In which the pond heads to the centre with the Major Mitchell, the bromancer, Ned, the Bolter, the parrot, the arm-breaker and other centrists ...

Surely Monday is the best day for the reptiles of Oz ...

Who else could manage the sort of epic delusionalism that sees the Major Mitchell propose that he sits somewhere in the centre?

Could there by anyone else as narcissist and delusional?

Ah the narcissist blackmailer, blackmailing away at the AFR here. 

Write note to self: never ask rhetorical questions, there's always time-wasters with nothing to do and no other job prospects on call to hand out delusional advice. 

The onion muncher almost managed to make the pond feel nostalgic about innovative agility, and along with the usual climate denialist rhetoric came this zinger ...

There's something sublimely comical about yesterday's feather-duster emerging from the broom closet to talk about solemn pledges, albeit with a whiff of the tragedy that emanates from the un-self-aware ...

But speaking of unaware narcissists incapable of any sensible self-reflection, the pond should return to the order of the day ...  and what a fine show of it he makes as he sits out in the field on on a branch ...

The pond has a standing joke about a woman who kept shouting at the Statue of Liberty "keep the line moving, keep the line moving", but that might soon be displaced by "Mind the vitriol and keep to the centre", because "mind the vitriol" applies to everyone from little Timmie Bleagh through Mirande the vitriolic Devine to the sulphuric Bolter ...

Okay, it's time to take a bite of the luscious goodness of modest self-centred-ness ... 

Of course it takes a special richness - up there with the onion muncher's solemn talk of not breaking solemn pledges - for a man who has dedicated himself to the mystical task of Order of Lenin hunting to talk of hard facts ...

But the pond was particularly delighted by that line about the Major Mitchell answering briefly and rationally while besieged by noisy bloggers and an angry twitterati, because Twitter is somehow a rude, aggressive echo chamber of the left ...

Tell that to the Donald. 

Or is the Major Mitchell on to something and we now have a rude, aggressive President-elect of the left?

That's the trouble with reading the gnomic utterances of the Major Mitchell. You'd get more sense out of tea leaves, a Tarot pack, or chicken entrails ...careful of the feverish liver.

Is it possible for any reptile at the lizard Oz to say with a straight face that in the media the centre is being hollowed out, and it's not the fault of the barking mad Murdochians, but of Twitter and the like?

And that Twitter is the source of triumphant soft feelings while the reptiles are guardians of defeated hard facts?

What does it say, what does it reveal, the depths of the wells of delusion, apart from showing off an angry old man, agitated at the new ways of the world and telling anyone who strays to get off his lawn?

Never mind, hey nonny no, on we go ...

There we go, and what's more revealing than the nonsense about Ned Kelly and the bromancer being far from left wing is the use of the "I" and the "me", and that "retired" word ...

Too conservative, far from left wing? What happened to that mystical centre?

The poor old feather-duster, feeling the cloak of irrelevancy descend on to his shoulders, is forced into murmurings about lost days and schismatic niceties ...

Well it's a long slog to reach peak Major Mitchell, but a bracing Monday walk is always a fine way to start the week ...

Along the way, it is reasonable to ask just how far a reptile can get up itself?

Well we all know about ouroboros ...

Now let's see the Major Mitchell go up himself and swallow his tail in a valiant attempt to defend Ned and the bromancer ...

So many gems in that burst, but the pond always must pick a favourite, even though it always upsets the other children ...

Sorry children, you are all the pond's loved children, but who could walk past ...

Sure that's why he has written so many books on the subject and was offered by Tony Abbott the job of high commissioner to Singapore ...

And that's how it goes in the world of the Major Mitchell. 

Never mind the quality, feel the weight. Never mind the gibberish, look at the bulk of the gibberish. So many books,  he must be good ... and getting a job offer from his best bro the onion muncher? That isn't bromancing jobs for the boys, the onion muncher taking care of his little mate, an indiscretion of the kind to be expected of the benighted one ...

Nope, that's a sure solemn sign of quality ...

Now the pond realises that the epic centrepiece for many, their favourite child, will be that concluding line about the intelligent place for the Major Mitchell, and intelligent political and foreign affairs reporters is the centre, with an eye on left and right flanks ...

Especially coming so quickly after praise for Ned and the bromancer as being too conservative and far from the left ...

But that's how it goes in these agile and innovative days ... because all those names mentioned by the Major Mitchell, it seems, are intelligent political and foreign affairs reporters ... 

You know, Rowan "the witty" Dean, Ross "the adulterer" Cameron, the rabid, frothing and foaming Bolter, the arm-breaking Mark - taxi drivers take care -,and the original and best parrot ...

It's splendid stuff, as are the Major Mitchell's hopes for the Trump being a surprise, and his denunciation of ideologues ...

Because you can guarantee for a fact that the likes of the Major Mitchell and the Bolter aren't ideologues ... they just go Order of Lenin hunting for the sport ...

But the pond will stick by its first place for the bromancer, because he's written so many books and the bromancer lovers him ...

Well thankfully Rowe has a cartoon celebrating the pantheon this day ... and more Rowe here ... but if some of this mob have made it to heaven, excuse the pond for wondering who might make up hell and whether it might actually be a tonier joint...