The pond is routinely confused by the reptiles. The pond seems to serenely float on the water but is always paddling hard just below the surface in a bid to keep up ...
There's the mixed messages, what with free speech being a human right and prattling Polonius patiently explaining that free speech is completely unacceptable in some ...
There's the mixed messages, what with free speech being a human right and prattling Polonius patiently explaining that free speech is completely unacceptable in some ...
And then there's the placements. These days the pond has to dig hard to find the golden gems of the ancient mariner, still prattling, but often buried deep in the digital archives ... while the mixed messages run rampant on the front digital commentary page ...
Now the best the pond can work out, and bearing in mind free speech is ostensibly a human right, it seems that pesky feminists should shut up about their myths, and the wretches at the ABC should shut up about Nauru, which has a perfectly fine paranoid government in keeping with the dog botherer's boofhead boot 'em in the balls spirit, and anyone who compares the onion muncher with the Donald should shut the fuck up ... while Our Gracie, as the pond likes to think of her, mourns the way everyone is telling everyone to shut the fuck up, and they should be free to tell them to shut the fuck up about shutting the fuck up ...
The pond reeled away from this tower of Babel, and tentatively began to construct a reptile law, along the lines All free speech is equal, but some free speech is more equal than other free speech...
And, inter alia, an important coda, explaining what this means ... free speech is the right of all reptiles, and reptile lovers and supporters throughout the land, but free speech for pesky feminists, difficult blacks, tricky gays, cardigan-wearing public servants, especially the ones at SBS and the maligning ABC is just too much for a reptile to bear, and they should just shut the fuck up ...
It seemed to the pond to be a good and worthy law, a just and so and entirely proper law, and one that put the pond in the mood to go off to prattling Polonius for a wise word on keeping speech polite and discreet and conservative ...
Indeed, indeed, and the pond deplores royalty and royalty's representatives speaking out on anything. In fact, the pond generally is inclined to deplore royalty in general.
But anxious governors might now be worried about speaking out on any subject, and concerned that their right to free speech is limited.
Do not be alarmed. Inter alia, governors and gg's may speak out about the joyous wonders of the monarchy itself, the excellence of Australia and its tremendous government, and all its glorious initiatives - you can always mention broadband and climate science with absolute safety - and then there's the importance of the RSL, the benefits of warfare, and taking pride in Australia's killing machine wherever and for whatever reason it might be sent to kill ...
Remember all war is good and glorious and honour the flag and God - She will be ever so pleased - and if you chant the right words, you will get a year's supply of milk warmed in the early morning Tamworth sun ...
I love God and my country, I honour the flag, I will serve the Queen, and cheerfully obey my parents, teachers and the law
Do not be alarmed. Inter alia, governors and gg's may speak out about the joyous wonders of the monarchy itself, the excellence of Australia and its tremendous government, and all its glorious initiatives - you can always mention broadband and climate science with absolute safety - and then there's the importance of the RSL, the benefits of warfare, and taking pride in Australia's killing machine wherever and for whatever reason it might be sent to kill ...
Remember all war is good and glorious and honour the flag and God - She will be ever so pleased - and if you chant the right words, you will get a year's supply of milk warmed in the early morning Tamworth sun ...
I love God and my country, I honour the flag, I will serve the Queen, and cheerfully obey my parents, teachers and the law
Now please understand, every word in this chat is strictly apolitical ... and please, do remember to be cheerful while saying it.
Talk of mateship and a fair go is also encouraged - please, avoid anxiety about comparisons with reality - and when in doubt, remember there's always beer ...
Talk of mateship and a fair go is also encouraged - please, avoid anxiety about comparisons with reality - and when in doubt, remember there's always beer ...
Now that's sorted - the pond understands it's your shout - please allow the pond to get back to Polonius for a final word ...
And there you go. As always, the impeccable Polonius is right on the spot with wise advice. It is entirely proper to make speeches in favour of the military and the war machine and its glorious achievements, but any hint of peacenik talk or leftism is to be strictly abhorred. And now feel free to consider yourselves lectured-to by prattling Polonius ...
