When confronted by an onion muncher or a nattering "Ned", holler for the Pope ...

Of course the pond had to do a follow-up - imagining comrade Bill as the hand, or even the fickle finger, of fate was too compelling ...

Imagine the spelling chaos that would follow a new head of fate ...

Besides, the pond knew anything from the onion muncher would be just the usual nonsense, long worn out by endless repetition and chanting ...

But the pond is made of stern stuff ...

In the usual way, the onion muncher's conjuring of scary demons - like the priests of old talking of hell - falls at the first hurdle. Would comrade Bill be any worse than King Chuck? (And why did they call him Chuck - didn't anyone remember the peculiar activities of the first two Chucks?) 

Heck, would the onion muncher himself be any worse than the currish Kerr?

There'll always be buffoons at the top, given largely ceremonial duties except for the rare moments that reveal that beneath the top hat, the ethics have taken a holyday ...

The way the pond sees it, the only reason for paying any attention to any outing by the onion muncher in monarchist mode is the chance it offers to recycle some old Pope cartoons ...

Ah, that feels better ...

What a silly backward looking goose he is, and weirdly, how irrelevant he's become. 

He's just another reptile now, when at one time he looked like a fierce revolutionary leader ready for the long march ...

But wait, given the way that the onion muncher passed on a poisoned SSM chalice to the onion muncher, deploying the same device of Pope cartoons might help the pond get through a serve of nattering "Ned" ...

The pond loves it when the reptiles talk dirty and of the need for discipline ...

Well it's not rubber or leather, but cotton wool always comes in handy when nattering "Ned" gets going ...

Is it possible to imagine anyone more tedious, and more silly, than nattering "Ned" quoting Gorgeous George?

That here, but quickly waiter, another Pope cartoon for the pond if you please ...

Ah that's better ...

You see, the pond has already noted that nobody outside the barking mad fundamentalists in the Liberal party and the Murdochian reptiles of Oz give a toss, but just for the sake of completeness, it'll do it again .....

It could all be over in a nanosecond, but the bigots won't have it, and old jellyback doesn't have a spine.

And now it's back to DJ "Ned" to spin the platters and platitudes that matter ...

It's remarkable how the bleeding obvious, the over-riding of the poisoned chalice, turns into a trauma for cackling geese of the nattering "Ned" kind ... but then we've been here before with the clunkers and the poisoned chalices ...

Will someone give this hysterical queen of the Neddy kind a slap across the chops? 

The consequences would be immense but unpredictable? Allowing a few gays to get married and carry on with normal lives would be immense yet unpredictable?

Well yes, it would be immense for them, but given what's happened in other parts of the world, the consequences have been entirely predictable and dull. People get married, people get divorced, and life goes on ... and nattering "Ned" keeps on droning ...

Of course there's a worse fate for Malware than having the animosity of the conservative wing unleashed on him ....

What if he was made to read a nattering "Ned" piece without benefit of, or recourse to, a series of cartoons by the blessed Pope, or perhaps, at another time, a series of relieving Rowes?

Well the strategy worked this time, and the pond made it to the bitter, tedious end, whereby a call for vision and leadership becomes yet another tedious cry for reactionary, blinkered thinking ...

But it also meant that the pond made it to the Pope cartoon du jour, with more papal pleasures here ...

Ah, back in the day, the Australasian Post passed for deep and richly rewarding reading in the pond's Emoh Ruo pad in Tamworth, and towards the back could reliably be found a Ken Maynard cartoon. 

The pond took it as a form of neo-realism or photo-realism, and so became aware of the homosexual aspects of Australian male culture, which saw them bond together in sweaty singlets in their own peculiar tiled saunas ... and imbibe pagan golden brew together before breaking down and sobbing and hugging each other, with the mating cry of "mate, mate" echoing off the tiles ...before lurching into the night together to do who knows what ...

No wonder nattering "Ned" and other conservatives worry about the number of gays there are in the land ...

Yes, you were more likely to find a dog in the pub than a woman in those deeply homoerotic days ...