In which the pond does Devine and finds no Devine light of redemption ...

Poor deluded reptiles, pinning all their hopes for resurgence on a Devine recovery …as if a Devine light would bless them and redeem them …

Well the pond's rifler through the trifles of the airport lounges of life decided that the pond had endured a Devine drought for long enough, and kindly thought to send in the latest Devine, stashed by the Terrorists behind their paywall …

What did it reveal? Well, it was sad in a way, because the pond realised it had moved on from the Devine, just as at one time it had to cope with moving on from the magic water man …

Sure the pond regards it as a triumph that the Devine and the Bolter and others in the tabloid Murdochian world have been forced behind a paywall, and so excluded from general full to overflowing inter tubes conversations …

Insisting that they should still be included seems wrong … what is it with all this inclusiveness?

Sometimes, confronted by mad uncles or aunts, the only thing to do is lock them in the attic, and lock away the key ...

It's also a bit like the morning after, and seeing all the hair on the beast with which one has done the two backs. How quickly the mood flattens like a limp pancake ...

It turned out that the main thing the pond noted was the illustration, with its lashings of "PC" here and there … click on to get the full impact ...

The Devine was pretty the rhetorical same, with all the usual blather from the likes of Keith Windschuttle … and anyone wanting to ruin their day can click to enlarge and have a read ...

All the Devine managed to do for the pond was send it drifting back into a reverie, back into the good old days, when conservatives were actually hung ho for politeness, and nice speech, and good manners and courtesy, and seemly behaviour, and if not a bath or a shower, then at least a wipe behind the ears and a bit of toothpaste applied, and all the rest of it …

There's a promotional pdf for Mark McCrindle's Word Up, and a chapter on Manners in the 21st Century, here, which interalia contained this wondrous bit of memorabilia ...

How the pond loved it, and how remarkable it was to see that much established in Queen Victoria's time lasted right up to the 1960s ...

And the diligent McCrindle dug up other bits of business, including this, which suggests the rest of the book is an easy and informative read ...

Those were the days.

So why have the Devine and all the other conservatives of a certain fundamentalist stripe turned?

Why do they want to hurl insults and abuse people freely, and demean them and shame them and shout at them?

The pond suspects the explanation is simple enough.

In the old days, there were strict rules, but there were also safety valves. You could always call women witches, and you could always insult poofters in a colourful variety of ways, and your average fundamentalist tyke of the Devine kind misses those good old days and yearns for their return.

It was one thing when working class folk tugged the forelock and doffed the hat, but it's quite another thing to be nice to a scheming hustler or a bloody queer …or even worse, a tranny …

Does the Devine understand why she turned?

Alas and alack, that would require a level of personal reflection, understanding and insight beyond somebody whose main role is to stir shit …

In the old days, there was no tolerance for the Devine form of media shit-stirring. Even the gutter press yellow tabloids conducted their affairs in a much more seemly way … just have a gander at the papers in Trove - damn you Malware, damn you to hell for failing to treasure this epic national resource …

Yes, that was about as feisty as it got, damning people to perdition …

Well while the pond's doing over the Terror, it may as well offer this bit of 'fawning over Gladys' nonsense from a Terrorist who claims to be a refugee from New York ...

Yep, Gladys has found her voice in the fight …

So she can stupidly - and loudly - argue for knocking down a couple of stadia for a couple of billion dolla …

Did the Terrorists, with their love of thugby league and fancy boxes for the rich and the swamp dwellers get that one wrong?

You betcha, and Luke Who can't believe his luck …

And while we're doing it all - yes the pond can have it all - the airport lounge critter also snatched a snap of Dame Slap in full flight ...

Ouch … not just the Cash transaction, but the Peta principle?

That's the great thing about your average lizard fundamentalist … if you fail to demolish unionism and introduce Ayn Randism by Xmas, you too will feel the lash of Dame Groan's tongue …

The end result of this airport lounge pillaging? Well the pond is deeply conservative, and will return content to its narrow rut.

A few bits of reptile foolishness and then it's on to everything else, in the hope of redemption and managing to have a useful day after wasting the wee morning hours ...

And speaking of wasted nights, the pond is troubled at the thought that people might be missing the comedy offered by current events in the United States … like this cheeky little battle with the Nunes …

And if that's not an excuse to run a few Donald cartoons, then the pond has forgotten how to pivot on a cartoon dime …