In which the pond sheds a tear for the onion muncher, but stays true ...

Dammit, the pond could feel a tear welling in its eye, and a heartfelt song on its lips ...

Say good-bye, my own true lover, as we sing a lover's song
How it breaks my heart to leave you now the carnival is gone
High above the dawn is waking, Sam the man is breaking,
and my tears are falling rain, 
for the carnival is over, we may never meet again. 
Like a drum my heart was beating, and your kiss was sweet as wine
But the joys of love are fleeting, for Pierrot and Columbine ...

No, never!

This will not stand, the pond will need more than a mere Bolter's unctuous, uxorious farewells before it takes the onion muncher off its banner ...

Who to blame for where we've reached? Well yesterday the oscillating fan was out and about in his usual mendacious, malicious way celebrating the deeds of the assassin ...

Sensing that soon it would be Friday, the pond could feel a poem or perhaps a speech coming on ...

Friends, steak and kidney siders, countrymen, lend me your ears; 

I come to bury the onion muncher, not to praise him. 

The evil that men do lives after them; 

The good is oft interred with their bones; 

So let it be with the onion muncher. The noble Malware 

Hath told you the onion muncher was ambitious: 

If it were so, it was a grievous fault, 

And grievously hath the onion muncher answer'd it. 

Here, under leave of Malware and the rest-- 

For Malware is an honourable man; 

So are they all, all honourable liberal men-- 

Too many women in the cabinet and then were would we be? -

Come I to speak in the onion muncher's political funeral. 

He was my friend, faithful and just to me: 

And he did wonders for the NBN

But Malware says he was ambitious, and much loved copper; 

And Malware is an honourable multinodal man. 

He hath brought many HFC connections home to steak and kidney siders 

Whose monthly ransoms did the general coffers fill: 

Did this in the onion muncher seem ambitious? 

When that the poor have cried about their connectivity, the onion muncher hath wept: 

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: 

Yet Malware says he was ambitious; 

And Malware is an honourable man. 

You all did see that on the Manly corso I thrice presented him a kingly crown, 

Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? 

Oh sure he handed out a few knighthoods, but not to himself

And if that came later, why he would have had no choice but to accept

Yet Malware says he was ambitious; 

And, sure, he is an honourable man. 

I speak not to disprove what Malware spoke, 

But here I am to speak what I do know. 

You all did love him once, not without cause: 

How many others could eat an onion in such style?

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him? 

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts, readers of the lizard Oz

And men have lost their reason

And let us not speak of women, because Milo has decided they have pricks

Bear with me; My heart is in the coffin there with the onion muncher 

And I must pause till it come back to me

Or perhaps I'll just jump in and never be heard from again ...

Whatever. Sad.

Okay, the pond is clearly bored, but to resume the main topic, which is the role the reptiles play in the ongoing war between the onion muncher and Malware, with the reptiles still clearly yearning for the beloved onion muncher.

The pond would like to note this day's curiosity, a minor yet in its own way splendid example of the perverse reptile sub-editor's art ...

Nota bene the cawing Crowe's splash for the day ...

See how it's not too subtly skewed to blame it all on Malware?

All roads lead to Caesar's Rome and all recriminations lead to the PM, and it's hardly the fault of the bigoted homophobes still unhappy at having lost?

Now some splashes - of the oscillating fan kind above - are hard to skew, and for a nonce, it would seem hard, even wrong, to do it for the cawing Crowe, because this is what google turns up for the very same story ...

Yes, the main intent was to celebrate some compelling words, but the sub-editor reached into the text and plucked from it an angle designed to maintain the reptile war on Malware ...

You see, that's how the story was headlined ...

And the story itself was pretty much a non-event, bland, head-counting stodge, with a 'rally the ranks' call of the savvy Savva kind:

You see?

The cawing Crowe was actually suggesting caution and a cauterising of the lasting pain, and proposing that perhaps there should be fewer blame games ... 

But he ended with the wise note that this advice might fall on deaf ears ...

And sure enough the deaf-eared Oz sub-editor determined to produce click bait and wring controversy from a majority vote in favour of an opinion confirmed by many, many surveys, including a very expensive postal opinion poll, ended up with a header celebrating recriminations ...

Blake suggested that it was possible to find heaven, the universe, or something very big, in a grain of sand, and the pond thinks it's possible to find the reptile mind set in a single headline.

If the pond may be so bold, just let the whole SSM thing go, reptiles. If that's your demographic, it's not going to do much for your business plan. Young folk don't care and the old fogies are on the way out.

The Bolter has let the onion muncher go, and grieve if you must, but delight in fresh possibilities, new areas for ravaging Malware ...

Sure, Sam the man has bitten the dust, and there'll be some fun playing the game they played in The Man Who Would Be King, but now the banks have given Malware a headache, and he's risen magnificently to the challenge.

Talk about eating humble pie, talk about munching on crow, and smiling all the while with delight at the lavishness of the spread ...

And where are you reptiles? Still sobbing over the delinquent hard right and the long lost onion muncher roaming the Manly corso like a ghostly spirit and talking of recriminations ...

And so to a cartoon which irresistibly reminded the pond that of late the Oreos in the lizard Oz have been in frustratingly short supply ...

Meanwhile ...