What a relief it is to get to the end of the week, and leave the reptiles alone, and go to the real pond heartland, the Speccie mob …
The pond is determined not to rest until the entirety of the reptiles are locked away behind a totally rigid, unbending and unyielding paywall. It might mean taking in only the rubbish second tier, but whatever it takes, the pond's mission is to get all the reptiles out of sight …not a reptile shall be sighted parading the intertubes for free!
That said, fair's fair, they need a break and the pond needs a treat, and what joy, their man Flint has gone to Washington …
That said, fair's fair, they need a break and the pond needs a treat, and what joy, their man Flint has gone to Washington …
Did he go in search of Mr Deeds?
Of course not, he went in search of monarchs and emperors …
First there was the obligatory forelock tugging and bowing and scraping to the emperor Donald ...
Indeed, indeed, the pond knows exactly what good old Flinty is blathering about …
But now that dreadful Mueller, of doubtful integrity, has been impugned and put in his place, it's time to get on with the urgent business of the day … bestowing knighthoods hither and yon, and bringing their man Flint's insights to Washington in the manner of a Nigel ...
Nigel? It would be remiss of the pond not to seize the moment to run a Bell or two, and note that it's possible to sound a Bell at the Graudian here …
But mention of Nige and knighthoods shouldn't distract from the main task … bringing monarchy and emperors back to Washington ...
The depth and the vision is astonishing, and the pond bitterly regrets the delusional behaviour of the United States.
If only they'd installed emperors in Afghanistan and Iraq and in many other locales, how much better the world would be …
Luckily they now have their own emperor, who has confessed a certain desire to match Xi in the longevity stakes …
And now for a line that only their man Flinty could deliver with appropriate aplomb ...
Did anyone else delight in the line?
I was honoured to be a guest at an investiture dinner marking the anniversary of the Ethiopian victory in the Battle of Adwa in 1896 …
Good old Flinty … in that noble battle, the Kingdom of Italy was defeated - damn you useless European monarchs - with implications for all the assorted Kingdoms of Europe …
After the victory over Italy in 1896, Ethiopia acquired a special importance in the eyes of Africans as the only surviving African State. After Adowa, Ethiopia became emblematic of African valor and resistance, the bastion of prestige and hope to thousands of Africans who were experiencing the full shock of European conquest and were beginning to search for an answer to the myth of African inferiority … (Greg Hunt the link for the footnotes)
Bring back the emperor, kick all the whites out of Africa, and never mind the mutton Dutton and his worry that no one's thinking about the farmers … Flinty is solid with the post-colonialists …
Oh it's good, it's so good, to be back with the Speccie mob ...
And so to recent notes on the heroic deeds of the American emperor …
"Oh it's good, it's so good, to be back with the Speccie mob ..."
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely, DP. There's just nobody in the herpetarium who can compete with the infantile inanities and juvenile insanities of a Flinty or an Auty. I'm delighted to see that Flinty does, really and truly, believe in the Queen of Sheba. I await further thrilling revelations of similar manic fantasies.
I found Flinty's praise of the constitutional systems suggested or imposed in the post-Ottoman Middle East particularly perceptive. They have proven themselves effective and enduring.
ReplyDeleteHi Dorothy,
ReplyDeleteHow surprising to discover Flinty is such a keen follower of Haile Selassie. Who would have guessed that behind that prissy facade was an unapologetic Rastafari, ‘toking on Ganja’ in order to reach ‘Cosmic Consciousness’ and become closer to Jah (God).
As the Bible says, “Thou shalt eat the herb of the field” (Genesis 3:18), “Eat every herb of the land” (Exodus 10:12) and “The herb is the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22:2).
As a musical accompaniment to Flinty’s embrace of the ‘Holy Herb’ here’s Bob Marley and “War”.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4XHEPoMNP0I
The lyrics are almost entirely derived from Haile Selassie’s speech to the U.N. in 1963.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_(Bob_Marley_song)
DiddyWrote
:), great fun DW, long may the Holy Herb and our man Flinty rule ...
DeleteSo colour of skin should be no more important than colour of eyes (or colour of hair come to that but Bob didn't mention hair colour).
DeleteBeing blue-eyed myself, I've always been just a weensy bit interested in Jane Elliott and her investigative work.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Elliott
Perhaps the thing is that it's basically clan and tribe that count - even a 'dark skin' (or brown eyes) can be ok if they are accepted as a member of the clan and tribe. Like, for instance, is Usain Bolt now a member of the Aussie Tribe ?
As to the ganja, many, many years ago (back about when the 'war on drugs' was starting to warm up) I remember reading an article in a Melbourne newspaper which inverted the societal positions of cannabis and alcohol.
The season's crop of new cannabis was just in with subtle variations between the plantings and which plants came from the sunny norther slope and what lovely differences that made to the scent of the smoke etc etc.
Compared with that appallingly evil alcohol consumed in an evil drink called wine and how the government was taking steps to remove this abomination from our lives to protect the young folk.
It made a good read. As does Jane Elliott.
Flinty is beginning to lose his shit completely, I think. That free-association word salad makes me think he was going for Allen Ginsberg but finished up Foul Ole Ron.
ReplyDeleteAny day now, one of his articles will graduate from utter stupidity into complete incomprehensibility. Buggrit! Millennium hand and shrimp!
Somehow I never did get round to reading much Pratchett. Though I did enjoy 'Only You Can Save Mankind' and especially the inclusion of the wreck of the very last 'Space Invaders' space ship - that being the very first and basically the only, computer game I ever played.
DeleteWell, except for a lot of 'Patience' (aka 'Solitaire' as it's known to Windoze), of course.