In which the pond performs its civic duty thanks to the Caterists and desiccated coconut Henry ...

Eek, the unions are coming, the unions are coming. 

Quick, children and developers hide under the bed, even Malware, Mike Baird and the reptiles can't save you ...

Now the pond has performed its civic duty - let thousands of shoddy, shonky apartments be built to house the rats, and let developers run wild and free - it's time to get on to other important civic matters, and as always, the Caterists are the pond's faithful guide ...

Actually if the Grattan Institute has its way, the pond still won't be paying for a can of coke, let alone a tax on same. 

The pond gave up the hard stuff years ago, and hasn't gone back to the vile, addictive concoction ... after all, when it lost the opium component, what was the point?

It was also part of the pond's fat chance involved in losing a considerable amount of weight, and what a blessing that was for the pond and the health system ...

And now, before we move on, bugler please and a solemn reminder of the Caterists' valiant rearguard action to help out big tobacco ...

Brave, bold valiant lad, cheering on the relatively modest burden to the health care system, as people nobly smoke themselves to death.

And so to big sugar, the big new battleground for big tobacco lovers ...

Strange, the pond thought that Africans were the victims of pillaging Poms of the ancestral Caterist kind, devious difficult Dutch of the Bolter kind, rampaging Italians, foraging French, and let's not forget King Leopold II of Belgium ...

Now of course the elephant in the Caterist bedroom that set him off on the rant was another matter, but the Grattan Institute can look after itself ...

Anyone interested can find more here,  but frankly, the pond is perfectly happy if anyone wants to enter themselves into the Darwin Awards by devouring huge amounts of soda ... 

That way, blinded and limping along on their diabetes - yes, there's a cure for diabetes, it's called starvation - they might be able to avoid reading the Caterist blather about free markets and free trade, while at the same time managing to celebrate the arrival of the protectionist Donald on the scene ...

Are these fools aware of any contradictions at any point in their scribbling life? Nope, and in due course that Grattan elephant pops out of the woodwork, as would be expected from the blathering chin-stroker, pea in a rival institute pod, Caterist ...

Indeed, indeed, and once upon a time, curbing tobacco consumption was also supposed to bring about the end of the capitalist world, free trade, free markets, and the right of people to kill themselves, or at least become a decent burden on the health system ...

But wait, there's more. The pond didn't go into it yesterday - so many blathering reptiles, so little time - but the murmuration of starlings makes this fit for a double bunger issue ...

Yes, it was good old Henry "hole in the bucket" desiccated coconut Ergas, and he too was agitated about the Grattan people ...

Now once again, the Grattan people can take care of themselves, it's going to be a long, slow battle, and it requires people to realise that the supermarkets are sellers of poison, and they really don't give a fig or a whit or a jot about their customers' health, and that could take forever.

It's unlikely smug old Henry or the Caterists ever wandered down the supermarket aisle and got themselves hooked, in classic pond and lumpenproletariat fashion, on junk sugar ... what a hard habit it is to break, a bit like the habit of reading the reptiles, though possibly less damaging to mental health.

The reason the pond is hanging in on good old desiccated coconut Henry is the punchline joke he delivers in fine killer style at the end ...

Good one Henry. Nothing like sticking it to the Grattan for making out like bandits with its generous taxpayer funding...

Now what about the Caterists? Can they be part of the comedy routine?

Oh bliss, oh poop. Fancy good old Henry helping the pond with its ritual mention of the Caterists dipping their paw into taxpayer grant cash. 

Yes, with their generous taxpayer funding, the Caterists are here to conduct roundtables and seminars on the virtues of big sugar ...

And so to a scurrilous Rowe cartoon, which has nothing to do with sugar, but such is its joyous portrait of a demented bat in the belfry that the pond just had to run it ... and as always, more Rowe and his Xmas calendar present here ...