In which thanks to riddler Matt Ridley, the pond looks on the bright side of Donald life ...

Put it another way ...

The pond might have given up US cable TV, but it hasn't forsaken US comedians - recent times has seen a sweet tooth for Seth develop - and it certainly hasn't given up the reptiles, especially when old favourites like the Ridster turn up down under to pontificate, thanks to the lizard Oz being stablemate with the paywalled lizard London Times ...

Watching the reprehensible British arm wrestle in the swamp with the reprehensible Donald suddenly helps the pond understand why men are drawn to the sight of two women getting down and dirty in jelly or mud ...

What's astonishing is how scientific the Ridster is. A few days of talking to people in the US's two biggest economies, and all's well with the world ... and suddenly for all the joking about hyper-ventilating luvvies, the Ridster sees himself as a moderate up against the beast slouching towards Washington ...

Speaking, as we are, of flip-flopping hypocrites, incapable of steering any sort of course with any sort of consistency ,and so all's well with the world ...

With that sort of toasting going on, no wonder a crucifixion looks like a reason to celebrate ...

It is of course all part of the normalising of the abnormal, so that the consequences - a cheerful crucifixion or three - will seem perfectly common ...

Uh huh, for point 8, see point 5, and marvel at the stupidity and incoherence the Donald can produce in an admittedly always silly, incoherent and contradictory Ridster ... as the establishment goes about the business of fixing up the estblishment.

It's up there with point 7, where a climate denier advocates more gas production, which will cut emissions and drive out coal faster than renewable energy ever could, thereby producing yet another monstrous contradiction, since one of the Donald's key platforms was the revival of coal production ...

Well anyone can head off to Forbes and read Why President-Elect Trump Could Disappoint the Coal Miners Counting on Him ...

...coal-fired power will find it increasingly difficult to compete in modern electricity markets. Utility-scale wind, solar and natural gas-fired power are each cheaper today than coal-fired power and that gap is growing wider. Irrespective of federal regulation, these competitors will continue to crowd out coal. Even in states that wish to favor coal-fired power, it will be difficult to convince ratepayers that they ought to pay more for electricity from coal than they could pay for electricity from alternative sources. Voters in coal producing states who believed Trump on the campaign trail when he told them that he would bring back coal mining jobs will be disappointed. To borrow a phrase from Bruce Springsteen, those jobs are going, “and they ain’t coming back.”

So how weird is it to celebrate the elevation of a luddite with key policy points in turmoil and likely to result in widespread disappointment, on the basis that one should always look on the bright side of things, and even climate denialists are urging on the cutting of emissions?

Well that's the whole point of heading down the entrancing rabbit hole ...

Well that's reassuring., especially point 9. Thank heavens the end of Roe v. Wade will only result in the quashing of women's rights, which as any reptile male knows, isn't actual persecution by the government. Besides, the Donald can leave it to the states to handle the sordid details. And the vigilant media will sort things out ... no doubt in the same way they sorted out the beast slouching on Washington.

Oh, and the beast might crash the world economy, and maybe the silver linings aren't so silver, or even linings of the basest kinds (remember cheap polyester lining will always fray quickly and ruin a good summer dress), but all that means is we should just look on the brighter side of a bankrupt life ...

Okay, it's time for a Ridster sing a long,  with the pond feeling ever so uplifted and inspired ...