Caution, here be unicorns, narcissists, sociopaths, Bolters and Pellists ...

Is there an irony here?

Well yes, that opinion piece appears in the Sydney Morning Herald. 

It might just as well have read If the Sydney Morning Herald's editor wants to retain his rag's reputation as the voice of the people of Sydney he must force Paul "the Krispy Kreme Kid Magic Water Man" Sheehan to either resign or retire ...

Yes, it's the squillionth day of the Sheehan scandal, and still he and the paper run silent, run deep, like a German U-boat after blowing up a civilian liner, and as the passengers die in the freezing water, there's no column today, and no wittering, in the hope that memories will fade and the scandal will blow over. 

But every attempt at a moral posture is a hollow sham in a paper which has itself displayed neither strength nor a sense of decency.

Fortunately for the pond, there is close nearby an even better and more wondrous example of narcissism at work, an extraordinary example of how the Bolter can turn any story into "It's all about me folks" ...

Now this is a long and sorry tale, but at least this part of the circus offers some mild comedy relief.

Yesterday, in a few of the Murdochian tabloids, there was a turning in relation to Pellism ...

But of all the turnings, it was the Bolter's turning that attracted most attention.

Now because it's such a lengthy piece, the pond must present it as it appeared, without editorial comment, because this day, the Bolter himself provided a response to the Bolter's piece:

Okay, suffice to say, this was considered so bizarre that the Fairfaxians ran a piece high up on their click-baiting digital page ...

Now you can find that yarn - with forced video, social media reaction, etc etc, at George Pell: Backflip on cardinal an (Andrew) Bolt from the blue.

But of course it wasn't so much a backflip as attention seeking of the narcissist kind - remember the story's not about Pell or the victims, it's about the Bolter and so the backflip led to a retreat, and that too was duly noted, the runes cast, the entrails laid out, the chicken feet examined to see what the clucking of the chook might portend...

Slipped his mind.

Slipped his mind.

Because slippery things will slip on the slippery mind.

And so to today's outing, where the Bolter continues to demand attention, while on the reptile sidelines two contending lines are put ...

Good old Tess, loyal to the last, because out of the show trial, the last thing you might arrive at is praise for Pell, naming names and blaming everyone else, yet furtively dissembling when it came to his own role ...

Indeed it was bizarre Mr Lyons, but not so bizarre as the behaviour of your stablemate, whose infinite capacity for narcissist attention seeking continues to be rewarded in News Corp ...

As for that issue whether Pell shows a sociopathic side, many people think this term applies to the Bolter.

But that is too simplistic, when everything points to him being a narcissist with sociopathic tendencies. And the pond didn't need to look for a clinical opinion, because the Bolter provided all the raw data himself this day. 

You see. 

It's all about the Bolter and his childhood fears and dreams, as if they provide an excuse for the backflip on the backflip ...

Would we, for example, get an example of the Molesworth Bolter's early tendency to scribble poetry?

Now this is beyond the valley of the bizarre. It seems that conducting a Royal Commission is a pack attack. Strange that the pond doesn't remember this line coming from the Bolter when it came to that other recent Royal Commission ...

Hey nonny no, on we go ... because yes, folks, it's poetry time ...

Now Freudians might have a field day here, not least because that poem is more tragic than most exercises in juvenilia.

Gadzooks, sir, it doesn't even rhyme or scan, and seems dangerously modernist. There's the problem in one. Un-Australian. Not an Adam Lindsay Gordon or a Banjo Patterson within cooeee....

As for insight into the narcissist desire to navel gaze, what are we to make near the end of that gobbet, at the return of the unicorn. Once again, a unicorn has entered the house ...

Shame, shame, but what to make of the Bolter thinking of himself as a unicorn?

It's way too Freudian for the pond, but it reminded the pond that it had proceeded this far without a cartoon. Luckily First Dog was to hand to provide a gobbet of his own:

That provided the pond with the strength to continue on and complete its assigned task, which was to trudge through the sludge, the slime trail, left behind by that narcissist Bolter snail, and sure enough the narcissist with sociopathic tendencies couldn't resist returning to the "S" word...

And there you have it, the pond's duty is done.

What a mistake Sky made to send the Bolter off, an opinionated, prejudiced, biassed, bigoted hack, who clearly wants to hijack proceedings so that all might attend to his commandment, "don't look over there, look over here, look at me, me, me" - though luckily the pond is able to spare any stray reader from the ugly sight of the Bolter examining the fluff in his unicorn belly button ...

What's left but the rest of that First Dog cartoon, and the cartoon can be found in its complete form here ...