In which the pond can't resist shuffling off for a late serve of scintillating Sharri ...

Dammit, there was no way that the pond was going to give up its Friday serve of Sharri, especially as that talk of reshuffling the deck of the Titanic had an eerie echo at the Terror, or at least as explained by Amanda Meade at the Graudian here ...

The Terror has of late embarked on a series of hagiographic celebrations about the way that the state government has been fucking over Sydney, which meant that talk of actual political reporting came as a complete surprise, and doing publicity work seemed like a much better job prospect ...

Losing the New South Wales state political reporter Andrew Clennell was a big blow to the Daily Telegraph, which relies on a stream of stories from the bureau to fill its pages. Clennell chose to follow former editor Paul “Boris” Whittaker to the Australian and take on the role of NSW political editor for the national broadsheet. Clennell is a big news breaker and has picked up several Kennedy awards for outstanding political reporting. Unfortunately for the Tele editor, Chris Dore, Clennell’s departure in turn led to two more reporters from Macquarie Street quitting. Miles Godfrey resigned to work for the NSW government and Jason Tin quit for a well-paid job with the Sydney Airports Corporation. This has left the Tele’s crucial state bureau with a staff of … none. Dore is said to have approached Chris O’Keefe from Nine, Fairfax’s Heath Aston, and Geoff Chambers, Canberra bureau chief for the Australian, to fill the gaping hole but has had no takers. Macquarie Street veterans tell Weekly Beast they can’t remember another time when the Tele has been left so short in the political arena.

Actually the pond can't remember when it read an actual balanced political report in the Terror, but do go on ...

Clennell is not the first News Corp journo to jump between mastheads. Ever since Whittaker was appointed in December 2015 and his successor at the Tele, Dore, moved from the Courier-Mail to edit the Sydney tabloid, the two have been engaged in what is politely known as a pissing contest. This particular form of warfare is common at News Corp and was played by Chris Mitchell when he was editor-in-chief of the Australian and his successor at the Courier, David Fagan, for many years. Since Dore arrived he has lured Sharri Markson from the Oz to join him on the Tele. In turn Whittaker took his chief of staff Gemma Jones with him to the Oz and hired Nick Tabakoff to rejoin the Oz.

There you go, sharp-eyed Sharri scoring a MID, so naturally the pond plunged in ...

For this they robbed Sharri from the lizards of Oz? 

Though the pond has every hope that Malware follows the Sharri strategy. The pond hadn't thought Barners had much chance of losing New England -  to Tamworth's eternal shame - but this sort of monkey business might be just enough to tilt the balance ...

Now it's time for one of those great Terror graphics ...

Ah, it's a gorgeous George strategy. That guarantees it's a winner. Now we've done the graphic, can we show prognosticating Sharri?

Oh that's bold, though the pond gets a sense of where the picture editor is coming from ...

There's nothing like a little Cocteau, unless it's more scintillating Sharri ...

Indeed, indeed, and let's not forget the most important ritual of all ...

Didn't work? Quick fling some more Sharri insights at it ...

Oh it all sounds terribly jolly hockey sticks and a fine re-arranging of the chairs, and never mind the need for ritual sacrifices ...

Be still blithe spirit, Sharri is still shuffling bodies ...

Do nothing? After all the Sharri speculation, do nothing?

Why was the pond surprised? Though perhaps in a multi-nodal way they could have been linked by copper cable to take the country to the next innovative level ...

However around this point, the pond will confess that it began to get a little bored, and snuck some sneak looks at the comments in the Graudian ...

Ah that felt better, so it was back to Sharri for another gobbet...

Sweet gibbering delusion ...a clean slate? Start afresh? Can we have a copper-clad guarantee with that?

And so to Sharri's explanation of how SSM went wrong.

It didn't start with John Howard and his cabinet, and it certainly didn't involve the onion muncher ... apparently it was all Julia Gillard's fault ...

Sweet astonishing nonsense. Sharri proposes that Malware discover his spine and become a trailblazer and do something revolutionary and show Julia Gillard wot's wot, and they put up that photo of Malware?

The pond is certain there's a mole inside the Terror taking the piss out of Sharri and Malware and all the rest of the nonsense the rag indulges in ...

Speaking of which, rather than another cartoon, here's a few more comments from the Graudian, with plenty more to be found by following the link ...