In which "Ned" mourns the burial of Thatcher's legacy ..

So sad and such a vibrant legacy, with the rich made richer and the poor poorer and the north thrown to the wolves and communities ruined - if there was such a thing as a community, or even a society - and years later the festering resentment leading to that Brexit vote ... oh and there's the Falklands too ...

Now out of all the options in the lizard Oz, some might wonder and marvel at why the pond would pick out "Ned" Kelly for post-lunch contemplation.

But today is chaff day, and as the saying goes, it's all chaff, and the more tedious and boring, the more likely it is that the pond will achieve the same heroic own goal as the reptiles of Oz ... zero readership.

Oh sure, we could have varied the food a little by throwing in a Devine with dollops of tomato sauce, but the Devine is off ravaging ICAC, and only offered this small morsel of delight at the end of her larger rant ...

Sweet long absent Jesus, that's weird. Sure, the pond can talk phallic symbols with the best of them, but the umbrella a symbol of masculinity's loss of nerve? Why, just pop the button and it'll fly into an erect pose, and then you can bung on a war or two ...

Oh okay, this blog quotes Freud on the matter ...

All elongated objects, sticks, tree-trunks, umbrellas (on account of the opening, which might be likened to an erection), all sharp and elongated weapons, knives, daggers, and pikes, represent the male member... 
Small boxes, chests, cupboards, and ovens correspond to the female organ; also cavities, ships, and all kinds of vessels.

The best the pond can work out from this is that the Devine is saying that the lad with an erect umbrella was a limp dick ... but let's not discuss the virtues of Chidley ...

Now the pond can hear some whiners and moaners complaining that the pond hasn't even got to the first course of Kelly chaff ... but then as soon as it's served, they'll be complaining about the quality of the chaff ...

Well the pond gets its finest chaff from the Peel valley flats and nattering "Ned" ...  and in any case, the pond confesses, it's really only being served so the pond can munch on a few cartoons along the way...

Any one who wants a serious discussion of Thatcher's legacy can head off to the Graudian scribblers here, where that Bell cartoon lurks. Larrikins will hang around to throw eggs at a sobbing "Ned" ...

Well it will resonate from cartoon to cartoon, and what a chance to run a few British-themed cartoons ...

There's plenty more cartoons at the Graudian here, while back at the Oz the high Tory clucks and tutts about the decline and fall of the Tories, while yearning for the stern discipline of a strong woman (please, supply own kit for Mistress):

Warming to the cartoons, and the wonders of a sobbing "Ned", the pond decided a few more were in order, saucy source as before:

Oh dear, they play it hard in cartoon land, while "Ned" is still sobbing at the failure of the world to realise there's no such thing as society ... just hard-bitten reptiles in the bunker of life struggling to survive in a Darwinian battle that makes the dinosaurs look long-lived ...

Oh the tortured convolutions, the anxieties, give the high Tory Thatcherite dog a bone ...

And so to Brexit, and perhaps it's worthwhile recalling what the British in their infinite wisdom voted for, according to the question asked of them ...

And now let's see what nattering "Ned" makes of it ...

Now it might be an old Tamworth saying, but it could apply to anything - looking outside as the wind blows sand through the open flyscreen, or having sex, or leaving the pub through a bat wing door. 

Are you in, or are you out? Not are you soft, or are you hard? Are you in, or are you out?

That shouldn't be too hard for the Poms or the hand-wringing "Ned" to understand. Are you in or are you out?

Chairman Rupert knew which way to vote if he hadn't sold his soul to the American dollar ...

That story is here ... you see, the chairman knows the difference between in and out.

What fun it is - all tragedy is essentially comic - to see poor old pious, rambling, discursive unhappy "Ned" getting agitated and seemingly incapable of understanding the answer to the simple question, "are you in, or are you out?", and all that it implies ... 

Perhaps it comes with old age, and the lingering far too long in Thatcherite doorways of all kinds ... but it just leaves time for a cartoon about another simpleton who could never make up his mind ...