In which the pond covers the media beat with the reptiles of Oz ... and naturally it's snake, eel and ABC bashing day ...

Today is arcane media day at the pond, thanks always to the ineffable thoughts of the squawking Major Mitchell ...

Perhaps the first bit of the navel fluff gazing might involve that talk of "the commercial world", and the word "commercial", and what it might be taken to imply ...

That definition here ...

Hmm, able to yield or make a profit? Stupid dictionary, but that brings us to the Major Mitchell, grandly using the word "commercial" when might have been better to talk of "those from the charity world" ... because the reptiles of Oz have been kept alive for years by the charity of chairman Rupert (and who knows how long it will last when he's gone and actual commercial types, as opposed to power junkies, take charge?)

Few others in business would have tolerated such a non-commercial, unprofitable operation for so many years, and indulged in charitable giving to keep it afloat, and yet the cheeky buggers keep on talking of a "commercial world" as if they're in it and somehow they're commercial, despite the abundant evidence to the contrary ...

                                  

So much for "commercial" ... and you can find those stories in order at Mumbrella here, and here, and at Fairfax here, and at the ABC here, and there's plenty more where those came from ...

But where were we? The pond became so entranced at the Major Mitchell's notion of commercial that we became quite distracted ...

Oh yes, it's on with the squawking ...

Now the pond is in little doubt that the education system has failed, and is continuing to fail. Look how it failed the Major Mitchell, and continues to fail all the reptiles ...

Instead of a single word chant of Gonski, they've merely managed to up the ante to a mindless two word chant ...

Ah, "safe schools" is the chant, and my word 'Becca, what a clever girl you are. 

You've learned those two words and by golly, you'll chant them all day, all week, all year long ... and now let us return to the chanting Major Mitchell ...

Ah yes, good old rote learning. 

Remind us 'Becca about the benefits of rote learning and that good old constant reptile carping you've learnt by heart ...

Now others might have their thoughts on the Major Mitchell's thoughts - there's nothing like a silly old angry albino reptile to get the pond in a state of agitation - but we must move on quickly, because today, like so many other reptile days, is "bash the ABC in a resentful way day," because they've got so much more money and we're not terribly commercial, as we chant our right wing mantras to a crowd that mostly doesn't give a flying fuck ...

Yes, it's another silly old albino reptile, with bonus facial fluff, and as usual, there's no need for any self-reflection about reptile failings and commercial doom, not when the ABC can is there to be kicked down the road ...

Now the pond has its own problems with the ABC - it often comes across the ABC's very unique, almost unique, way with the English language, with a totally unique offering yesterday morning thanks to the wanna be blonde that stumbled into the studio - but instead the pond would like to pause to celebrate the takeaway note in that Day line ... "older people still like the time-honoured format"...

Well actually as an older people, can the pond just say that this is the usual tripe to be expected from older people, when in reality there are many older people who think time-honoured formats are now dead and buried ... in much the way that the reptiles love of tree-killer editions will eventually be revealed as a singular and uncommercial folly ...

There are other mysteries that might be contemplated in the Day piece ... 

... starting with why the ABC invited Day in the first place, as if the aged tree killing home of the reptiles offer any useful insights or solutions in this crazy mixed up uncommercial world ...

It's possibly the best example of how the ABC has lost its way ...

And then there's Day refusing to provide the full story. We learn that he coyly declined to explain to the ABC in person how much better it all was in the 1950s, but without explaining why, just an "I was unable to accept", while able to find the time to whip up a column, so he could rub the ABC's nose in it for asking, only so that he could tell them to bugger off..

Well let's get on with the nose rubbing ...

A miniseries about bushrangers is the answer to it all?

Pure dodderer, that one?

Can it at least - to judge from the pond's son's response - be about robot bushrangers, and there's a cute android blonde robot who's rising up to take over Movieworld from the hegemonic Village Roadshow, and wicked Graham Burke - maybe Anthony Hopkins could play him - and good old Thandie Newton, having survived her time with John Duigan, returns for a stint in the Roadshow brothel?

Or some such thing.

At least the ABC underlings were spared the sight of Day in the flesh gibbering on in the standard reptile house style about soft-left ideological issues, or gender questions, or the usual carry-on crap of the kool aid quaffers ...

Remind us 'Becca, about those gender questions and what we should all be chanting ...

And now let us all bow our heads and remember what for years subsidised the Murdochian empire before times changed ...

It was celebrated in this outing ...

The pond humbly offers the content as its advice to the ABC on how to improve its news service, so that it might, in a totally unique way, contribute to the evolving world of the full to overflowing intertubes ...

That opening line can be googled so that it can be discovered that the song should be sung to the tune of Waiting for the Robert E. Lee, but that's more than enough on the subject of the commercial media this day ...