In which the pond diagnoses a crisis in the reptile herpetarium, with the Devine missing in action, the Bolter taking to drink, Peta whipping it, and all that's left is an antiquated fat owl of the remove ...

Please, allow the pond a moment to compose itself, because the world of the reptiles is grappling with an unprecedented crisis.

It will be noted that the last the pond heard from the Devine was on the 24th July. It is now the 4th September. 

This puts the Devine dangerously close to the 'leaner, not a lifter' category. Presumably the Terrorists are still paying for her to do absolutely nothing, which is why this country is teetering on the precipice of welfarist disaster. An astonishing crisis.

After the Devine's complete melt-down over schools, she just upped and went, and Sunday has become a void for the pond, and yet we know the Devine continues to exist, valiantly tweeting her support for teh Donald ...

Yes, it takes a supreme and superior skill to take up the most salient Trump talking points, while eliding over other matters ...

That story here, but the pond would just like to note how much the pond misses the Devine. Why is she left on social media? 

Doesn't she understand that social media has ruined everything for everyone for ever, or at least for chairman Rupert and his minions? What base treachery leads her to spout views in this vile forum liked teh Donald, while ignoring her duty to be a lifter, and certainly not a leaner?

As for the Bolter, he has turned luxuriating, voluptuous, hedonistic, self-indulgent, sybaritic tribune to Bacchus ...

A third then? But we all know he's a two glass screamer, unless he happens to be a drunken sot so used to the alcohol that on same days he resembles good old fashioned blotting paper... (yes children, once upon a time there was ink, and sometimes too much ink, and then you wheeled in the ...)

And what about that hopelessly backlit photograph that even an amateur would admit was a complete holiday snap disaster. Is this what it's come to as they downsize in reptile land? A snap even shoddier than a Polaroid! (Yes, hipsters, yes, the pond knows blotting paper and Polaroids are now as in as fluff on a stylus).

Which brings the pond to another catastrophe. 

For years the pond has been joking about the reptiles and their attachment to antiquated forms of blogging, which made their paywall a nonsense, and finally they got around to doing something about it ... here's the Bolter's new look ...

Never mind, festival of dangerous ideas? More like festival of publicity seekers with idle Murdochian stunts.

But something ghastly happened to poor old Akker Dakker ...

Labor loses, no matter which way Heydon goes?

Indeed, indeed, it was a stupendous blast from the past ...

And so on and so forth, and there were a couple of wags standing by ...

Oh cruel thrust, oh jolly jape, oh yaroop garrooah roared the fat owl of the remove as he toddled off to the tuckshop for a sponge cake with blackberry jam and oodles of cream ...

Even worse, part of the ongoing Sunday crisis at the Terror is that all they have at the moment to move their tree killer edition is the superannuated, obsolete fat owl of the remove, whose outdated, antiquated ideas should be put out to pasture - no more poignant an example being needed than his remarks on Heydon, which, on popping out of the digital void, produce gales of laughter at the pond...

Yet that's all they've got, that and Peta ...

Now Peta is good for a laugh, along the oldest and best comedy routine of "don't do as I did, which is run a famously hopeless, terminal and short-lived federal government by one of the worst Prime Ministers in living memory, but please do as I say, or as I scribble for the Sunday Terrorists ..."

So she's good for a squashed smile ...

And a joke about whipping it, with the reference probably sailing high above the heads of the few in the under 30 demographic who actually bother with tree killer editions ...

And speaking of cruel, petty, vindictive, childish sadism with a prurient sexual streak, all that leaves the pond to talk about today is Akker Dakker ... 

And even here, dammit, a few @#$%& things snuck into the system ...

The result?

Well, by the time anyone actually reaches a couple of pars strung together in what seems like English, the reader will be inordinately grateful and even contemplate overlooking the vile race-baiting which is a patented hallmark of the rolled gold Akker Dakker style (thank you Michael Rowland, thank you for your wise use of the English language):

Yes, that's what you do with uppity, presumptuous, indolent, insolent blacks when they dare to speak. 

You take them down a notch or two, you belittle them, you berate them.

What else are you supposed to do with uppity blacks?

Yes, it's not what she deserves, but Akker Dakker will fearlessly lead with it, so that it might stick in the twofer mind, while then feebly attempting to discount it ...

That's the clever way of the bigot. 

It's like calling the fat owl of the remove a tuckshop freak and a lover of lamingtons, and then saying it's not a tag the fat owl deserves because he's been a hardworking reptile routinely offering measured, distilled essence of bigotry and hate ... a splendid natural born, born to the manor, a "twofer", as it were, except of course, it would be incredibly wrong to call him a "twofer" ... and as for "low lifer" and "gutter crawler" ...

Of course one of the cleverest ways to make the trick work is to quote one black against another, even if this happens to involve an American black with bugger all relevance to the scene in Australia, and not even, if one were seeking parallels, an indigenous American overtaken by disaster and invasion ...

Now it takes a sublime form of idiocy to run together those two sentences, one bemoaning the notion of legislation, followed by a demand for the implementation of "tough practical measures", but that's because Akker Dakker is simply a reptile columnist, and it would be singularly inappropriate for a reptile columnist to have the first clue ...

And so because social media is ruining the country - so the reptiles keep telling the world over and over again, often on social media - the pond would like to contribute to the ruination with these recent social media observations ...

And then there was another little outburst during the week the pond should honour, as recounted in the AFR ...

And tish tish, and that's enough of reptile frolics and social media ruining the country ...