In which the pond promises nothing but blood, sweat, tears and nattering "Ned" ...

The pond never knows what next day will bring at Murdochian la la land …

Take this morning, please take this morning before the pain begins …

The pond had planned to start with that doddery old loon, prattling Polonius, getting more and more crotchety and fundamentalist by the day, more anal-retentive and nit-picking, more barking mad Catholic than even he might ever have managed when he purported to be open-minded in his Fairfax days …

And of course more inclined to typos …as yesterday, always in the context of pointing out the errors of others …

You'd think the silly old fart would, given his routine mocking of others, hire someone to do a little proofing and fact-checking.

The pond has its own very unique problems with the English language and the use of rolled gold on ABC24 and elsewhere …

But that's only done with humility and a desire for laughs and is accompanied by painful self-awareness.

The pond's auto-correct usually produces a litany of errors and typos, but if you're going to be a serious anal-retentive pedant in an allegedly professional newspaper where people are expected to pay to access your expertise, then you need to step up and show you know the difference between 'the', 'there' and 'their', and by golly, if the words prove fractious, then pay them a little more …and watch there rewards roll in ...

But then the pond was confronted by an enormous challenge, and knew that Polonius would have to be relegated to the Sunday back burner, because look at this saucy pair, out for a promenade on a Saturday …

The pond's heart sank.

The rabid ratbag Donald-loving Dame Slap on the march, and lo, an Everest to climb, nattering "Ned", sunk yet again into senile gloom and despondency, and shouting at the usual clouds…

This was the sort of day where the stockings must be rolled down, the sleeves must be rolled up, and the Everest must be climbed.

It means unutterable cruelty, unnatural punishment, unholy crimes and weaker readers dropping like flies, but the pond knows the Murdochian lingo … the hard yards must be done, the ball must be taken up the guts and so on and so forth, and let there by no dilly-dallying or shirking …

It is an ancient Neddy Mariner, 
And he stoppeth one of three.
'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, 
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? 
The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, 
And the pond is next of kin; 
The guests are met, the feast is set: 
May'st hear the merry din.' 
He holds the pond with his skinny hand, 
'There was a centre,' quoth he.  
'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!' 
Eftsoons his hand dropt me.
He holds the pond with his glittering eye -
The unnerved pond stood still,
And listens like a three years' child ...

Oh fucketty fuck, this Everest climbing business is getting harder and harder as each week rolls by. The pond just had to halt at base camp for a refreshing ale and an infallible Pope …

Would the pond blame the weaklings for giving it away and heading off for more infallible Papal pleasures here, their inviolable secrecy protected by the Catholic church's vow of silence?

But as every Nietzschean has stored in their bank of cliches, that which doesn't destroy you will make you stronger ...

Water, water, every where, 
And all the boards did shrink; 
Water, water, every where, 
Nor any drop to drink. 
The very deep did rot: O Christ! 
That ever this should be! 
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 
Upon the slimy Murdochian sea. 
About, about, in reel and rout 
The death-fires danced at night; 
The water, like a witch's oils, 
Burnt green, and blue and white. 
And some in dreams assurèd were 
Of the Spirit that plagued Ned so; 
Nine fathom deep he had followed us  
From the land of shrinking mist and snow...

As the cascading torrent of insights continued - who knew that the 2018 wasn't quite like the world of Ming the Merciless in the 1950s? - the pond began to wilt, and not even Coleridge provided a melancholy spur …

And what of Rowe? Might not Rowe come to the pond's aid? But surely a Rowe should be the reward for the Everest climbed, the deed done, the albatross slaughtered?

The reptiles lost, alienated and alone in the wilderness, the entire Murdochian apparatus for naught, devoid of cultural power or voice …

Oh the humanity, the humanity, the endless suffering, the waste and the loss, and if only it didn't sound a little too post-modern, the existential angst and despair …

And yet all the pond could think was how much more could this endless keening and moaning and sobbing and sackcloth and ashes go on?

The pond knew that anyone under the age of sixty with any sense had long since scarpered …

And every tongue, through utter drought, 

Was withered at the root; 

We could not speak, no more than if 

We had been choked with soot. 

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks 

Had the pond from old and young! 

Instead of the cross, the nattering "Ned"

About the pond's neck was hung.

But on the pond pressed, it knew it was somewhere around the 40k mark, and the chance to match Pheidippides beckoned ...

Talk about utter desolation and despair, and the entirety of Western Civilisation in a terminal condition.

But one final thrust, one leap and bound, and the peak might yet be attained ...

Say what?

Bob Hawke?

What the fuck? What on earth does all this interminable speaking in tongues amount to? After all this interminable blather, we arrive at Bob Hawke?

That's the solution for 2018?

Who knows? Who can decipher the entrails?

After all that, he wants to shaft comrade Bill and give Albo a go?

Who knows what the senile old goat meant, who knows what, in his eternal dissatisfaction, and shouting at clouds, he wants or means to say ...

The nattering "Ned", whose eye is bright, 

Whose beard with age is hoar, 

 Is gone: and now the distraught pond

Turned from the Everest peak.

The pond went like one that hath been stunned, 

And is of sense forlorn: 

A sadder and a wiser blog, 

With Dame Slap still threatening the morrow morn.

But for anyone who cheated and skipped their way through, the pond must hold true to its promise … a redemptive Rowe, a cleansing Rowe, a sparking, bubbling Rowe, full of au pair delights for the older discerning gentle person in urgent need of a personal assistant capable of catering to whims and desires ...

But with Peter "Captain au pair" Dutton no longer able to service any request, perhaps just a little more Rowe here?