't a devoted reader of the New Statesperson:

Yes, that was published in the New Statesperson on 10th February 2015, that's how long the notion has been rattling around, though you might find it easier to read here ...

And Nick Pearce was back at it again on 3rd February 2016 in After Brexit: the Eurosceptic vision of an Anglosphere future (may be slow to load).

In fact if you google, a skill some reptiles and Paul Sheehan are slow to acquire, you can find any number of hopeful references to a new world order featuring an Anglosphere ...

Never mind, the pond will now revert to watch the remarkable convolutions of the Pellopshere, up there with gravitational waves as a transubstantive mystery ...

The pond particularly enjoyed this effort by The Shovel here ...

And here's a few more warm-ups for today's proceedings ... and as the Canberra Times' gallery seems to be broken, you can get your Fairfax cartoons at The Age here ... (the Sydney mob are in the sourdough Krispy Kreme Kid Magic Water sin bin).