In which the pond relishes yet another glorious Monday with major Order of Lenin hunter Mitchell ...

There's always a spring in the pond's step on a Monday these days, thanks to the awesome work of the reptiles of Oz ...

Just look at the line-up, the pond simply had to preserve it in google aspic - waiter, the digital gelatin please - because it was much too splendid to go to waste.  Really unique, one might say, if one were reporting on News 24 ...

There's Matt the man from the north, promising to rip it all up and ship it out, and there's Brendan tossing a banana on to the football ground so we can all remember racism exists, and there's the Oreo smiting the Soros mightily, and there's Baron Waqa mourning Nauru's loss of its splendid image thanks to the egregious untruths of activists claiming the best thing about the island was its heap of guano - bird shit - if you will ... when everyone knows it owes its splendid reputation to its wondrous success as a gulag, waiting for its Solzhenitsyn.

Too many choices, it's all too much, like a triple serve ice cream ...

And then there's the top cockie himself, not your average reptile, not even your average galah, but one of the pond's favourite birds ...

Yes, it's major Mitchell day ...

And the major Mitchell was in a fine squawking frenzy this morning, because nothing gets the Order of Lenin hunter up in arms more than the thought of wicked, inept Fairfaxians ...

Where to start? Well surely it has to be with that great line: "He was no Paul Kelly."

Possibly the major Mitchell didn't mean to say "He wasn't the greatest bore in newspapers in the country, a bigger bore even than prattling Polonius", but the pond took it that way ...

But then there came that jibe about Fairfax being not a provider of journalism at all, and its future now most likely as a property website.

Does hubris and do motes get any better?

Well yes, as can be clearly seen, hubris and motes can get right up themselves, and so can a major Mitchell ...

Of course it just so happens that the pond had to scurry off to Mumbrella to read this ...

Oh it's too delicious, just too delicious.

Digital real estate beats news as main source of profit, and it's likely that News Corp's main line of business in the future will be digital real estate ...

Now there's plenty more at Mumbrella here - the pond doesn't want to steal that very useful and enjoyable site's thunder, but rather wants to thank it for that delicious digital real estate header - though we have to say this screen shot of the News Corp books also made great reading for those who can never get enough of balance sheets ...

And now it's back for some more major Mitchell ...

Say what? We shouldn't leave Mumbrella until we link to this story?

Yes, back in those days, the major Mitchell was arguing about the size of the loss, and he kept on mentioning a figure of $30 million ...

“The company as a whole would have $30m worse off without The Australian, i.e. various cost centres that recharge to us, would have been lost and the business as a whole would have made a lot less money,” said Mitchell. 

“I wasn’t fudging when I said that a few years ago. The last profit we made was in 2008 and I’ve said a couple of times part of what has happened in the last two of years is a very large investment in digital.” 

“Saying that you haven’t made a profit — that means that after all the retail print costs etc. it takes you into the red.” 

“But that is very different from saying if The Oz didn’t exist News Corp would be better off without that loss. In fact it would be $30m worse off because people (other elements of the News Corp Australia business) charge us commercial rates for printers.”

Yes, yes, because the future's in tree-killing printing and don't let all those nerds and geeks tell you otherwise.

And now surely we can move on to the next gobbet of the major Mitchell ...

What's that you say? The pond really should revive its link to yet another Mumbrella story? 

What is this, a love-in for Mumbrella's coverage of the media, when we could all be savouring a major Mitchell column? (boil parrot and stone, when parrot is cooked, throw away and eat the stone).

Yes, no one cares about meaningless tree killer circulation figures, especially when the reptiles of Oz paper every airport lounge in the country with freebie copies, because print is dropping like a DC-10 with problems in the tail engine ...

Never mind, it's time for one last blast from the keeper of the reptile past, a man who makes the average luddite seem like a geeky futurist ...

Another bon mot, another classic for the wrap-up. 

The reptiles of Oz are in the business of public interest journalism!

The pond shed a tear at the thought of the chairman's selfless munificence, his altruistic sacrifice for the common good, his unselfish regard for and devotion to the welfare of others, his concern that tree killing and printing on paper might continue as a sustainable life-style choice in the same way that hipsters treasure their eight tracks and their LPs ...

How long will it last? Well the pond thinks it will probably last as long as the chairman's lifetime, and not much longer after that, and even though he might be feeling frisky and young after his latest marriage, given his age, there will come a time, and it will be sooner rather than later ...

It was only the other day, when wandering through the archives, that the pond remembered and marvelled at the many changes in the newspaper game, there being only one certainty, and that is that change will happen. The pond's father returning from the pub with beer-tainted breath and a copy of the Daily Mirror folded in the back trouser pocket, the Mirror being reckoned to be for the workers and The Sun for the John Howard brigade and the Daily Telegraph for the personal benefit of the Packers  ...

All changed now, worlds lost, worlds changed ...

As for the major Mitchell shedding crocodile tears about progressive websites and proclaiming how websites on the left are for the high jump, it forced the pond to scurry off to look for examples of motes in eyes ...  such is the way it goes with preening pride, hubris, and those who play the game of snakes and ladders, seemingly unaware that there are many snakes in the game ...

Dammit,  why did the pond always get caught on 44 and vanity, when it much preferred 64 and depravity?

Never mind, this example of mote in eye will probably do, though there are many, many others ...

And now there's nothing else to do but honour the Order of Lenin hunter, and hope he's spotted these two fakes parading in Moscow ...