In which, no thanks to the Caterists, the pond sets sail with Capt'n Flint hisself ...

It's impossible to imagine the pond's shock and consternation, how absolutely befuddled it was by the befuddling news ...

The Spectator's brave, stout-hearted local lads forced to drop a half mil to end a defamation case, and the future of the rag is now in doubt?

While there's no need to repeat the defamation - easily googled - the pond was reminded by the Currish Snail that a Caterist was involved ...

Dearie me, the Caterist is in a right old pickle, and the stout-hearted, brave British lads forgot Rorke's Drift and folded, and now, confronted with these sorts of stories in the lizard Oz on a Friday ...

 

Et tu Swiss bank account man?

... and this sort of hard left pinko pervert banter by the reptiles of Oz ...

... is it any wonder that the pond has increasingly come to rely on the Speccie for its TGIF lunchtime relief? And now it might all be in peril?

Imagine then the heart-stopping moment when the pond saw the word "cancelled" hinted at in "This week's issue has been ..."

Luckily, the plucky, insouciant lads were only having a joke, British to the boot heel or boot toe or whatever other British part ...

They did remember Rorke's Drift, the brave, defiant lads, and instead of bad journalism cancelled, there's a joke about good government being canceled and another endless argument about one or two 'l's' to follow ...

Please, brave plucky lads, keep serving up delicious feasts for the mind, not least of the Flinty kind ...

But first, before we enjoy Capt'n Flint's company, a reading of Flinty's sacred text ...

"One at a time, one at a time," laughed Dr. Livesey. "You have heard of this Flint, I suppose?" 
"Heard of him!" cried the squire. "Heard of him, you say! He was the bloodthirstiest buccaneer that sailed. Blackbeard was a child to Flint. The Spaniards were so prodigiously afraid of him that, I tell you, sir, I was sometimes proud he was an Englishman. I've seen his top-sails with these eyes, off Trinidad, and the cowardly son of a rum-puncheon that I sailed with put back—put back, sir, into Port of Spain." (here in full)

... and so to a word on Flinty's language.

Who else but Capt'n Flint hisself could move so smoothly from "aux bien pensants" to "dat's a nice bottom", a riff on notions of "dat's a man with a gat", as a way of establishing that the Capt'n is down wit it?

Who dat? Dat be Capt'n Flint. Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints? Dat be Flinty, dat's who, showing, in his usual way, his extraordinary sensitivity to what it's like to be harassed sexually ...

Tricky that ... it wasn't so long ago that Flinty was rambling - or ranting - about the way the fix was in and the entire postal survey was incredibly corrupt and the results should be treated with profound suspicion ... 

When told that nearly 80 per cent of voters had returned their forms, he asked, “How many of them are genuine?” Flint then alleged that there were fraudulent enrolments on the electoral roll which will have inflated the Yes vote and that new enrolments in the lead up to the survey were not adequately vetted for legitimacy. He also said that postal survey forms could easily have been copied, despite the fact that survey forms are uniquely bar-coded and could not be scanned twice. “The voting form, which hasn’t even been initialled by an official, is easily copied,” he said. “So, when the bar-code is read, will it be determined in the presence of independent scrutineers whether this is the original or a copy?” (here for the full Flint).

Hmm, and now suddenly we're talking of the noble Swiss and how conservatives trust the knavish, foolish, corrupt, devious people intent on skewing the result with fraudulent activity ...?

"Come away, Hawkins," he would say; "come and have a yarn with John. Nobody more welcome than yourself, my son. Sit you down and hear the news. Here's Cap'n Flint—I calls my parrot Cap'n Flint, after the famous buccaneer—here's Cap'n Flint predicting success to our v'yage. Wasn't you, cap'n?"

Now Jim lad, sail back and celebrate a fraudulent referendum, its terms contrived to ensure defeat, with brave Capt'n Flint ...

Fairfax wouldn't publish a monstrously silly letter from Capt'n Flint hisself, even though the Capt'n be down wit dat New Orleans discourse?

Oh the shame, the infamy ... tar and feather that outrageous John Hewson ...

...all of a sudden, a shrill voice broke forth out of the darkness: "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!" and so forth, without pause or change, like the clacking of a tiny mill. Silver's green parrot, Captain Flint! It was she whom I had heard pecking at a piece of bark; it was she, keeping better watch than any human being, who thus announced my arrival with her wearisome refrain.

Well it wouldn't be a truly silly Flinty piece without some squawking about a crowned republic, as weird a juxtaposing antonym as any parrot might manage ...

And where would we be without a pompous ass, who tries to speak like a lord in his Queen's garters, blathering on about dangerous 'leets ... you know, the sort of pompous ass that talks of a "portfolio of indulgences" and imagines he's at one wit dat bunch of shearers taking a break in the shed ...

"Dead—aye, sure enough he's dead and gone below," said the fellow with the bandage; "but if ever sperrit walked, it would be Flint's. Dear heart, but he died bad, did Flint!" 

"Aye, that he did," observed another; "now he raged, and now he hollered for the rum, and now he sang. 'God Save the Queen herself' were his only song, mates; and I tell you true, I never rightly liked to hear it since. It was main hot, and the windy was open, and I hear that old song comin' out as clear as clear—and the death-haul on the man already."

..The bar silver and the arms still lie, for all that I know, where Flint buried them; and certainly they shall lie there for me. Oxen and wain-ropes would not bring me back again to that accursed Spectator; and the worst dreams that ever I have are when I hear the surf booming about its coasts or start upright in bed with the sharp voice of Captain Flint still ringing in my ears: "God save the Queen herself! God save the Queen herself, dat Queen be down wit it!"

Indeed, indeed, though  banishing the brave, stout-hearted Speccie lads seems a tad severe, even for good old RLS ...

Still the pond is happy to share in the sperrit ...

Well may we say, God, She of bountiful gifts, if it pleases, feel free to fuck Capt'n Flint ... oh and if She decides to take down the Speccie down under too, the pond will survive ... but please, think of the collateral damage for poncedom and ponces everywhere ...

And so to a Pope cartoon, observing despicable men doing despicable things, and not just to the NBN, with more papal encyclicals here ...