In which the pond is blessed by an abundance of Moorice ...

What with the Enmore road RSL club long gone and turned into a hotel, complete with trendy hipster street art ...

...these days the only sign of RSL life in the immediate vicinity of the pond is in Petersham, where the good times continue ... and what better way to memorialise the dead than Poker VII?

Poker, so much more dinkum than two up ... sic transit gloria, with the change somehow reminding the pond of that Australian classic, Wake in Fright ...

Speaking of movies, the pond recently watched a Spanish film on which a remarkable number of Euros had been spent ...

It's not the best of movies ... handsome drone shots and great locations in equatorial Guinea and the Canary islands aren't enough of a compensation for flaws in the drama, and it seems not to have even scored an English-language wiki, though the Spanish one can be google translated ...

But the story of the siege of Baler is intrinsically interesting and that does have an English language wiki ...

Long after the Spanish sold off the Philippines to the United States, a small garrison holed up in a remote church kept fighting a valiant, entirely useless and meaningless action in defence of the lost Spanish empire ...in much the same way that some Japanese soldiers kept fighting in the Pacific, unaware that the war had been lost ...

Throw in the pond recently reflecting with the Canadians on the battle of Vimy Ridge ...

The battle was the first occasion when all four divisions of the Canadian Expeditionary Force participated in a battle together and it was made a symbol of Canadian national achievement and sacrifice. Recent historical research has called this patriotic narrative into question, showing that it developed in the latter part of the twentieth century. The nation-building story only emerged fully formed after most of those who experienced the Great War directly or indirectly had passed from the scene. (wiki here)

... and that's all the pond has got to say this day on the celebration of the folly and stupidity of war ...

Luckily, as always, the reptiles have charged up, trumpets blazing, to save the day ...

Being thoughtful reptiles, they didn't land with just with your ordinary, common or garden lightweight Caterist column, but with a giant for all ages, a genuine heavyweight battleship of the Bismarck-class ...

Now it's probably fair to say that Moorice's best days as the world's greatest climate science is behind him.

But such is his genius that he's in a continual state of reinvention, and there seems no end to his capacity to play a dolorous Chicken Little ...

Such is Moorice's genius that he's worked out a much better line. "Welfare is making the sky fall ... it hit me on the head ... I'm off to tell ScoMo ..."

The pond is full of admiration. It takes a special skill to move from the suffering of the onion muncher to wealth inequality to the inordinate suffering of the taxable rich to the balancing the budget ... and then to the real culprits ... all the bludgers with their paws held out, naturally excluding grant-loving Caterists, tax avoiding News Corp, and assorted fat cats of the Moorice kind, those indignant millionaires railing about their losses and turning to petulant Peta for their salvation ...

It's a timeless routine ...

Of course there will be a point at which the sky falls ... some think it might even have something to do with climate science ... or the Donald that Moorice so loved as a breath of fresh air ...

Thank the long absent lord that Moorice is on hand to correct this sort of nonsensical thinking, and to sheet home the blame to where it belongs ... welfare!

Remember Venezuela ... and sssh, whatever you do, don't mention the way that collapsing oil prices are certain to affect Australia, because Australia has built its entire economy around its massive oil exports ...

Indeed, indeed. It goes without saying that the pond vividly remembers how that massive welfare state, the United States of America, collapsed in 2008 because of welfare ...

What's that you say? The United States might have had other problems in 2008? And thanks to the Donald, those days are likely to come again sooner rather than later?

Never mind, the stopped clock is right twice a day, and that's the reason that Moorice mentioned cuckoos in his header ... though the pond must apologise to anyone expecting actual mention of clouds and cuckoos in the body of the text.

That's the way it goes with Moorice ... so rich and abundant full of overflowing metaphors that he can toss them around in fecund cuckoo fashion.

In the same way, the pond and Moorice can select their own version of Chicken Little ... and provided the rich get to eat the poor, all will be well in the garden ...

  

Let us hope there are decent provisions for condiments for the rich in the upcoming budget ...and if the poor run around shouting that the sky is falling in, well, really, who cares. 

It's their own fault for being losers, bludgers and dropkicks. How much cleverer they have been if they'd only learned how to blame it all on government, while hauling down a generous stipend as a chair for a government organisation ... like the ABC ...

Meanwhile, on another planet, or at least another page of the lizard Oz ...

Another day done and dusted, thanks to Moorice, more doom and gloom, and now a chance for the pond to marvel at the way that the mutton Dutton serves as a bright flame to which cartoonist moths are drawn, with the latest Wilcox, and more Wilcox here ...