In which the pond flies too close to the reptile sun and the Major ...

A friend who happened to in an airport lounge this day was much taken by this shot of the Bolter in the tree-killer edition of the lizard Oz, drawing particular attention to the fawning dog on the right hand side, paw on master's opinionated leg …

The pond has already noted it, but you know how it is when friends think they're doing you a favour …

Thinking they were on a roll and helping out, they also forward the Major Mitchell for the day, given away for free if you happen to be an airport lounge, though paywall-protected to save the snowflake from the pond's barbs … or maybe from the laughter of all sorts …

At first the pond was pleased - after all, the pond is still waiting for the day the Major announces he's found that missing Order of Lenin medal, and it would be terrible to miss the day. 

But then the pond broke it down in to a couple of digestible gobbets and was bitterly disappointed …people can click on the image to enlarge if they want, but the pond sternly warns against this sort of foolishness.

Never fly too close to the sun, and if you must, always wear sunglasses ...

Yep, the major was still doing the old "channel the onion-muncher channelling the Donald" routine about the pesky, difficult furriners, as if keeping the Bolter's parents out was the way to sort out the crisis in opinionated journalism …

On and on he went, and as he went on, the scales fell from the pond's eyes and the heart sank ...

Is that all there is my friend? Is that why they give it away in airport lounges, so the 'leets might comfort themselves away from the common herd?

With the greatest will in the world, the pond didn't have the heart to tell the pond's friend it was a total bust and a total waste of time … especially as the pond's friend kept sending more gobbets designed to tempt and appeal.

But then came this effort and the pond realised it just had to draw the line …

The pond realises that Kim Carr is a goose and lost the argument the moment he broke Godwin's Law, but it eerily reminded the pond of the hagiographic excess that might be found in Germany or Russia in the 1930s …

Masochists can click to enlarge, but have they thought of being thrashed on the bottom by a magazine with the Donald on the front cover instead?

Oh put-leese, the Terror as a quality news outlet, as opposed to being a scurrilous tabloid of the bottom-feeding yellow press kind?

And these close-kissing cousins of Fox News are blathering on about fake news and media bubbles?

The sheer enormous cheek and gall of it.

The pond realises every reptile must make a living, but please, Dana McCauley, stop it, stop it now, for fear that you'll go blind ...

In the end, the only thing that came from the airport lounge which turned out to be useful was that you could see Moorice in florid colour, as if the man was accustomed to a life of good living …

Sadly the pond turned away … you could see Moorice online in colour too …

And truth to tell, it was just the same old Moorice in new digital packaging ...

Uh huh. What did the pond just say about Godwin's Law?

Now we have Big Brother and neo-fascism?

As always with Moorice there's a punchline coming, but first perhaps a little background …

A former stockbroker and merchant banker, Newman, then also the chairman of the ABC, was a newcomer to town, where he was in the process of spending $5.5 million on an 800-hectare pastoral estate. With its rich volcanic soil and proximity to Sydney - just three hours drive from Newman's home in Mosman, on the lower north shore - Crookwell had become a favourite among the Sydney-based squattocracy, barristers and businessmen who were swapping boardrooms for designer gumboots and Barbour jackets.

Naturally Moorice set about alienating the neighbours and banging on about wind farms and being legally unpleasant … it's all here, in Fairfax back in July 2014, including these other little cameos ...

...At 76, he is short, plumpish, and, despite his slicked-down comb-over, almost indecently hale, with a penchant for tailored suits and pin-striped business shirts, the pockets of which are monogrammed, very discreetly, with the letters "MLN" (for Maurice Lionel Newman).

...Newman has a personal fortune in the tens of millions of dollars. Yet he has never been flashy: his main indulgence is cars, and particularly BMWs. (He has visited the factory in Bavaria several times.)

...So towering is Newman's CV that it almost induces vertigo: he has served on the boards of banks and airlines, state government investment corporations, universities, tourism bureaus and ex-servicemen's associations. Like Zelig, he pops up everywhere: at the Sydney Cricket Ground (where he is a trustee); on the Taronga Zoo Foundation (executive patron and chair); the Australian Father's Day Council (chairman), and trade delegations (most recently to Asia, with Tony Abbott). In the late 1990s, he even headed up the federal government's Y2K industry forum. Like his old friend (and former prime minister) John Howard, Newman is crazy about cricket, and is chairman of the Sydney Sixes franchise and the Bradman Foundation. He was awarded a Companion of the Order of Australia for services to the financial sector in 2002.

So what's the rosebud that drives Moorice on?

...Newman scored another appointment last year, when Tony Abbott made him the head of his Business Advisory Council, a 12-person group that meets with the government three times a year. The announcement was intended as a sign of Abbott's pro-market stance. But it raised eyebrows within the Liberal Party, where, as one senator told me, "Maurice is not seen as a contemporary business leader." Some sections of business were similarly perplexed. "Maurice's career is good but not stellar," one retired senior banker says. "It goes to show what a person of relatively ordinary talent can achieve through application over a long period of time."

Say what?

Relatively ordinary talent…

Of course, one of the major reptiles in the swamp feels slighted and diminished and not held in proper esteem, and so thinks of himself as an outsider, rather than a multi-millionaire intricately at the heart of swamp management these past many years, bloated up like a feasting toad …

So there you go, vulnerable, aspiring Millennials …

You're getting screwed by an ancient who imagines he's too old to be a Baby Boomer … but when this famous climate scientist comes to have his work tested, maybe being screwed by a Baby Boomer will seem like the least of your worries …

Well that's the end of the pond's experiment with the tree-killer edition. It's like trying to deal with an intense flash of killer radiation … too much exposure in the delicate art of reptile-handling (always wear sunglasses!) and it might just be the end of the pond ...

And now a couple for the Major channeling the onion muncher channelling the Donald, as the Major heads off to work in an abattoir to show young, lazy layabouts how it's done …