In which the Caterists celebrate from the eerie of their taxpayer-funded Canberra cabal ...

Because life with the reptiles can be unbearably tedious, please allow the pond to recommend a tidy little comedy, People of Earth ...

It features Wyatt Cenac as a fearless investigative journalist haunted by deer and alien reptilian events in the small town of Beacon. Naturally there are aliens, talking deer, experiencers, greys, and spoiler alert, reptiles ...

Don't take the pond's word for it. A few pars from the Hollywood Reporter review, available in full  here ...

It's hard not to fall for the charms of TBS' newest comedy, the Wyatt Cenac-led People Of Earth, about a support group for survivors of alien abduction: It manages to be sweet, smart, quirky, story-strong and funny all at the same time with what appears to be minimal effort. That's a real coup. Especially since it was only natural to wonder how much material could be wrung from the premise – the whole "is there really a show here?" thing that critics often ask. 
Oh, there's a show all right. And I loved it. 
Executive produced by Conan O'Brien and Greg Daniels (The Office, Parks and Recreation, King of the Hill) and created by David Jenkins, People of Earth feels wholly original and distinctive, thanks in large part to Jenkins' writing, a superb cast and a performance by Cenac that should bust him out bigger than ever; the actor's winning, laconic style is perfectly suited to the role of a journalist used to more hard-hitting news stories but who gets assigned a click-bait piece on this group in Beacon — and, well, his trip up there and his discoveries get weird real quick.

It turns out, "Don't get weird, okay?" is one of the things aliens - in whatever form they take - say to humans when they reveal themselves ...

The pond also blames RN, as it frequently does, for distracting it from the reptiles of Oz. There the pond was, listening away, and the wretches invited listeners to offer up their favourite film score. And somebody called in with John Barry's score for Zulu.

The pond had the damned thing thumping away in its head for days, and could only get rid of it by ripping an old DVD of the movie on to the Plex and gorging away (memo to Hollywood executives, the pond purchased the disc and will recycle the content in its home how it likes, damn you and your territorial limitations).

Who could remember that Jack Hawkins was so ripe and fruity as a crazed Swedish fundamentalist bible basher, inclined to bash the turps and tell everyone that they're going to die ...

Speaking of the fruity and the reptilian and things turning seriously weird real quick, it was inevitable that the pond would be forced to turn back to the reptiles for solace, even as a horse race stops the nation of lizard people in their tracks...

The pond was torn.

Dame Groan, after all, was making an important point. How to ensure a plentiful supply of bellhops, shoe shiners, waiters, chauffeurs, dog groomers, cat walkers and skilled lackeys who know enough to know their place, but not enough to disturb the natural order of things?

There are, after all, many, many more ways to serve Dame Groan than having uppity young things head off to uni and get grand delusions and notions about the world. You can see how it worked out well for her with her part-time hobby of blacksmithing ...

But the siren song of the Caterists can never be ignored by the pond ...

After all, there's something incredibly piquant about a Caterist pillorying the Clintonians for looting the Australian taxpayer, while at the same time looting the Australian taxpayer himself, albeit on a more modest and humble scale.

As usual, the read produced the requisite number of rich, resonant ironies...

Now speaking of the late-medieval abuses of Papal indulgences, it's about this point that the pond usually likes to celebrate the indulgences of the Caterists by the Department of Finance, but perhaps, because the pond has done it so often of late, we should only do just one short-form example.

There are of course other, later examples - right up to 2016, and who knows, here's hoping for 2017 - but this is enough to add a special flavour to reading the Caterists, especially when the total adds up to about three quarters of a million in recent years, and then the Caterists lead with the notion that federal government grants this size aren't so much a fair wage, as an indecent bribe ...

Or some such thing ...please forgive the pond for asking if doling out money to the Caterists isn't all a little shonky ...

Of course it's handy to walk past the Canberra base of the Menzies Research Centre when talking about the grant-saturated, free loading, bludging class that makes out like bandits, while others are instructed to think about a career as a check out operator, or perhaps aiming high, life flipping burgers in a fast food restaurant, peddling fat, sugar and salt to the masses to ensure a healthy turnover in the hospital system ...

Oh yes, there are rich ironies, none so rich as the fantasy of a taxpayer grant devouring bludger talking about cultural cabals ... and with nary a mention of the dubious practices and behaviour of the Trump Foundation ...

Of course, the troubling question arises why a bludger who lives off taxpayer grants should, in effect, be cheering on Donald Trump against the east coast cultural cabal, while working in taxpayer-funded comfort in his very own Canberra cabal ...

Should the pond dare to hope that Trump wins? The Caterists and Julian Assange and good old Putin will have consummated their dream, and the world will reel back in admiration, wonder and awe, especially when the nukes start flying, and the Caterists and the Republicans won't have the Clintons to kick around, and might actually have to come up with an actual political party pursuing more policy ideas than denying women's rights, and celebrating climate denialism and creationism.

Then the pond will really be able to enjoy a daily serve of the ironies of life, at least until it all blows up ... people of earth, what have you got to lose? Enjoy the sitcom while it lasts ... and remember, work as an extra playing an alien or a deer can be a very fulfilling career option.

There, it really wasn't so hard to get into the mind set of the lizards at the reptile Oz, and the deers in the MRC Canberra cabal bunker ...