In which the pond suffers along with long-suffering men, thanks to the shared suffering of Dame Slap ...

Oh dear, where will it all end.

Not men in suits ...

Oh dear, and Sam's not the halal snack pack of old, more a dim sim a little short of a fried rice ...

All the same, the pond was deeply moved by the dilemmas of the men in suits, choice of tie preferably red or blue, and more generally the suffering of men.

There was the arm-breaker yesterday shedding tears about the fate of angry white men, and Bettina Arndt bobs up on a regular basis anxious about the suffering of men, so the pond was in the mood for even more male suffering ...and who better to get out the twelve string and sing the blues song of male suffering than Dame Slap?

Yes, the poor precious petals are drooping, and what do you know, one day the fat cat banks can do no wrong in Dame Slap's school at the top of the Faraway Tree, and the next day they can do no right ...

Now the pond has to confess that about this far into the fulminating fury, the pond began to drift and nod off like a Hinch in search of a park bench or a handy seat under cover.

Sure there were rich philosophical options. How about "There is such a thing as objective truth" on the basis of genuine belief ...

Why it would be snarky of a quark to quibble about such fine-grained philosophical musings.

And as for Dame Slap, the news she had resigned column-writing for the tender, warm, frustrating yet privileged business of being a hands-on mother, forthwith, and of instant effect, moved the pond to a chorus of huzzahs and a quiet shedding of tears at her nobility.

No matter that the pond would no longer read from her keyboard news of climate science conspiracies emanating from a UN intent on establishing world government ...

Surely the sacrifice wouldn't be in vain. She could instead impart such theories to the children of the world while doing tuck shop duty.

Oh okay, the pond did tootle off to twitter for awhile ...

Well at least there were a few token women to spot, careless wretches who pay no heed to the children ... get back to your warm, tender, frustrating business, puh-lease ... and if you haven't got any, why not? Must the pond revive memories of Bill Heffernan and David Farley?

And so back to Dame Slap railing and flailing away ...

Now around this point the pond came back to the real world a little startled.

What's this about Telstra taking four long years to set up a working Wi-Fi system in your house?

Which ning nong would even think about employing Telstra for the task?

And it was around this point that the pond began to suspect that Dame Slap didn't have much of a clue about anything. Speaking of improving technical competence ...

And then there was the richness of Dame Slap talking about the poisoned hiring and firing well, and it seems the fleeting memories of the Abbott government are now but a dream ... 

That'd be the world where the Abbott government indulged in a culling and an absolute refusal to hire anyone from the other side - anyone at all, even those who had no political affiliations, if they'd worked for the enemy.

It led to complete disarray in the public service and on boards, and much delay to much needed appointments. It was almost as singular as the persecution set in motion by the McCarthy years ...

A few moaned and whinged about it ...

Late last month, prominent businessman Andrew Mohl was reported as saying he was not reappointed to the Export Finance Insurance Corporation because of an Abbott government decision not to renew the terms of any directors appointed under Labor. If true, this shocking allegation is the pits of impropriety and makes a mockery of Cormann's efforts to ensure Commonwealth agencies are as efficient and effective as possible. The government should come clean on this. (here).

They never came clean, of course, they just cleaned out Abbott and decided to proceed with a little more caution, but it provided the pond with a hearty chuckle, all that talk of the telltale sign of gender and diversity politics poisoning the well of merit ...

The Conversation here provided this lovely little cameo of some of the mates ...

Eek, there's one woman. Talk about poisoning the well of merit ... but that's talking about real world appointments, rather than the windy rhetoric of the wind-up doll known as Dame Slap ...

And now, speaking of men in suits, and wi fi and copper, and refusing to mention men who talk like goats to goats, there's more M David cartoons here ...