And finally a few seasonal tips for the Latinate, gerund aware older reader ...

Talk about lost times. What on earth is a pater and mater?

In which the pond returns, like Melba, to honour the pond's late breaking winner of the year, the Angry Sydney Anglicans

The pond knows it has already said its Xmas farewells, but let's face it, in the Australian tradition, there can be as many farewells as Melba ...

And the reptiles getting excited about Cory means that 2017 is going to be an excellent year ... for division, chaos, confusion and delusion ...

Come on Cory, come on, you can do it, you can make life easy for the reptiles and the pond in 2017!

And speaking of delusional, the pond simply had to snatch the prize for Xmas loonery away from all previous honorees and hand it to a new winner ...

And praise be and thank the long absent lord, it's an angry Sydney Anglican, with nary a complimentary woman in sight to spoil the fun ...

Now a paranoid might think that the angry Sydney Anglicans had staged a late run to avoid the pond's competition, but the pond is always pleased to honour madness ..

Yes it's underbelly madness and hipsters suddenly confused and conflated with the loony left, because ... well beards and coffee and tattoos are just so Marxist ...

Even better was the pose the Terrorists had selected for the angry Sydney Anglican ...

Even funnier? Yes, down in the corner, there's the sign that the grinches want to charge for this Xmas pleasure!

Money to be made out of pulpit slapdowns?

Well for those who missed the fun ...

Now never mind that the angry Sydney Anglicans, courtesy of Moore College, have infested and ruined north Newtown, like a tribe of invading cockroaches ...

Yes, the entire strip is now infested by fundamentalist rats and mice gnawing away at sanity ...

And never mind that the glorious archbishop refuses to honour religious traditions and wish people happy holydays ...

What's he got against holy days? Who knows, just as who knows why he decided to become tabloid fodder like a prize cow chewing a silly cud in public...

Never mind, there's a more important reason to celebrate, especially in view of recent kerfuffles ...

'Tis the season of the dummy spit ... 

And all this might introduce an unhappy note, but thankfully the archbishop has redeemed the spirit of the season by selecting a simply divine frock for his Terrorist appearance ... or perhaps the Terrorists thoughtfully selected a sublime happy snap so that he could show off his divine frock ...

Take a lesson, hipsters ... learn to wear a frock gracefully, and you too can get into the pulpit and decry all this modernist gender nonsense ...

Oh it was irresistible, but please, allow the pond to place the snap in context and honour the reptiles ... and then, let the rant, and the confusing of hipsterdom and leftism continue, because let's face it, one decent coffee or a craft beer, and you're well on your way to Stalinism ... just ask the Terrorists who sneak out for a coffee in Surry Hills and then have to pretend to their mates that they got it at McDonalds ...

Outrageous heretical thinking.

Sensitivity? At Xmas time? Damn you Jews, fall into line, or fall out ... Christ's your saviour at Xmas, like it or not. Don't make Dr. the divine Glenn join the alt right just to make the point clear!

And so to a concluding blast of divine angry Anglican insight ...

Point of order your honour.

Newtown and Marrickville are the home of craft beer, and certainly not Annandale.

Yet another epic fail on the part of a mob who work in Surry Hills, so inner city 'leet apparently they never visit the outer suburbs ... which is perhaps why they think you should get your man-bun topiary kit from Chippendale, when the pond knows for a certain fact, that the best supplier is just around the corner from Holt Street ...

Apparently that's where Joe Hildebrand goes for the pruner for his stubble ...

Talk about sun on the stubble ...

But enough of A grade plus hipster wankers with their complete incapacity to find a decent razor or a sensa humour or a lick of irony ...

The pond's decision is final, at least until it changes ...

And so the pathetic, attention-seeking angry Sydney Anglicans have stolen the pond's trophy at the last moment, with an infinitely stupid attention-seeking faux controversy of the fake beat-up kind ...as fake a look as Joe's hipster stubble ...

And for a final bit of Xmas cheer, the pond pondered what this late-breaking outburst might mean.

The angry Sydney Anglicans really must be truly fucked if this is their idea of improving attendances at this time of year ... but perhaps some caring complimentary women will turn out to cheer them along as they fight against the demonic secularists in the epic war on Xmas ...

Meanwhile, the pond is proud to have maintained an Australian tradition ... and again wishes everyone a merry Xmas, or Christmas or happy holy day, or whatever else floats your festivus Saturnalian summer solstice boat ...

