It was a nice try by the lizard folk … bringing climate science to the fore, with a cry of "won't someone think of the cricket and the golf" …or perhaps the footy, though the notion that it's possible that anything could kill footy addiction in Melbourne is up there with stopping rabbits from breeding or removing blackberries from the land …
'Which team does the pond back?' was always the incessant question, only to get a glazed look when the pond confessed to a soft spot for the manly Keith Dunstan All-Stars 18 ...
But nothing, certainly not turf sports, was going to stop the pond, and its recent unhealthy plunge into perversion … which is to say that today is Speccie day, and the pond anxiously scanned the contents, and lo and behold, there was good old Giles …
Talk about a Friday winner ...
Forget your assault on Hollywood feminism, forget your Helen o'dale asserting the right of pollies to screw in private, walk past Danby being comfortably numb about Netanyahu … do not pass go, just collect your Giles and motor on, all the way to Spain if you feel up to high adventure …
The pond knew it was right and just and so for a Friday frolic … just look at the key note illustration at the top right, and the way it established the mood and the resonance …
By Grabthar's hammer, by the sons of Warvan, Giles was ready to smite mightily, and the pond knew the smoting would be good …
Every line is a pungency of perfection.
Who else but Giles could observe that good old Barners "at least appeared in recent times to have done" in relation to cheating on his wife …
At least appeared?
And then there was lurking post-modernism and alphabet suits and Catholicism and hordes of progressives, and the pond felt no need to comment, but just pull down an off-the-rack suit, or perhaps a Rowe … with anyone wanting tailored Rowe heading off here in lieu of a Singapore tailor …
And so back to Giles, and berating that dreadful Karl, and that terrible SSM, which is all his fault, and Holly and Polly having a jolly time ...
At first the pond wondered if it should mock the elderly, but then began to think …
Perhaps Giles was right. Perhaps the Donald is an historic cog in the Marxist ideological machine with the overall aim of bringing Western civilisation to its knees …
Perhaps he was spot on with 'The overall aim'? Perhaps he'd understood the overall picture ...
But Giles was just getting fully wound up, with a healthy dose of Catholicism of the old school in the air and many threats, dangers, fears, phobias and perils to be exposed… especially "utterly unsuitable people" …which is as polite a way of talking as could possibly be imagined in Toad Hall ...
Yes, everything is in ruins, and Islamics are everywhere, and the Chinese have taken over the fish market, and somehow that reminds the pond of taking the back road up to Hanging Rock in the 1960s in the middle of the night, with hail falling and a tree across the steep dirt track, and all at once the pond knew that it was Franco's fault, and had to sedate good old mater so we could make it to the Nundle pub in a timely way…
What's that you say, there's the pond, off and rambling again in an incoherent way, down memory lane as the batteries begin to go flat?
Well at least the pond can ramble off to Pope for a proper encyclical, with more sage advice of the Roman kind available here …
And in the meantime, if anyone complains about this Friday entertainment, they clearly are not intellectual in the best Giles sense of the word …
I watched the senate estimates when Senator Cameron asked for the name of Senator Cash's media advisor and if they were drawn from other liberal party office holders and he was not threatening in tone at all. She chose to then go into melt down and slander Bill Shorten and his office staff. So for Turnbull try to blame Cameron for her outburst is another example of Turnbull overreach.
ReplyDeleteThe lengths that this government will go to slander Bill Shorten is reprehensible and shows how desperate they are to hang onto government. When this government goes it will be seen as lost opportunity where we could have recovered from the financial collapse of 2008 to be a better country.
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ReplyDeleteAmong other things Auty laments the loss/absence of quality public intellectuals and points to Quad-RANT magazine as being (perhaps) the only place in Australia where you can now find them. What a hoot! Most of the essays featured on the Quadrant online website are pathetic, and the comments section is little more than a pond whether deranged dimwits demonstrate their narrow minded provincialism.
ReplyDeleteNever mind too that Auty is little more than a deranged dimwit too. And dosn't he prove that via the "quality" (sic) of the other deranged dimwits who scribble for the Oz Spectator.
The image/logo that heads up his column reveals much about him too. As though one can discern the truth about any and everything by wielding a sledge hammer. At another level hasn't global capitalism demolished or smithereened every form of traditional culture, include "catholicism" too. In the case of the kind of "catholicism" that Auty promotes, one must say thank "God" for that - well done!
Oh come on, Anony, "capitalism" is nothing but a rebranded Catholicism.
DeleteYou may recall when Gutenberg got his self-assembly Chinese mail order two dimensional printer up and running that apart from a few pop-phil works such as 'The Game and Playe of Chess' (which was actually the 2nd book printed by another mail-order customer, William Caxton) the great majority of the early printed books were self-help DIY works (eg on such topics as: How to Feed and Breed Pigs, How to Make a Thatched Roof).
Only one organisation grasped the true place of the printed page: the Catholic Church which, replacing very slow writing clergy, could quickly produce, and sell, cartloads of indulgences and pardons for the sins of the bedevilled citizens (some 'inspired creative destruction' there). A triumph of mass production marketing.
Which annoyed the German nobility no end (the peasants didn't have enough money left after purchasing their indulgences - even the 'whole family discount' ones - to pay taxes and levies to their lords and masters. It also got Martin Luther a bit worked up too.
So you can see, mate, that "capitalism" was simply a rebranded "catholicism". And it was only when the likes of Marx got ideas way above his peasant station that the Roman Catholic Church had to weigh in against that rivalry.
Those first three paras are quality work, which the Caterist should study if he wasn't too busy grifting for another cheque for the Commonwealth Grants committee.
ReplyDeleteI predict Giles' next story will runs something like this:
We can't bust heads like we used to, but we have our ways. One trick is to tell 'em stories that don't go anywhere - like the time I caught the ferry over to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for my shoe, so, I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. "Give me five bees for a quarter," you'd say.
My story begins in nineteen-dickety-two... We had to say "dickety" because the Kaiser had stolen our word "twenty". I chased that rascal to get it back, but gave up after dickety-six miles. Ah, there's an interesting story behind that nickel. In 1957, I remember it was, I got up in the morning and made myself a piece of toast. I set the toaster to three: medium brown...Now where were we? Oh yeah: the important thing was I had an onion on my belt, which was the style at the time. They didn't have white onions because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...
Three wars back we called Sauerkraut "liberty cabbage" and we called liberty cabbage "super slaw" and back then a suitcase was known as a "Swedish lunchbox." Of course, nobody knew that but me. Anyway, long story short... is a phrase whose origins are complicated and rambling.
Truly aux bien pensants, FD
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