In which the reptiles get their content from the ABC and Troy talks dirty ...

The pond really doesn't pay enough attention to the Oz editorialist, a reliable source of comedy gems ...

Each Tuesday the reptiles faithfully regurgitate copy derived from Q and A ... reminding the pond that the national broadcaster's core role is to supply the reptiles with some easy content ...

Why do they bother?

The show's available for downloading and viewing for anyone who wants to take a look, here ... with a transcript along in due course ...

The pond never watches the show... the formula is too obvious.

Take a decently proficient amateur clown like Barners and throw him up against a professional comedian, throw in a few other voices, and ask questions incapable of being resolved, but able to generate much heat along with the absence of light ...

Bingo, and many, including the reptiles, are up for the yarn ...

Apparently climate science got a run, and suddenly Barners discovered that he was something of a climate scientist ... though it was complicated by talk of coal as a moral obligation and the usual chatter about the way we've always had a climate, and a climate is what a climate does, and so it's been and so it will be ...

Barners also called in to question the very essence of the pond, which is to laugh and mock and ridicule the ning nong horseflyblown burgers of Tamworth for voting in a dimwit to represent them ...

The panel debated the ethics and outcomes of ridiculing an elected leader, with Barnaby Joyce, the deputy prime minister, warning of the need to be “a little bit circumspect”. “The American people have a democracy … you have to be careful, because you’re laughing at the people who voted for him, and that would be an insult.” 
In response to Iannucci’s characterisation of comedy as “another way of analysing an argument”, Joyce said mocking Trump would only cement his supporters’ views of themselves as outsiders. “The people who voted for him didn’t do it as a joke. They voted for him because they wanted change.” 

Actually they voted for him because being ning nongs, they wanted a ning nong to talk endlessly about change without delivering any that might be meaningful and useful for them ... in much the same way as voters voted for Barners because they thought a decent climate denialist amateur comedian deserved a break ...

There's always strong competition when comedians gather and try to score the biggest laugh ...

Laura Demasi, the social researcher and director of Ipsos, agreed, adding that she had observed support for some of Trump’s populist sentiments from “a majority” of Australians. “Often we’ll hear people say, ‘That guy is nuts, he’s mad. But he’s direct, he’s straight, he says it like it is. And a lot of the things he talks about, I have those problems too’ – so a lot of the things that he stands for really resonate with Australians.” (the pond got its supply of Q and A quotes from The Graudian here, and please don't ask about the ampersand, blogger won't stand for it).

Say what?

He says it like it is? 

The pond doesn't have a clue who Laura Demasi is, but she has the makings of a classic comedian, off in a car in search of coffee, or at least a Starbucks Unicorn Frappuccino ...

If that's saying it 'like it is', then 'like it is' is truly fucked ...

There's always a point to the pond's meanderings and it's not just the way that the ABC supplies the reptiles with easy content ... nor is it simply that the reptiles have now disappeared so far up their own fundament it's  hard to remember that Tamworth introduced street lighting to Australia ...

Cut and paste is supposed to be satirical and sharp and cutting edge, so there's only two choices here. The reptiles took "great paper" seriously, or they took it ironically ...guess which one.

The pond senses that they meant it in the way the pond used to fondly speak of certain forms of newsprint when heading to the outdoor dunny to do battle with the redbacks ...

Back to where we're heading ... which ultimately is Troy talking dirty. But first a little detour to the Oz editorialist again ...

The reptiles are being driven mad by a President who has produced policies resulting in many irreconcilables ... heavy spending on the military, the wall, infrastructure, yadda yadda, and a profound cut in company tax and a restructuring of income tax to benefit the rich. 

If even some of the measures came into effect, the result would be a huge increase in the US deficit, with the only hope a huge increase in growth, which experience has shown won't happen ...though the cash will not so much trickle as flood up in the usual reptile approved way ...

"Political failure by the Trump administration"? ...

The reptiles are feeling nervous, a bit like the old fashioned GOP deficit hawks, so the pond at last turned to Troy talking dirty ... 

Naturally the pond was consternated. Here was Troy insulting the people who voted for the Donald by daring to suggest the gobbling turkeys had voted in a real gobbler ... what would Barners say?

On and on he went, and he didn't even try to dress it up as satire or comedy ...he just kept on insulting the people who'd voted for the Donald ...

The pond could sense that Barners was turning beetroot red, or perhaps Flynn Red ....

Oh sure, Troy did his best to claw out a few redeeming features, but it was very satisfying ... 

The pond loves it when the reptiles talk dirty and sound like Fairfaxians or the ABC ... though the result is always a little weird and surreal, like watching a child learning to walk ...

Naturally it brought the pond back to the Oz editorialist and their 'end the deficit, balance the budget' hawkery, while at the same time reducing taxes and disappearing up their fundament ...

It got quite poignant by the end, because all they had at the end was pious hope ...

Left to hope?

A wing and a prayer?

May float our boats as well?

That's how forlorn the reptiles are sounding as the contradictions wear them down, and perforce they must place hope in the Donald ...

Well the pond would like offer the reptiles a Donald boat ...

... but he bought it for $29 million and then in 1991 ran into financial difficulties and sold it for $20 million to the filthy rich Saudi Arabian businessman and member of the Saudi royal family Al-Waleed bin Talal ... but the reptiles can console themselves with snaps of the boat here ...as they remember that one of the Donald's chief skills as a businessman was to become an expert in bankruptcy ...

Never mind, the pond understands, thanks to Tom Tomorrow, that the Donald is working on a super keen new infrastructure plan, and since it's as believable as all his other plans, Barners will be relieved that no humour or satire is involved, in much the same way as other non-satirical, non-comedic, non-insulting TT postings to be found here ...