In which the pond wraps it up for the year with a worthy winner and a final thought from freedom boy ...

The pond had simple aims when it started off ... to last a decade, or at least, to last long enough to cheer the demise of the chairman and the end of the reptiles of Oz ...

Or at least be able to reprint their belated acknowledgment that their rabid Catholic Boys' Daily ways didn't amount to a hill of beans business plan ...

Others might discover new long term goals, to be around say for the impeachment or the assassination of the Donald, or the wiping of all forms of religious fundamentalism from the globe, but the pond is not of a utopian mind ...

Thousands of years of mess suggest that the ending of mess isn't imminent ... and the chief illusion is that somehow a new messiah will come along and fix things, when generally messiahs have turned out to be naughty boys ... (along with the occasional naughty girl, come on Theresa, you can make a right proper hash of Brexit).

In the meantime, all that's left is to wish anyone who's strayed on to the pond for good or ill over the year a happy Xmas - insert god, solstice rite, saturnalia festival of choice in place of X, or insert Christ or Buddha or a stray Calathumpian if you will and don't mind the sound of Christmas or Calathumpmas or Buddhamas - and happy holydays and a jolly good New Year while we're at it ...

The pond will return in the new year, health and roads and reptiles permitting, because, sad to say, the heavy hitters at the lizard Oz have dismally failed to maintain the rage at the end of the year ...

The pond reports with profound regret that Dame Slap was a non-starter in the pond's quest to find a column that would hold sway, stay top of the page over the Xmas/New Year break, and symbolise everything the pond found worthy and insightful.

Planet Janet joined the Oreo and others in refusing to rise to the challenge. Squibs, losers, dropkicks, spoilsports, lazybones ...

Oh sure, there were diligent substitute reptiles on the field. After all, what would the break be without a climate denialist at the top of the opinion page ...

And the diligent bromancer, already certain to win the pond's 'favourite loon of the year' award, kept plugging away ...

But the pond is over religious fundamentalism of all kinds, apart from observing the curious way that reptile Catholic boys' daily fundamentalism has grown in tandem with Islamic fundamentalism ...

And there were the usual reptiles handing out gratuitous advice to Turnbull in the usual way ...

Um, could it be because his key agenda, in the context of the NBN, produces laughter and much good humoured banter about living in the age of copper?

The Terrorists were also in on this caper ...

But that was just silly Timmie suggesting that Malware grow balls of steel like good old Nifty Wran, seemingly oblivious to the way he was suggesting female politicians might have to go with a sex change if they were ever to perform adequately ...

But that's how it goes in a pussy-grabbing year.

And then as a late left field entry, there came a Citigroup chappie explaining how the banks could make out like bandits with higher interest rates, and that this was a 'paradigm shift' ...

Paradigm shift? The pond hadn't heard that sort of silly talk in many a year, and it was an excellent example of the abuse of the original meaning and of the English language ...

But this is the time of lightness and laughter, and so the pond had to head back in time to a humble state politician dedicated to fucking over Sydney and the NSW state finances, while part-time trying to whip up a war over Xmas ...

The brave lad joined in the usual chorus trying to sort out the season ...

Now the pond hadn't understood that Christmas had gone away ...

Where did it go? Did it disappear into the attic with the mad uncle or down into the basement with Tony Perkins' fruity old mum?

But that's why the pond constantly looks for enlightenment, along with a decent dose of irony ...

Well there you go, that will do nicely. 

You see the reptile Terrorists hitched a WSJ video to the parroting Perrottet, and it, in the spirit of the genuine Xmas - where X means $ - urged the world to shop like a holiday bot ...

A "personal technology" columnist?

So this is where agility and innovation have led us and the reptiles?

Could it get any more tragic? 

Well there was that "sponsored content" lurking at the top of the reptile digital page ... look, over on the right ...

Trails and treats?

Sponsored content of the most hideous and banal Nova Scotia kind? How the mighty reptiles and the Catholic Boys' Daily business plan lies in sponsored content tatters.

Pardon ... the pond must go bot shopping for  hideous jumpers too ...

Yes, it's the spirit of Xmas ... find the best price with an app!

It's as good as any an irony to accompany the parrot Perrottet sounding off, while a pagan symbol atop a pagan Xmas tree adds to the irony overload ...

