In which the pond reverts to prattling Polonius for a little Catholic-tinged denialism ...

(Above: Greg Hunted here).

As always, when heading into quality time with prattling Polonius, it's helpful to do a little mood setting, turn on the fog and crank up the atmospherics:

The Troubles in Northern Ireland were characterised by bitter sectarian antagonism and bloodshed between Irish Republicans a majority of whom are Catholic, and Loyalists who are overwhelmingly Protestant. In some areas Church buildings were frequently attacked and mass-goers harassed and sometimes prevented from attending mass by Loyalist paramilitaries. Some of the most savage attacks were perpetrated by a Protestant gang dubbed the Shankill Butchers, led by Lenny Murphy, who was described as a psychopath and a sadist. The gang gained notoriety by torturing and murdering an estimated thirty Catholics, between 1972 and 1982. Most of their victims had no connection to the Provisional Irish Republican Army or any other republican groups but were killed for no other reason than their religious affiliation. (here for the footnotes).

What's that? Religion had something to do with the troubles? 

Perhaps not all of it, the way that socialism, the monarchy, Marxism, nationalism, fanaticism and all the other -isms were in the mix, but surely those other -isms, Catholicism and Protestantism, had a little to do with it ...

Well no, surely this cannot stand, there needs to be a cleansing, and who better to do it, what better way to do it, than to turn to prattling Polonius, a leading spokesperson for the persecuted Catholic church and expert denialist of anything that might taint its immaculate conception and perfection ...

Now up front, the pond should confess it doesn't mix, the pond doesn't mingle ...

The pond usually avoids the company of true believers of all faiths, Scientologists, sundry cultists and reptiles ... except for the penny lizards in the back yard, who delight with their solemn antics, though the lizards routinely rebuff any and all attempts at friendship.

The pond once had the opportunity to attend the Sydney Institute but declined the opportunity since the pond has always supported the right of Australians to live without enduring the prattling of Polonius ...  which is as good an introduction to the artful Polonius's effort this day, which starts of with a header suggesting the importance of mixing, only to go on to evoke the absolute importance of maintaining a blinkered, fearful, paranoid outlook on life ... surrounded as we are by crazed Islamics who somehow think that the west might have been providing a useful example on how to behave by invading Iraq and conducting the longest war in US history in Afghanistan ...

Oh dear, the pond has developed expert Polonius avoidance techniques - more avoidance and news from Yemen thanks to Saudi Arabia here - but hey nonny no, it's time to slink behind the arras and cop the latest ...

There's an important trick at work here, which might well be adopted by radical Islamics.

Where some might see only knavish religion at work, others, and the cunning Polonius, know it's best to make it the business of knavish Marxists and leftists ...

You see? The troubles in Ireland had nothing to do with religion, it was all the work of pesky secularists.

Oh sure, these damned insolent secularists might head off to the notoriously unbalanced Tim Pat Coogan and his book on the IRA, and read his thoughts on the Proclamation read outside the General Post Office on the morning the rising began (you might make that Rising if you're a true believer):

Thank the long absent lord nobody mentioned religion, and thank the long absent lord religion played no further part in politics or polite discussions in the troubles of that troubled coountry, with the only dissent and disruption arising from the pesky secularists, well-known for promoting the thoughts of the notoriously secularist Ian Paisley ...

And so on and so forth, but the pond must leave this fiercely secularist discussion, and those fiercely secularist concerns and times aside, so that we might return to prattling Polonius for a final gobbet ...

So there's the perfect bait and switch. 

Start off with a piece headed with the "importance of mixing", mix in alarmist talk of germ warfare and dirty nuclear attacks, throw in wild-eyed abuse of fundamentalists, make sure to garnish moderate Islamics with a liberal dose (including that perpetual ABC/Fairfax Aly irritant), and then conclude that it's not the importance of mixing, it's the importance of speaking da English ..

.

But here's the thing. The pond speaks the same sort of English as prattling Polonius - more or less - and feels absolutely no unifying effect.

The pond doesn't even feel like it's a step in the right direction. If anything, all it does is allow the pond to articulate its discontent at the monstrous silliness of Polonius.

Speaking da English feels like a step in the Sydney Institute direction, but the pond has never been a good mixer or a mingler with that mob ... why, it might have never discovered the benefits of a head of garlic in a dish, or three different chilis if it had stayed in the church's suffocating embrace...

There's cooking, and then there's Irish Catholic-influenced cooking ...

Still as funny as it was when it was printed in the New Yorker in October 1930 ... the pond felt like getting a print for the Sydney Institute walls ... surely they'd appreciate the rich irony of a joke which would sit well in They're a Weird Mob ...

And so, with all this talk of troubles and butchery in mind, to a modern Rowe cartoon, with a very modern butcher, and more skilful Rowe sausageology here ...

And for those who complain it doesn't exist as a concept or a word, and for those who clearly don't speaka da English, look, it's even been copyrighted ...