In which the pond joins prattling Polonius in deploring the baleful influence of Hollywood ...

Every weekend the pond must make sacrifices, difficult choices ... so many delicious treats, so little time ...

Yes, give Trump more time to do even better negotiations than the one the Donald just conducted with Mexico, and who needs climate science ...

But the pond is a pick and stick sort of site, in much the same way as birds of a feather tend to flock together ...

You got something against a good old parrot helping an old mate flog a book?

You see, pick and stick, and that's why the pond routinely sticks to good old prattling Polonius each weekend, no matter what the temptations and distractions ...

What a rattling good read he is, at least if you live in the fast lane at the nursing home and routinely put the pedal to the metal on the walking frame ... (no, that's not ageist, the pond knows the feeling).

And this Saturday Polonius has touched on a pond raw nerve, the baleful influence of low-life Hollywood celebrities, rent seekers and intellectual property rights bludgers ...

Now it so happens that the pond attended university before the time when the onion muncher, and Polonius himself, were exulting and getting wildly excited with Santa about fighting for fascist Franco ...

In the famous Melbourne University debate about the Spanish Civil War, he declared: “when the bullets of the atheists struck the statue of Christ outside the cathedral in Madrid, for some that was just steel striking brass. But for me, those bullets were piecing the heart of Christ the King”. 
He could engender a thrill in the heart that was part patriotism, part Christian idealism and part “fighting the good fight”. I was lucky to know BA Santamaria for the last 22 years of his life, to have attended diligently to his writing and speaking over that time and to have been the beneficiary of the occasional private lunch and long phone call.

Ah weird, strange, wonderful things can be heard at universities ... indeed, with just a bit of googling, you might read Phillip Adams having a chat with Polonius and reporting "Gerard insists that the consensus of historians is that Franco and fascism were barely on speaking terms" and "Gerard made much of Franco declaring Spain 'neutral' during World War II", and so on ...

You might even imagine you're reading that the murderous dictator Franco was a benign ruler ...

Now please allow the pond to skip over Polonius's love of football and mixed martial arts.

The man simply exudes the masculinity and mastery expected from an aficionado of ground and pound ... has there been a more tedious exponent of the art of pounding away until gritted teeth have ground down to the stumps ...

The real question is, who has made Polonius, in this age of social media, a self-appointed guardian of all that is right and just and so in our midst?

Who has elevated Polonius, so that he might, without any apparent qualifications, except his desire to ground and pound, blather on each week?

And it is here that the pond must reveal a deep conspiracy inspired by the very heart of Hollywood darkness ...

Oh that evil, wicked smirk...

This rogue of a fox happens to be foxy in ways that possibly herald the end of civilisation ...

Oh he didn't flaunt himself at the Golden Globes did he?

But back to the piquant charms of silly old Polonius flailing away at Hollywood ... 

Now the pond knows what some vicious readers might be thinking. Please allow the pond to cut these thoughts off at the pass.

The pond feels the need to emphasise that this has nothing to do with sour grapes ...

After all, it's not just the pond that has noticed Polonius's uncanny resemblance to George Clooney ...

By golly, talk about a captivating self-appointed guardian in our midst ...

Indeed, indeed. Talk about shocking statements (as prattling Poloni are wont to do) ...

If a white male right-wing extremist and crazy populist had delivered a tweet declaring that he was angry and had thought about taking to the streets to mount a revolution ...

... he'd be given the keys to the White House by prattling Polonius ...

Now it's true that Polonius has no more wisdom than anyone else and his morality is no higher than that of footballers or mixed martial arts practitioners, and he might well be told to shut up, and desist from pretending that criticising the Donald is somehow roughly equivalent to re-fighting Polonius's loser support for a loser Vietnam war ...

But it is true that society saw the need for a division between church and state, and it might not hurt to put a division between Hollywood and the White House ...

Which is why the pond can enthusiastically join Polonius in demanding that Chairman Rupert be required either to sell off all his Fox movie studio and cable TV assets or his newspaper assets ... because the notion of mixing entertainment and news is pure crazy, and leads to addled angry old white men taking to the streets and demanding a revolution ...

Now the pond reached out to Madonna for a comment, and a reaction to Polonius's very fair-minded offer that if they'd shut up about everything, he would also shut up about everything and retreat to a monastery where he could write a definitive historical account proving that Franco wasn't a fascist so much as a benign ruler wanting to save souls and lead them into service in the Catholic church ...

The response wasn't encouraging ...

She seemed to think she could say whatever the fuck she liked, in much the same way that the doddering old fart Polonius could say, including bizarre notions of Franco worship and a deep abiding belief in transubstantiation (watch out, he might even end up going Kabbalah)

But at least the pond did discover a Rowe cartoon - more excellent Rowe here - which suggests where following Polonius's sublime adherence to strong leadership might lead a country of delusionals led by a chief delusional ...