In which the pond opens the mystery carton to find ...

Better to slip into this one slowly, with the help of the first bit of a First Dog cartoon …and the rest at the Graudian here …

The pond was on such a bromancer high yesterday that it spent the rest of the day in a daze watching Americans get into a state of high anxiety about the Donald and Vlad the impaler, and it didn't even realise that blogger would spit the dummy at a .png file …

So it goes … but then the pond maintained its high anxiety by wondering whether it might, in the morning, be remotely possible to match the essence of dottiness offered up by the bromancer (and duly noted by pond readers) ... perhaps with something that was so low and reprehensible that the smell of rotting fish might seem as fragrant as a rose …

Luckily there was a reptile waiting in the wings to answer the call, but first to establish the mystery …

Those hot links are inside Crikey for those who still visit the place, but it's a good starting point for wondering why the reptiles keep going with the Mocker.

First up, it's as low rent and as wretched as anonymous blogging and without even the excuse that a pseudonym might be required because of work implications. Presumably the Mocker has some connection with reputable journalism, yet here he is (assuming a he), putting the boot in behind a mask while all the other reptiles assume lordly airs and look down their noses at bloggers of the sordid, bottom-feeding pond kind, and such like …

He, assuming a he, could be anyone, even a tabloid hack flown in from other parts of the empire, but to be fair, it wouldn't be the Bolter. Say what you will about the Bolter, and the pond says it in very salty Tamworth language, he's out and proud in his bigotry and black bashing, and has no need to dub himself a mocker, and hide behind a mask.

If the Bolter's going to put the boot in, or join in a street rumble, he just gets out the baseball bat and has a bash.

As for the Devine, she's too busy saving the entire business plan of the Terrorists. As for Dame Slap, even she has more class …

No, it's likely that Crikey's tipster is right. The dog botherer is exactly the creepy sort of type that would think it was a lark. There's a lot of this sort of malicious furtiveness in Adelaide - the pond knows, it spent far too long there - and the dog botherer is deeply weird and nasty …

And so to this week's game (the pond had the previous week's bout of mockery as well, but felt too faint and weak to proceed) …

The first thing to understand is the rules, which is get them coming ... and then get them going.

Take your difficult pesky blacks. You see, if they live out in the wilds, they're useless and bludgers and little more than barbaric savages, bereft of the benefits of western civilisation, and deserve a good thrashing as a way of sorting them out. 

But if they lurk in the city and call themselves black, and put on fancy airs above their station, why then they're likely not black at all, and they're certainly uppity, and up themselves, and they deserve a good thrashing, to take them down a peg or two. That's the fun of the game, there's always a winner, and it's never the pesky difficult blacks.

You see how it's played, right from the get go … "two light-skinned, inner-city, tertiary-educated women who identify as Aboriginal" up against someone who's dinky di weathered black from the remote bush, the only location where genuine Aboriginal people live …

Now another handy part of the game is to take the ABC content and make it your own …

Well, the pond will only serve it up as an illustrative still … if you want to watch the sketch, it's here on Facebook ...

Oh they don't like it up 'em, do they Lance Corporal Jones?

And above all they don't have a sense of humour. It's truly funny to see a reptile get agitated by comedy. What do they make of the likes of Chris Rock?

That’s how Trump became president. We got rid of bullies. A real bully showed up and nobody knew how to handle him. Shit. The cast of The Apprentice is running the world. Trump, the daughter, Omarosa — they run the world, man. Yo, this shit is crazy. A lot of people are like, “Well, Trump’s a bad person. He’ll get his.” You know, some people never get theirs. Some people just fail up. People are like, “What goes around, comes around.” No, it don’t. Sometimes, it’s just keeps goin’ around. Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen to Trump. Nothing’s gonna happen to Trump. Here’s the crazy thing — it just might work out. Trump might work out. I said it. Trump might work out. Think about it this way. Bush was so bad, he gave us Obama. You forget that shit, don’t ya? Bush was so bad, people said, “Maybe this black guy has the answers.” I think people overlook George Bush’s contributions to black history. George Bush is a black revolutionary. Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, George Bush. They need to honor him at the Essence Festival. It might work out. Trump might work out. Bush was so bad, he gave us Obama. Trump’s so bad, he’ll give us Jesus. “Jesus, what you doin’ here?” “You seen Trump? This shit is serious.”

