In which nattering "Ned" goes too far for talk of him merely shouting at clouds ...

The pond woke up to the garbled sounds of the ABC, assuring the pond that Barners had moved off the front pages, and there was catastrophic news about the right to lose money on the nags, fair and square …

The pond's first thought was to cry "Barners, why hast thou forsaken us? Is your squabble with the sandgropers the last Barners' news for the week?"

How foolish of the pond to listen to the ABC … an organisation which has degutted the world at noon, while simultaneously offering switch-off blather about human resource activities in companies …oh RN isn't the station it once was ...

You see, over at the lizard Oz, the Barners' industry continues apace, and as usual, nattering "Ned" is on the case, and in his usual way, "Ned" has produced an apocalyptic crisis from Barners' bonking …

It's the business of "Ned" to discern the end of the world in a grain of sand … but this time he goes over the hill and far away, so that the pond's usual talk of him shouting at clouds - perhaps with a Simpsons cartoon - simply isn't up to the job.

In his spare time, the pond suspects "Ned" pours over endless charts and graphs to discover the end times and the conservative rapture …

And so to the revelation of the day, and nattering "Ned's" shocking discovery of the crisis in conservatism …

The pond makes no apology for going to nattering "Ned" first, for he is indeed first amongst the reptiles… where else is it possible to read about Barners' as a Shakespearian tragedy?

Some might think it's just a rather traditional and typical Tamworth yarn.

A rustic lad, following outmoded practices approved by Rome, indulges in a bonk without proper protection, and scores a bub… so it's gone since the town began, and so it will continue ...

Not so for Ned, with his chatter of the artificial, enticing world of power ...

...He would be kept deputy PM: 
How that might change his nature, there's the question. 
It is the bright day that brings forth the adder; 
And that craves wary walking. Keep him deputy PM?--that;-- 
And then, I grant, we put a sting in him, 
That at his will he may do danger with. 
The abuse of greatness is, when it disjoins 
Remorse from power: and, to speak truth of Barners, 
I have not known when his affections sway'd 
More than his reason. 
Apart from one magic Tamworth moment
But 'tis a common proof, 
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder, 
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face; 
But when he once attains the upmost round. 
He then unto the ladder turns his back, 
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base Tamworthian degrees 
By which he did ascend. So Barners may. 
Then, lest he may, prevent. And, since the quarrel 
Will bear no colour for the thing he is, 
Fashion it thus; that what he is, augmented, 
Would run to these and these extremities: 
And therefore think him as a serpent's egg 
Which, hatch'd, would, as his kind, grow mischievous, 
And kill him in the shell.

Or some such thing. Beware the ides of March.

The parallels with Julius Caesar are so enormous the pond has in the past hesitated to mention them, but thanks to nattering "Ned" it is at last out in the open …

And now to killing him in the shell, or at least at the clambake …

Oh the hand-wringing, oh the fear, oh the crisis, as the onion muncher and Barners and other rough beasts slouch towards Canberra …and only "Ned" is on hand to note the hydra-headed populist monster ...

Now the pond can sense a few sceptics might just be muttering "Barners is a typically Tamworthian naughty boy … don't get your knickers in a knot … there's plenty more where he came from", but when he's on a portentous roll about doom and gloom and signs and portents and omens, there's no stopping "Ned", always ready to go the full chicken little ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, does anyone at the lizard Oz ever suggest that "Ned" destroy his kidneys in a traditional Australian way?

  

Momentous cultural shifts?

The cult of victimisation? Now Barners is a victim for giving it a good Tamworth go?

The progressive vanguard? Because teachers and priests are certainly not in a power imbalance.

Etc, etc, and endlessly etc?

Routinely "Ned's" seemingly infinite capacity for hysteria reduces the pond to a state of numbed silence. Or perhaps a single ejaculation.

Sheesh …

Well for those who don't want to risk a kidney, the pond suggests a daily dose of papal wisdom, with a regular supply of a tablet a day available here …