In which nattering "Ned" gets the weekend reptile parade off to speedy start ...

Oh they were all out this weekend, promenading up and down in their finery, as cheeky and as insouciant as you like, and it will take the pond the entire weekend to deal with their works and deeds, albeit by just skimming the surface …

Strange in a way, usually in autumn, the cold-blooded reptiles settle down, but it's possibly the unseasonal warm weather that's keeping them skittish and jittery - not that the pond accepts the Chinese hoax, the pond hastens to add, as a way of avoiding adding to reptile anxieties …

In any parade, there should be a seemly order, and the moment the pond saw that nattering "Ned" had been honoured by a Lobbecke - a classic imitation of a mobile phone framing - it knew that "Ned" must lead off the parade.

There are several advantages - just as with the reptiles, the mere presence of the "Ned" ensures that the pond's business plan will be an epic failure, and sensible folk, incapable of enduring the tedium, will head out into the garden to look at flowers, or perhaps indulge in some mind-improving activity such as watching repeats of Batman on SBS … though if they do that, they might be reminded of the eerie resemblance between Adam West's style of acting and "Ned's" method manner of scribbling …

Also, a "Ned" outing is easy for the pond. Just crank it up, then sit back and watch how the tedium and ennui spreads like grey mist, or perhaps like the grey powder Tangreese that infests the planet in Sheckley's The Laxian Key …

It's also easy to establish the mood, a keening and a wailing, and a rubbing of hands, and sackcloth and ashes …

"We’ll all be rooned," said nattering "Ned"
In accents most forlorn 
Outside the Catholic Boys' Daily ere Mass began 
One frosty Sunday morn. 
The reptiles stood about, 
Coat-collars to the ears, 
And talked of 'leets and greenies and hideous progressives
As they had done for years.

And so to poetic "Ned" ...

"It’s lookin’ crook," said Ned with a croak; 
"Bedad, it’s cruke, me lad 
For never since the banks went broke 
Have the greenies been so bad." 
"Worse than locusts, all right," said a septuagenarian reptile, 
With which astute remark 
He squatted down upon his heel 
And chewed a piece of progressive bark.

Now rather than rely on a bit of poetry, the pond has also ordered in its usual supply of cartoons to help pass the journey in some degree of comfort …

Now it's back to the wailing "Ned" ...

Oh it's heart-breaking, it's ruinous, and a house divided cannot stand, and there's comrade Bill lurking in the shadows, or under the bed - children, avert your eyes …

Here, have a look at Unca Donald instead …

What? Still a little unnerved?

While round the church in clothes genteel 

Discoursed the reptiles of mark, 

And each lizard squatted on his heel, 

And chewed his piece of progressive bark. 

"There’ll be banking bush-fires for sure, me man, 

There will, without a doubt; 

We’ll all be rooned," said nattering Ned, 

"Before the year is out."

And so it came to pass, as if Ned himself had scribbled the poem, rather than John O'Brien, to whom the pond apologises profusely ...

Indeed, indeed, the pond has no idea where comrade Bill might have got his ideas from.

The pond can immediately rule out the onion muncher, whose praises are still being sung by reptiles across the land. Was there ever a less destructive politician and leader? Shame on you ABC, shame ...

And so to the remedies, the solutions, with "Ned" warming to his task ...

Oh please, pity the suffering rich …please, a moment's silence and a supplication ...

Confíteor Deo omnipoténti et vobis, fratres, quiz peccá vi nimiscogitatióne, verbo, ópere et omissióne, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea máxima culpa. Ideo precor beátam Maríam semper Vírginem, omnes Angelos et Sanctos, /et vos, fratres, oráre pro me ad Dóminum Deum nostrum.

There, that should console the suffering reptiles and the unhappy rich.

Perhaps a doubling of the dose of the cartoons as well?

 

What, still a trifle unnerved?

Never mind, it'll soon be over, though there's a final fit of wailing to be endured … 

For the long absent lord's sake, and for the sake of the reptiles and "Ned"and the suffering rich and the unhappy 'leets, can't we just give the banks and the big end of town the tax break they deserve, and so obviously have earned, and move along?

Look how well it worked out in the States, with higher wages all the go …

Oh yes, all this talk of how companies would reward themselves and shareholders and not pass it on to their workers was exposed in a trice as a devious progressive lie …

And so to "Ned's" final howl of pain, but is there a light at the end of the tunnel for the suffering 'leets? 

Ah, perhaps at the end of this troubled journey, there's a glimmer of hope and everything will be fixed come budget night, and all this was just a needless nightmare, a tale of extraordinary suffering and woe that will vanish with a wave of ScoMo's magisterial hand …and the tax cuts will appear by magic and everything will be healed ...

And if you believe that, if you believe that "Ned" will stop his interminable jabbering, then the pond has just the Pope cartoon for you, with more just so Pope cartoons here ...