And now because the pond can never get enough of reptile lectures, the pond turned to Our Gracie in a special weekend double bunger edition ...
Our Gracie, as the pond thinks of her, follows in the tradition of another "Our Gracie" ...
If only the new Our Gracie was the Surprise Party's dark horse, but the pond suspects that Our Gracie will be drearily predictable in a thoroughly reptile way ...
Okay, okay, but before we get to that, our Gracie, might we just consider where that old routine about taking offence, or even the gate, gets us ...
Now right there, the reptiles have censored the good Senator just as he embarked on twittering about significant policy issues, choosing exactly the right sort of words to explain his policies ...
Remember we're deep in Our Gracie and Leyonhjelm's notion that offence is chosen, so let the abuse run wild and free and where it will. As a result, the HUNsters should have run him uncensored, and allowed anyone who wanted to take the gate to do so ...
Remember we're deep in Our Gracie and Leyonhjelm's notion that offence is chosen, so let the abuse run wild and free and where it will. As a result, the HUNsters should have run him uncensored, and allowed anyone who wanted to take the gate to do so ...
And so on ... and on and tediously on ...
Now no doubt Our Gracie is keen to establish that the good Senator is just a yoga pants man, long suffering and hounded by barking mad lefties ... and so we must return for the rest of our Gracie's lecture on proper speech ... but not before remembering that when campaigning our Gracie favours a kangaroo motif ...
Down with common sense!
Down with politeness and gentility!
Time now for a final service of Our Gracie, and a vote for "down with common sense". Let anyone who wants to insult anyone roam wild and free ...
Down with politeness and gentility!
Time now for a final service of Our Gracie, and a vote for "down with common sense". Let anyone who wants to insult anyone roam wild and free ...
Yes, we must push back.
Everyone should have the right to call everyone else stupid cunts. In public, in the parliament and all around this wide brown land.
Everyone should have the right to call everyone else stupid cunts. In public, in the parliament and all around this wide brown land.
Forget all the tosh conservatives peddle about being polite and gracious and genteel.
Swearing like a trooper, causing offence to anyone who gets in your way, why it's the bikie way.
As Marlon himself once answered to the question, "Hey Johnny, who are you insulting today with vile language?" ..."Who the fucking hell have you bloody well got?"
As Marlon himself once answered to the question, "Hey Johnny, who are you insulting today with vile language?" ..."Who the fucking hell have you bloody well got?"
It's also the reptile way, heck it's the Australian way, and once again, we owe it all to Our Gracie, freedom fighter and defiant opponent of those wretches who always want to take a fence and a gate ...
Provided of course the coda to the law is observed ... free speech for pesky feminists, difficult blacks, tricky gays, cardigan-wearing public servants, especially the ones at SBS and the maligning ABC is just too much for a reptile to bear, and they should just shut the fuck up, the stupid cunts ...
And that's where we have reached in public discourse, and so the world of the reptiles has made ready the world of the Donald, and lo, it might yet come to pass ...
And after this descent into the reptile sewer world, the pond always enjoys a cleansing sorbet, a cartoon by Rowe where innocents will have an extremely hard time guessing the word being looked up by the diligent gorgeous George, after he got down the dictionary from his modest shelving ... (and more excellent Rowe here).
"The pond is routinely confused by the reptiles. The pond seems to serenely float on the water but is always paddling hard just below the surface in a bid to keep up ..."
ReplyDeleteAnd you do it well Dorothy. I thought the Graudian's long read was quite good.
"The tabloids still look much the same now as they did three decades ago. Redesigns have been much rarer and more cautious than at other papers. So have alterations to the basic tabloid prose style. “You know what you’re going to get from the first sentence,” says Beckett. “They haven’t caught the conversational tone of the internet … their style is very clunky.” David Deacon of Loughborough University says that in his research on election bias he finds that “People are far more aware [now] of the narrative games, of tabloid-speak.” The tabloids have always been self-conscious – “It’s The Sun Wot Won It” – but nowadays their political rages would be almost camp, if they did not have such consequences. As Baldwin puts it, the papers often read “like a parody of themselves”.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/oct/27/revenge-of-the-tabloids-brexit-dacre-murdoch