Such a fuckwit - and while it explains the dire state of things in NSW, and the generally hopeless Baird government, the pond preferred to relish the irony of the Terrorists using pagan Xmas tree decorations to illustrate a fool blathering on about Christmas ... and the "C-word" ...

Secular zealots? Well it sure beats plain old fuckwits in poetic verbal motion ... now where was that app?

Prices crash!

Well it's time to wrap up this tiresome clown and his jingle jangle jingle bells ...

And yes, there you have in a nutshell why the Baird government is fucked in the head ... and why the pond instinctively reacted with the thought, 'Merry Xmas?', why don't you just fuck off prattling parrot Perrottet and it might be a happy fucking Christmas ... or Buddhamas or whatever ...

You see, if you can find space for silly Islamics, why not find a little space for secular zealots, you overbearing oppressive persecuting dingbat ...

But while the parrot Perrottet did much to establish the mood of Xmas cheer at the pond, we wouldn't want the last post to sound too lightweight, and that's why the pond thought it should honour the most useless campaign of the year, the reptile hysteria over 18C, over which nobody except Bill Leak and the reptiles care much much of a toss ...

Valiant freedom boy was at it again this day ...

And so freedom boy once again joined a campaign that has gone on and on, suggesting that the privileged chattering classes have got way too much time on their hands, and really don't have a first clue about what's agitating the average punter feeling the budgetary heat ...

Splash useful cash on this sort of ongoing crusade? Subscribe to the lizard Oz as a way of endorsing all this useless venting and hot air spleen?

Never mind, it's over to freedom boy for the last time this year ...

Could the pond produce a better example of an indulged ruling 'leet carrying on about nothing, in much the same way as the reptiles have conducted themselves throughout the year, and with bonus rabid ideology and a throwaway free book from Troy which clearly was already on its way to the remaindered shelves ...

Valued at $49.99? Hmm, where was that bot?

$28 bucks with free shipping and that's without going below the fold.

Oh thank you spirit of Xmas bot, thank you ...

And now it's back to Troy for the very last serious thoughts of the year ...

Now somewhere in there, freedom boy seemed to be suggesting that it should all be left to the states - states frame laws around harassment and they do - yet only a few short pars on, the dear lad goes on to deplore Tasmanian state law in the area and be shocked by its impact on a bigoted Catholic doing what bigoted Catholics do ...

And then, right at the end, came that delightful bit of Orwellian wordsmithing of the kind that the pond loves ...

"Projecting challenging ideas ..."

That's standard reptile code for projecting bigotry, hate, fear, loathing, rabid climate denialism, black and gender bashing, and all the rest of the nonsense that has preoccupied the chattering 'leets this year and produced the endless diatribes that have littered the pond like mouse droppings ...

According to the pond's record, the reptiles' "challenging ideas" have flourished shamelessly, unhindered in any way, shape or form by 18C, the abundant growth only matched in an inverse way by the reptiles' business model's sponsored content, get a free useless book business plan death spiral...

No doubt there will be even more tut-tutting and carry on should someone who has been the butt of this projecting of challenging ideas dares to speak her mind ...

And now before signing off, the pond should explain that illustration at the top of the page ...

What a drop kick try hard loser, almost as silly as your average cash in the paw grant-loving Caterist ...

And with that the pond wishes a good night, and a good luck to everyone, until the new year at least ...

Or even not descended from fearful women ...

In which the pond notes a triptych of reptiles and Terrorists trying to hot the top spot ...

The pond is pleased that there have been some exceptional late-breaking wild card, lone wolf bids to stay atop of the pond heap over the Xmas break, with an excellent contribution by Alan of the chemical bridge leading the way ...

It goes without saying that the pond deplores moral righteousness and all other forms of righteousness, along with socialists, leftists, and greenies, and suddenly has felt the Bern, and seen the Trumpian Putinist light ...

Now the pond has no time for virtue, and such Judeo-Christian notions certainly shouldn't be the basis for foreign policy ... no siree bob, and it reminds the pond of the raw deal that Adolf and Benito kept getting as a result of all those righteous gits calling them out when they were just going about their business merging states to produce an efficient empire for Volks cars...

Why exactly the same is happening right this minute closer to the pond's neck of the woods with all the tut-tutting about North Korea, and Iran, and even our very own Dirty Harry ...

