In which the pond derives much holyday cheer from the reptiles at play over the break ...

The pond confesses to having taken looks at the herpetarium over the holyday break just to make sure things were okay in reptile la la land ... and what do you know, there was Milo amongst the best of 2017.

What, no room for prattling Polonius, nattering "Ned", the bromancer or the dog botherer or all the other valiant contributors to the lizard Oz during the year? These wretches were amongst the worst of 2017, and Milo was the best?

Of course it all got a little silly when the reptiles realised there was a follow-up story doing the rounds ...

Those who read the story outside a paywall, as at the Graudian here, were beguiled with wonder that Simon and Schuster should have ever commissioned a ratbag deemed useless even by Breitbart ... let alone the cultural cringe that saw the reptiles down under fawn all over him in a way that was beyond unseemly ...

Among other criticisms, the publisher’s notes say Yiannopoulos needed a “stronger argument against feminism than saying that they are ugly and sexless and have cats” and that another chapter needs “a better central thesis than the notion that gay people should go back in the closet”....

The tone is set in notes on the prologue to the manuscript. Ivers writes to Yiannopoulos: “Throughout the book, your best points seem to be lost in a sea of self-aggrandizement and scattershot thinking,” and adds: “Careful that the egotistical boasting … doesn’t make you seem juvenile.”

The early sections of a chapter on feminism prompt the note: “Don’t start chapter with accusation that feminists = fat. It destroys any seriousness of purpose.” Yiannopoulos goes on to criticise contemporary feminism as “merely a capitalist con-job – a money-grab designed to sell T-shirts to Taylor Swift and Beyoncé fans with asinine slogans”. “Um … like your MILO SWAG?” the editor responds...

And so on and on and on for a correspondent deemed amongst the lizard Oz's 'year's best' ...

Meanwhile, the reptiles were obsessing over African gangs and the killing ways of a drug-addled fruitloop of the Islamic kind - incidentally adding to the pond's sad track record in relation to Melbourne, having previously driven into town on the day of the Queen street massacre, and then taking up residence in a house next to the lane where the Hoddle Street assassin was caught ...

The dog botherer was inconsolable ...

 

The pond felt like reaching out to the dog botherer. 

Surely drug-addled, fuck-witted lone wolf terrorists haven't yet achieved the body count that the dog botherer had managed while cheering on and enthusiastically doing his best in the Iraq war?

Inevitably there was chorus of fear, and the pond had to resist getting out the white feather yet again ...

Indeed, indeed. Surely the war in Iraq and the reduction of Syria to a rubble and an endless war in Afghanistan was designed to fix everything ... and no doubt the Donald will yet manage to fix everything ...

But the crusades shouldn't distract from other important dog botherer business. What to say about someone who talks of a "secret" and the ABC and guilt, as if writing a piece for True Confessions?

"Pathetic" springs to mind, it being an old pond saw that whenever someone offers a header like My guilty ABC secret, they're likely to be guilty of an unseemly amount of crap ...

Another reliable stayer over the break was prattling Polonius, who managed to be as boring as a test match in Melbourne ...

The pond would have been more impressed, except that Polonius also included this story ...

Hmm, no doubt as a stout-hearted defender of the Catholic church, Polonius would see nothing wrong with the Donald backing a rogue politician with a fixation on teenage girls ... isn't that what religion is all about?

Not so, shrieked the loyal Shanners ...

Was there a note of regret and sadness in that "The church just isn't the same"? A yearning for the good old days ...the Latin mass and a fiddle behind the altar?

Meanwhile, the reptiles outsourced some of their seasonal silliness ...

Indeed, indeed, and look at this in the Vatican museum ... where's the fig leaf?

Inevitably there was also time to brood about identity politics, because angry old white men shouting at clouds is an identity that 's under threat ...

Indeed, indeed, because a longing for inclusiveness is apparently completely incompatible with democracy ...

Thankfully Polonius, with his usual infallibility was on to something, and it was the Donald who dominated the season ...

The reptiles were particularly agitated about Lorde ...

Indeed, indeed. Thank the long absent lord that the Donald doesn't have to learn about Russia ... he just has to learn about Xmas ...

 

The pond felt instantly vindicated.

A fight to reclaim Xmas!

The reptiles lathered themselves into a state of high anxiety, about the X in Xmas and the Donald's determination to say Merry Xmas ... and only a split screen could capture the revolving fortunes at the top of the digital edition ...

Merry Christmas?

What the fuck happened to Merry Xmas?

Christ has gone missing? Why not sell him off to Disney?

The talk of Xmas felt curiously redundant as the comedians endlessly tweeted video footage of the Donald wishing people "happy holydays" ... and Ivanka in disgrace because of her wittering tweeting...

As usual, when wars get going, there's always a third rate mind ready to get on the bandwagon, and so the Caterists were on hand ... flinging the pond into an agony of doubt wondering if "third rate" was too generous in the holyday spirit way ...

It took a moment for the pond to realise why the Caterists were so happy about Xmas ... but after a nanosecond, it realised that soon enough there'd be another generous deposit in the Caterist Xmas stocking ...

A happy new year and a new grant for everyone ...

Finally over the break the reptiles spent a good deal of time celebrating the Donald ... even if they had to outsource some of it ...

  

Indeed, indeed, so many achievements already by the moron and his minions...

And such a year to look forward to ...

And then yesterday, suddenly the holyday season was over, and the reptiles were back to the usual business ...

Rambling spewman on breaking Queensland, Moorice on the devious Chinese, and the Oreo fearing for the enlightenment, and not a word about the joys of the Donald?

Oh there'll be time for that, plenty of time for that ...