Sorry, the pond was distracted.

So how do you know your message is working? When you get comments like this …

Oh yes, it's well-documented, and around this time it's right to lead with another ploy, a well-worn tactic in the game.

It goes like this: damn those uppity blacks get all sorts of cash, oodles of it, and what an ungrateful lot they are, biting the hand that feeds them, snarling away like ungrateful pups … never mind all the Mocker and western civilisation have done for them.

Dumb as sticks, money thrust at them like it's going out of style, and do they tug the forelock and say humbly how grateful they are, and grovel at the Mocker's feet? No sirree, the cheeky devils ...

Ah so many ungrateful blacks, but speaking of stigmatising, how's the readership responding to a hearty bit of black bashing?

More fun than eel-bashing and you don't even need an axe handle, just a complacent, self-satisfied, smug keyboard at reptile HQ …

Oh that's pretty good, and now to another tested, proven gambit in the game.

It goes like this: it's a sure fire winner to evoke the many ways the blacks way back when were a pretty barbaric, primitive lot …

It goes without saying that they were completely uncivilised … unlike western civilisation, which conducted a couple of world wars and a holocaust in a very civilised way and with exemplary technology and advanced means of killing …

I mean, who amongst us would suggest that bombing civilians in London or Tokyo or Dresden or sundry other places was anything but exceptionally civilised?

What was the total on the tape in WWII? A humble 50 to 80 million?

By golly, those pesky difficult blacks have a lot to learn about civilised behaviour, the brutal heathens ...

Ignorant, primitive savages. Why the dog botherer did better getting the body count up in the Iraq war … but wait, what's that at the end?

Oh dear, we're back with Bill Leak. Strange how they brood, these reptiles … hows the readership hanging in?

It's true, it's true and the pond is sick of all this ad nausium nonsense when in reality Leak's cartons were just boxes of truth, cardboard cartons of course, but genuinely realistic cartons all the same ...

Well you won't be surprised to learn that the reptile readership was on song, and the pond has selected only a few at random to evoke the state of mind …

Well played, William E … you clearly know the rules of the game.

And now for the biggest laugh of all.

You see, in his sign off, the Mocker claims that he's "deeply suspicious of those who seek increased regulation of speech and behaviour"…

Wondrous, wonderful stuff for a portentous pompous ponce who's spent an entire column wanting to regulate speech and behaviour, and yet blathers about how he amuses himself by calling out poseurs and po-faced officials ...

True, it's been an easy game, as it's only involved difficult, pesky, uppity blacks, and everyone knows - or at least the Oz readership does - that they need discipline, and regularly have to be put back in place, or in a box, or out of sight, or off the air, or anywhere that they won't turn up and get the reptiles agitated …

But thanks for playing, because it's time for an end game which evokes the dog botherer at his finest...

High time she woke up to herself?

"High time" sounds a like a line from a fishmonger's wife in a Monty Python sketch.

The Mocker is so far, so deeply up himself, that for a minute, the pond even thought that he might be a moonlighting nattering "Ned", or perhaps a prattling Polonius seeking deep cover so that the Sydney Institute's anonymous donors would keep on giving …

But that final line, "he likes to provide a realist's perspective of politics and current affairs" struck a chord …

See the line in the lizard Oz's dog botherer profile …

Unashamedly rationalist v. a realist's perspective?

It's all horseshit of course, fine words designed to make fair average bigotry and black bashing seem noble and unremarkable …

What a creepy, weird man he is …

Of course they might be training up an intern to learn ways to ape the stylings of the resident bigots, but is this the sort of job you can leave to juniors?

Or could it be Blain? He sounds silly enough to deliver fine comedy stylings …

Nah, it's probably not a reader and the interns are more likely employed coming up with clever ways to show the reptiles enormous sense of humour and fun …

Oh, the pond can't leave it with that sort of downer, it's too much of a bummer dude …

Here, have a Pope, with more Pope here …