Now that's the sort of handgun the pond could handle, and while we're at it, is there any chance that we could add a strategic risk consultant to all the drug dealers in the line of sight?

Yes, that's just what we need, a far more brutish and competitive world than the previous, because frankly those two world wars and a fair average holocaust or three really didn't cut it and we need to do much better ...

What we need is a more turbulent and dangerous world, and the last thing we need is people jibbering and jabbering in their righteous moral-laden way about the need to give peace a chance.

But what's this talk of moderate policies? That sounds exactly like the namby-pamby righteous policies the pond has routinely and righteously deplored? What we want is brutish competitiveness and turbulent, dangerous excess, and the more the merrier for all ...especially if we throw in a little climate science to speed things along.

But much as the pond would like to linger with Alan of the bridge - oh come on Duterte, surely you could spare one rocket so the pond can prove it's absolutely not into moral righteousness and welcomes brutishness and the killing fields - there's another contender claiming attention... 

Well actually there's two of them seeking to solidify the Terrorists at the top of the turbulent woodheap ..

By golly, that's great, the leftist pink mafia, and over there, Marcus berating the Judeo-Christian activists ... for their relentless political and religious activism ...

Now it's true that the Marcus sounds like a lesser, dumber, blonder form of the Donnelly, but really, would it be right and proper for the pond to stand in her way as she clambers to the top of the pole?

Mmm, can we start off with a little rocket science?

No? Then how about an internet meme of the rocket science kind?

Oh dear, a lesser Donnelly it is ... 

Now what's the bet we're about to be terribly frightened by the competitive face of an Asian girl? Oh fear them, fear them ...

Oh dear, immediate consternation on the pond, and distraction. Streaks ahead or streets ahead? 

Are the report cards shoddy, or are the reports in the shoddy report cards some kind of shoddy?

The pond merely reports and others decide, and how silly of the pond to think that Marcus would be slamming into the Judeo-Christians for their celebration of creationist nonsense it took the enlightenment centuries to wear down ...

Of course one further explanation might be that Marcus is a twit, but the pond won't hear of it.

What we need are mindless robots who conform to the Donnelly/Marcus line! No moral righteousness please, and don't keep the queue moving ...

Shocking. When will the education system teach the value of a .44 magnum? Let's face it, there's too much focus on Judeo-Christian activism in the classroom ...

And so it goes, with the lies repeated so insistently, they become the norm, and the bullying shrieking and howling of the Marcusians fills the air with righteousness ... luckily, in a form approved of by the reptiles ...

Now much as the pond would like to dilly dally with Marcus - why does she keep repeating that stuff about Cheltenham? - there is a prime example to hand of what happens when people muck about with different sexualities and genders ...

Yes, it's the final in a triptych of heavy hitters trying to give the pond title to the Terrorists ...

Now others might think that keeping the company of the onion muncher and having Lyle Shelton at the top of your column is the sort of confusion that should lead to a wake-up call.

Not in Terrorist la la land, where the feuding gets fierce, and moral righteousness turns to hysteria ...

Indeed, indeed, and it takes an even steadier hand to hold an onion ... or drag a cricketer into the discussion, perhaps as a way of ensuring the pond will nod off even more quickly than an Australian cricketer trying to take a catch ...

But apparently an excellent collection of stereotypes, which is a tad rich for someone only a little earlier getting agitated about caricatured notions of community ... (the pond has no Kylie Minogue albums, but isn't that a cheap thrust? Sorry, trigger warning, that was a cheap thrust about a cheap thrust, and we should not place our hope in thrust?)

Never mind, it gets even more ugly and petulant ...

Ghetto?

Nasty rancid ghetto full of nasty rancid Kylie Minogue albums?

Well there's a surefire way to demonstrate peace, love and humanity.

And as for the point trying to be made? The pond couldn't quite work it out, but perhaps that was because the pond started thinking that the point was a simpler one, about noses and faces and spite and needless provocations and mindless warfare ... like expecting everyone to love the onion muncher and Lyle Shelton ...

Even worse, that talk of "I am not an animal, I am a human" brought out a strangely inhuman desire on the part of the pond to join Marcus in running a meme ...

Or an onion lover, or a Lyle Shelton devotee, or whatever ...

By golly, it's going to take a herculean effort of moral righteousness to dislodge this triptych of reptiles and Terrorists from the top of the pond page ... and congratulations to the solitary reader that made it this far ...