In which the pond endures prattling Polonius ... because cartoons ...

The pond simply couldn't resist that irresistible juxtaposition at the Graudian - the wink, the tongue, and the association of classic conservatism with over the top policies, and gross beyond belief bragging ...

If the onion muncher didn't exist, who would have the imagination to invent him?

In a fair and just world, the pond would be writing about the onion muncher's love for the groper - avoid all taxes if you can - but that pleasure is reserved for others, here at the Graudian for example, or the pond could be writing about John Howard's love of Bob Dylan, thereby proving the pond's thesis that it's always possible to listen to music without hearing it ...

But instead of celebrating Bob, it is the pond's solemn duty to be bored rigid of a weekend by contemplating the scribblings of the likes of the prattling Polonius, when they emerge from behind the arras to moan and whinge, frequently about the way others are moaners and whingers, and when not on that theme, how they're being oppressed and denied the right to speak ...

Well at least it's not about that other Bob, Ming the Merciless ...

Now on the face of it, the notion that the left has an exclusive right to speech - while on the weekend, and each week day the lizard Oz and the Terror and the HUN and so on and so forth are filled with the exclusive blathering of reptiles dosed to the gills on Murdochian kool aid - is patently absurd ...

The reptiles fondly like to imagine themselves as balanced, when in reality the semblance of balance is supposed to be provided by a tottering dodderer who probably invented television masterpieces up there with his one-handed invention of the Australian film industry ...

And only Polonius could generate a convoluted, meaningless splash such as "Taking offence at comments by those with differing views has become unreasonable."

Whenever the pond takes offence, it likes to take the gate, the wires, the posts, the whole damn thing, in a emotional and unreasonable way ...

Only a dodderer like Polonius could come up with the peculiar notion of the reasonable taking of offence ... gad sir, in the old days, there would have been a duel ...

But as always, there's the redeeming power of comedy, and this time the fun is seeing Polonius spring from the arras to defend ... the ABC ...

Lordy, lordy, there are strange fishes and fowls on this earth ...

Now some might roll jaffas down the aisle at Polonius concluding it would be unwise to make conclusions in this area, when in fact Chris Uhlmann did exactly that, and leapt to conclusions in this area.

But the real doozy is that dog whistle "on how to deal with what is termed dangerous climate change."

It's about as far as Polonius ever goes at dipping his toe in the water and hinting he might have doubts. 

He's too scared to go full bore - oh science, it burns, it hurts to think - and join the denialists outright, so he resorts to quaint Jane Austen-isms - oh that's too cruel, think more Henry James-isms - to drop a hint that maybe it should be termed harmless climate change. 

Lest we end up speaking scientific "truths" like climate change and all that razzmaataz jazz ...

... because it's all a matter of debate, just as we must endlessly debate evolution (have you tried the special on creationism this week?) or gravity (this week, left shuts down debate on whether gravity exists)...

Then comes the moan about Twitter which is apparently, and inexplicably dominated by lefties - possibly news to the Donald. 

This requires translation.

Twitter is different and frequented by young people, and young people are impossible and quite possibly dominated by the Left ...

This is Polonius's patented formula, as old as Santamaria. Pick up a new technology, and likely enough there will be leftists hidden under the rock ...

How silly can it get?

Yes, because Facebook is censoring left ... (the actual Wall Street Journal story is here).

How did the left get into this?

Well, this is how it goes in the world of the kool aid drinkers. 

Someone reads some useless bit of data suggesting that leftists infest Twitter or Facebook or any of the fangled social media outlets and suddenly it's gospel truth and recycled around the world by the kool aid drinkers... apparently none of them visit 4chan or Reddit to get their daily dose of Trumpist misogyny ...

And that's when the pond realised that the real point of Polonius was that he's like those interstitials that must be endured between the interesting programs ... or in this case, the great cartoons, such as this offering by Pope about the onion muncher's love of the groper ... (and more classic Pope here).

That one had the pond with an unholy urge to go dumpster diving with the onion muncher.

But then it's back to the dullard, with the hope that the papal laughter will last as long as the tedious journey, since Polonius has already covered the following topic before, and will no doubt cover it again, because one of the features of senility is going over the same old ground, all over again ...

As for Twitter, insert "social media". Repeat cycle until clothes are bored to death.

No doubt in weeks to come we'll be regaled by Polonius being outraged at the way Hillary Clinton's emails were hacked and revealed to the world by Wikileaks serving the purposes of Putin ...

Or not. 

But here's the thing. Only a fastidious old fool of the Henry James kind could possibly think that email is a private conversation, despite the many examples of the way that emails end up in the public domain and a part of the public conversation.

Don't imagine that if you want to go the grope in private that it might not turn up in public some time. Don't imagine that if you happen to be a repugnant racist, you can have a merry time in private, and no one will be offended or want to dob you in ... which is happy news, especially if you happen to have been molested by a priest who expected the conversation to be private ...

If anyone writes an email, it should be done in expectation that it can be blind copied on, or otherwise released, and if you don't, you get exactly what a foolish, indiscreet racist of the repugnant Spurr kind deserved ...

Of course it's slightly different in the United States. There, if you use vilifying language with any extremity or intensity, some crazed vigilante wanting to hold his ground might reach for his open or concealed carry and blow you away ... and members of the intelligentsia will just be watching from the sidelines while the heights of Republican free expression are realised ...

Why is it that conservatives want to defend the right of people who want to be repugnant and vile? Wasn't the essence of conservatism expressed by the Pythons:

LADY PRESENTER: Well, that's the end of the film. Now, here's the meaning of life. Thank you, Brigitte. M-hmm. Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations, and, finally, here are some completely gratuitous pictures of penises to annoy the censors and to hopefully spark some sort of controversy, which, it seems, is the only way, these days, to get the jaded, video-sated public off their fucking arses and back in the sodding cinema. Family entertainment bollocks. What they want is filth: people doing things to each other with chainsaws during tupperware parties, babysitters being stabbed with knitting needles by gay presidential candidates, vigilante groups strangling chickens, armed bands of theatre critics exterminating mutant goats-- Where's the fun in pictures? Oh, well, there we are. Here's the theme music. Goodnight.

Try and be nice to people, even those as boring and as dull and as tedious and as silly and as deeply offensive as a prattling Polonius. Peace and harmony and science and dumpster diving and all that jazz ...

It was around this time that the pond began to realise it was meandering as much as Polonius, as he trotted out the bizarre thesis that it's the intelligentsia who have been using their privileged positions to stop the Donald from being the Donald ... when people like the onion muncher are out there celebrating the Donald's bizarre opinions ... and the Donald has been his grotesque, offensive, bullying, bankrupting self for decades ...

It was, in short, time for the interstitial to end, and for another sublime cartoon to address the real issues of the day, and this Rowe is a ripper, and more Ripper Rowe here ...

It immediately brought to mind one of the more bizarre affairs in Australian film history ...

That's good old Bill Kerr singing along in The Pirate Movie, and if anyone can remember that, they will recall that it was a leftist plot to trash Gilbert and Sullivan ...