In which a star is born and slouches towards a bunker in Surry Hills ...

(Above: and more thinking Rowe here).

The pond has been revitalised and energised on a Monday.

Oh sure, there are the usual diligent reptiles going about their daily duties ...

And it wouldn't be a good day if someone didn't ask when someone had stopped beating their wife ...

But the pond has always believed in the star theory, the need for someone with charisma to burst on to the scene and stop the traffic ...

Who'd have noted the astonishing resemblance between the  young Nicole Kidman and the Order of Lenin hunter?

  

Oh sure there's a difference in age marking the time when Nicole did her first shows as a juvenile and the once retiring and shy OOL hunter stepped out of the shadows ...

But otherwise the resemblances are remarkable, even startling ...

And now he's hit his straps, the OOL hunter can't be held back ...

Nonsense! 

Speak to a journalist and it'll be used against you some day. In much the same way as you simply can't trust novelists. One minute you'll be a Leigh Hunt chasing butterflies, the next minute you'll be Harold Skimpole in Bleak House and the minute after that you'll be reading the OOL hunter explaining how it's all fair game ...

Now already the pond can sense some discontent. Surely the hallmark, the rolled gold (thank you ABC 24) sign of a star, is their ability to attract adoring, simpering fans ...

No, not that sort of mocking fan, though in truth massive stars always collect a little hostile debris spluttering away as they trail behind the magnificence ...

These stars also attract the right sort of adoring fan ... this sort of fan ...

A genuine acolyte, as infatuated as Tom Cruise was when he first saw Nicole in Dead Calm and deemed her the only one right to play a brian surgeon up against his dashing driver ... talk about days of thunder and fire and brimstone ...

Now around this point, readers might wonder how the star could possibly handle such praise, and stay his usual, modest self. 

Here we must revert to the man himself to see how he wraps up his measured assessment of himself and his remarkable, wondrous, astonishing work ...

Oh the incisive jibe at the dastardly Fairfax mouthpiece Joe Aston, and how forbearing not to mention by name a book that has been making headlines and as for that smoting of narcissists with nary a narcissist in sight ... even a proud one with every reason to be proud ...

Star power! Media sausages. Genuine reptile sawdust.

Well it goes without saying that up against this remarkable set of revelations regarding narcissists, the final words of the acolyte are suitably adoring, but barely up to the challenge ... why there's even a mild tut-tutting and a hint of the nervous nellies ...

Uneasiness? Feet of clay? Publish an amended version with a right of reply to common, sordid, titillating gossip?

It seems Mr Day has much to learn about the business of being an adoring acolyte ...

Now the best way to measure a star is by the hate mail they attract ...after all, we all feel despair and alienation on occasion ...

Well you can find the full Miss Lonelyhearts here, and it will be a striking rejoinder to all those carpers and doubters, and their wicked attempts to defile the new star simply for making a few mistakes and trading on confidences along the way ...

Fie, you feeble card ...

And what of that Fairfax stooge?

   

                    

All nonsense, of course, full of bile, envy and resentment. 

That's what always happens when a star is born ... the mockers can mock, but the medal count will soon start to mount up ...

Oops, no, it seems that isn't an OOL medal. At least not the one on the left.

And now perhaps the pond should apologise to Nicole Kidman and her fans ...