In which the pond attends a wedding feast and scores a public dividend with Paul 'nattering Ned' Kelly ...

It is an ancient Mariner, 
And he stoppeth one of three. 
“By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, 
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me? 
“The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide, 
And I am next of kin; 
The guests are met, the feast is set: 
May’st hear the merry din.” 
He holds him with his skinny hand, 
“There was a reptile newspaper,” quoth he. 
“Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!”
 Eftsoons his hand dropt he. 
He holds him with his glittering eye — 
The Wedding–Guest stood still, 
And listens like a three years child: 
The Mariner hath his will. 
The Wedding–Guest sat on a stone: 
He cannot chuse but hear; 
And thus spake on that ancient man, 
The bright-eyed Mariner... (and the full poem here with Doré illustrations, thanks to ebooks. adelaide. edu.au).

Or perhaps it's just Paul Kelly stopping the pond, and transfixing with glittering eye, and the pond cannot chuse but hear, called yet again to be reptile whisperer, devoted listener and part-time therapist ...

Yes, with Miranda the Devine still raging about Mike Baird and the doggies - and much as the pond loves to see the rabid right attack the wayward right - it was time to chuse quality time with nattering Ned ...

Indeed, indeed. The pond was reminded of another ancient poem ...

Turning and turning in the widening gyre 
The reptiles cannot hear the tweeting Murdoch; 
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; 
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, 
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere 
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; 
The best lack all conviction, while the worst reptiles
Are full of passionate intensity
Surely some Paul Kelly revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Murdochian Coming is at hand ... (and the full poem with notes here).

Well it's about the only way to get through this tale of woe and paranoia and fear-mongering, as if nattering 'Ned' Kelly gave a toss about social liberalism or even feminism ...

But enough of the albatross and the sea-snakes who berate gay marriage and Safe Schools and then wring their hands and worry about the way they sound like Islamic jihadist fundamentalists, because there's another gobbet of anxiety and fear to be inhaled before we're done and can scuttle off to the wedding feast ...

That's it, that's all, he wrote?

Barners as the solution? The man who transformed Tamworth from the centre of the known universe to a wretched provincial backwater howling in the wilderness for the fibre broadband that Armidale scored years before ...

The member for Gina off to a wedding in India is the man for the common man, focussed on daily lives?

Barners doing over the dogs isn't some kind of rampant populist?

This is how to restore trust in the dollar and the banking system, and strangely, the American dollar, which acts as some kind of de facto world currency ...

Well the pond has learned its lesson. Never ever head off to a wedding feast where you're likely to be stopped by a grey-bearded loon ...

And speaking of weddings, lest we forget Coalition MPs in 'overseas study' claim for wedding ...

It'd be funny how 'wedding' keeps cropping up when the pond thinks of Ned's cry for the public dividend, if  the albatross around our necks hung wasn't so pathetically obvious ...