In which the pond moves past chook droppings and square eggs to marvel at the way the reptiles can make the rooster circulation figures dance ...

Speaking of tightened sphincters and bird droppings, as it seems some must do, this is why the pond values a cartoon over a news story (and more Rowe here).

Sure, you could read the story at Fairfax ...

But does "bitter harvest" beat chook droppings from a man who should be a feather duster but isn't? 

Not in the pond's world ... not even Crikey's manly injunction could match up ...

And sob, now it's back to the reptile beat, and Thursday is a quiet day, as it often is. 

Over at the HUN and the Terror the Bolter is squawking about the ABC, so the pond is reassured that the sun will rise and set this day, and at the lizard Oz, Savva is on her usual 'moral improvement' campaign for Malware ...

         

So too was Davo ...

Quick runs, main game? Are Australians doing well at cricket somewhere the pond hasn't heard about?

Others were offering defensive plays or useless ploys at the top of the opinion page ...

Let them fight it out, because buried down near the bottom of the digital page came a blast from the past ...

The pond knew only another cartoon could describe the phenomenon of discovering that Adams was still trailing his coat for Kevin, in the way that some still yearn for the return of the onion muncher ...

But enough of square eggs, and chook droppings, the pond was yearning for a taste of real old-fashioned, sunny side up hagiography, and thank the long absent lord there are still diligent workers painting away, putting a new coat of lead paint on the old bridge so she might shine in the morning Sydney sun ...

The pond put up both these splashes, because it firmly believes that if you say something three times, it will come true (a click of the heels helps the process, but only if five inches or better). 

Naturally the pond was beguiled ...

Indeed, indeed, the pond knows how Thomson feels. 

With the exception of its curated and ladled out cartoons, it contains a vast cauldron of endless crap ... it's in its nature, what with being a living, breathing herpetarium ...

But wait, what's this new thing against strip miners? Have the reptiles gone all greenie and turned nature lovers?

As for confidently exerting values at the WSJ? The Wall Street Journal is changing up its paywall, offering guest passes and expanded link-sharing on social ... "The destination has become a very hard place to protect":

“The destination has become a very hard place to protect,” she said. “The big players — the Facebooks, the Googles — have in many ways become the default for many customers. As publishers, our job is to strike a balance between understanding how we protect the destination that is our brand, and also work with the consumer behavior of using distributed platforms as a gateway into news and information, and into the wider web.”

Yes, even the WSJ has tried to make its paywall a little bendier, and realised that if you don't get in the game, you don't get on in the game ...

Meanwhile, the reptiles down under are still dancing around the may pole of delusion that print has a future ... as if they haven't been knocked over on their way to their Surry Hills bunker by crowds fixated on screens (the pond hates it, but what can you do, except step out of the way?). 

Now could we have some irony with the final serve?

Yes a plug for "Rewire" will serve admirably for the ritual leading with figures, full of obfuscations, obscurings and hagiographic nonsense as they are ... and so we cut away to a close up of the figures ... reptile style ,,,

They're still doing it ... you can, if you like, google this Crikey story back in March ...

                   

And now it's numbering 465,000? Say what?

Well let's have a little more irony with the final set of obfuscations and obscurings ...

All the pond can say is well done DD. Not many will have noticed your diligent work, or your promotion of irony with your "Rewire" plugs, but the pond knows for a fact that the diligently applied coat of lead paint has made the old coat hanger look splendid in the morning Sydney sunshine ...

But what happens if anyone goes looking for an alternative and more realistic examination of the data? From an impeccable source, like say B&T?

Say what? Fairfax is doing well with The Herald Sun? Well that's great news. At last the Bolter is paying dividends for some decent, caring owners ... as for the rest, well you can google it at source if you like, but please exercise due care and diligence ... or you might discover how the lizard Oz is doing well for Fairfax ...

And here's what the pond came away with from, observing this mess of figures, this miasma, this fog of hope ...

So long as the reptiles are completely incapable of reporting a set of figures without hagiographic re-adjustments to suit their own story, which is the story of their masters and not the real story at all, how do they expect anyone to read them on anything and expect decent and useful insights ... as opposed to returning to the bear pit of the full to overflowing intertubes to find out what ever might turn up via a website or an app?

Of course fiddling with these sorts of figures is just a short hop, step and a jump away from fiddling with other figures, and conspiratorial numbers and at that point, the pond might just as well revert to twitter for insights ...

Oh steady, they've let him borrow Dame Slap's evening wear ... and her conspiracy theory ...

Over with the newspaper circulation data, you Andes chook ...