In which the reptiles, and perforce the pond, say farewell to the hound of the week ...

(And as always, more Pope here).

With a bit of luck, nobody outside NSW will have seen ABC News' appalling, pathetic attempt at relevance, which turned up on last night's traditional seven o'clock bulletin.

Some bright spark had the bright idea of setting up a few cameras outside parliament house, and doing a live newscast for the half hour, with bonus rich, vibrant Macquarie street noise running rampant under everything, and the anchor looking like a lost shag on a rock,  as did the several guests who turned up to commentate on the rock - look, there's Quentin Dempster trying to shuffle out of shot and ending up in limbo, which the pond had thought the Catholic church had abolished.

Mike Baird turned up like a useless panting greyhound to grace the proceedings, while saying absolutely nothing he hadn't said before in previous press conferences, though with bonus awkwardness produced by the format, the noise, and the idle pandering questioning.

Other news items were read with flapping paper and street noise, and sudden tranquility of sound when studio conditions returned.

Nothing was accomplished by the farce, except the expenditure of additional money - those up north wondering where their shortwave savings went now have the answer - and a production which in the old days would have failed the most basic tech checks and been deemed unbroadcastable ...

No doubt masochists will hunt it out on iView in the same way that the pond likes to collect little Oz treasures like this ...

Memo to pond - watch out scribbling about mishaps when only noh plays seem to learn from them ...

The pond is pretty much over the ABC ... the final straw came with the fuss over short wave, and the notion that if the public the ABC is paid to serve couldn't keep up with the ABC's wondrous technological advances, then they could just get lost ...

So much for legacy patrons lost in the outback nightmare world of Malware ...

Thankfully, in that the eternal January holiday the ABC indulges in, the pond has discovered a world of alternatives ... and will likely never go back to RN to watch it move its ratings from * to ** ...

Meanwhile, the reptiles of Oz also went into flip-out mode about little Mikey's departure, perforce leaving the pond with a case of massive irrelevance in relation to the wider world ...

Forget the Donald, little Mikey has gone.

Even useless dog bothering crow eaters had something to say on the matter ...

Around this point the pond realised it would be struggling for a few leftover crumbs as the bird brains feasted on the departure of a loser premier who couldn't last three years in the gig ... remember when that was regarded as the point at which the trainer wheels might be abandoned, and a decent time in power begin?

Silly dog botherer. Baird's woes began when he started to listen to Alan Jones and the Terrorists ... and now the Terrorists are sobbing and wailing and busy selling the story that we should all be saddened by the huge emotional burden little Mikey is suffering ...

Magic Mike?

You mean the Magic Mike that couldn't connect with the Terrorists?

Well it wasn't for want of trying and pandering ...

What's notable about the coverage this day is how brief it is, and how brief the list of achievements - selling off state assets being the main one so that the cash might be pissed against the wall on lavish contracts and cost overruns - and the crow eating dog botherer was no exception to the rule ...

Engage with the mainstream? Yet another code word for the Surry Hills bunker?

Nary a word about Casino Mike's greatest contribution to Sydney, but the pond is a masochist - having endured the reads - and now a sadist, determined to make others suffer ... so who's next?

Andrew Stoner?  Why that's too dull to contemplate, even for the pond ...

What else ya got?

Another out of towner who doesn't have WestConnex breathing down his neck? Sure, why not ...

Conservatives don't tend to be reactionary? Well the pond did say it would be searching for crumbs this day, but as a one liner that's not bad. Now what's the bet that the oscillating fan has little else to offer?

Yep, that's short weight, so what else you got?

A David Bowie/Nick Roeg movie from 1976?

Oh okay, if we must ... but can we wheel in a photo of ancient NSW pollie who made his living selling coffin sticks to suckers?

Well if we're going to delve into abysmal history, may as well go the full hog. Who knows, we could end up with Bligh and the Rum rebellion and a town addicted to rum and the lash, along with the cancer-inducing fags ...

He had a vision? WestConnex is a vision? Has anyone been out Parrmatta Road or St Peters way lately?

And "for a time" was a model to follow?  

We should call his short flurry of losing a kind of new three year plan, which is certainly spiffier and a lot faster than some jumped-up five year plan?

Well in what seems the usual reptile way this day, magic Troy also quickly ran out of platitudes, insights, or much to say about Magic Casino Mike ... lose to James Packer and soon enough all of Siderneyy will be the winner ... well we can't all spend money bread and circus Bob Carr style on four year nosh ups ...

Around this point, the pond was contemplating the way that the reptiles were trying to prove that they could outdo the ABC for abysmal coverage, and decided on one last shot ... courtesy the Oz reptile editorialist ...

Oh no, a sex joke in the splash?

He pulls out?

Oh wait, the reptiles don't have the pond's dirty mind. 

It's a surfer joke, Beach Boys, Barbara Ann,  in my woody I would take you, and so on and so forth ...

And yet, and yet, what's striking after these three opening pars, is how quickly the Oz editorialist wraps up the memorialising and the obituary ... there's just three short pars to follow, not much of a legacy for the flip-flop man...

There was more ... Dame Groan, for example, turned up to give little Mikey her patented kiss of death nod of approval ...

But the pond had had enough ...

It takes a lot to take the Donald off the front page right at the moment, but little Mikey managed it with his summer flourish ...

And it also says a lot about Sydney-centric views of the world, with the ABC acting like a goose - yes Territorians there's your shortwave savings at work - and reptiles falling over themselves in their haste to write a few words, after spending the previous year explaining why Baird was, in assorted ways, a dropkick of the first water ... though usually on the matter of greyhounds, which was easy, as opposed to choice of infrastructure, which requires analysis and is therefore much too hard ...

Well, it's not for the pond to try, but in a world where the rule should be first, try to avoid doing harm, Baird ended up leaving after a very short trot in which he did more harm than good, and left Sydney in particular and NSW in general worse off than when he began, though this will only become apparent as some of the things he set in place rumble on their useless way into the distant future, and the difficulties in getting around Sydney compound even more ...

But at least we will have greyhound jokes, and David Rowe cartoons, and more Rowe here ...

And now for a surfing song, and roll on the Donald ...