The pond always refuses to go the obvious with the reptiles … the easy ironies, the cascading gag …
357K for a couple of columns a week, and Dame Groan scribbling furiously about how men and women often take home different pay packets because of the way they work, for how long, when and where? While News Corp is sacking staff?
No, it was too easy, it was beneath the pond's dignity, and the pond blames the Fairfaxians for putting such idle temptations in the pond's path …
The pond prefers the hard yards on a weekend, a genuine marathon certain to exhaust and cull the weaklings in the herd, and besides, who could ignore this poignant juxtaposition …
Now the doubters who keep thinking the pond should remove the onion muncher from its banner, the more simple-minded, might think that this sort of delusion could be dismissed with a movie reference ...
But nattering "Ned", the lizards of Oz, and the pond, are made of sterner stuff.
You see, the lizard Oz business plan involves boring the shit out of its subscribers, reducing them to a quivering mass of jelly crying out, 'for the love of the long absolute lord, enough already!'
And so it is with the pond.
After a dose of emetic, brooding, hand-wringing "Ned", a dose of castor oil would seem like a pleasant alternative to any stray reader passing too close to the sun, and watching "Ned's" rhetorical wings melt …
After a dose of emetic, brooding, hand-wringing "Ned", a dose of castor oil would seem like a pleasant alternative to any stray reader passing too close to the sun, and watching "Ned's" rhetorical wings melt …
You see …
"Ned" was guaranteed cult status by the reptiles with a Lobbecke, done in that peculiar shape designed to appeal to all those over seventy who look at their cell phones every five minutes …
Sure, anyone who read "Ned" when he was last in the pond would have already fainted from the endless blather about freedom of religion and the right to be a bigot …but all that's just the pond's price for an entry ticket to the rest of the blather, because poor persecuted "Ned" is just starting to warm up, or lather up, though the pond humbly suggests to any male reader that this is not the morning to get out the cut-throat …
"Ned" was guaranteed cult status by the reptiles with a Lobbecke, done in that peculiar shape designed to appeal to all those over seventy who look at their cell phones every five minutes …
Sure, anyone who read "Ned" when he was last in the pond would have already fainted from the endless blather about freedom of religion and the right to be a bigot …but all that's just the pond's price for an entry ticket to the rest of the blather, because poor persecuted "Ned" is just starting to warm up, or lather up, though the pond humbly suggests to any male reader that this is not the morning to get out the cut-throat …
Actually the pond thought the dominant image was poor old angry, shouting-at-clouds nattering "Ned", ScoMo, the lizards of Oz, and the government being besieged by pesky, small-minded people …
What, there's no women in the illustration? Well we are talking about the coalition government ...
Oh the tragedy, the humanity, the loss, the persecution, the hand-wringing and the endless suffering, being trapped with the bore of the party banging on about difficult women …
Oh the tragedy, the humanity, the loss, the persecution, the hand-wringing and the endless suffering, being trapped with the bore of the party banging on about difficult women …
Principle? What's principle got to do with Australian politics? Damn you, difficult, pesky women, look at what you've made "Ned" do …
And for what? The coalition government has been a stunning success, just look at the way it's included women ...
Not that the pond is suggesting the slightest, remotest link between a repenting King David and a totally lost and grieving "Ned" … and the pond suspects that sometime soon, it will run out of patience and illustrations, and will just settle for the grind …
They say that half way through a marathon the acid kicks in, and the legs and the mind begin to wobble …
How to summarise that early bit of "Ned"? The Liberal party is a party of principle, Banks acts on her perceived principles, ergo she's a devious, treacherous traitor and rat, a floozy, a difficult hussie …yet for some strange reason, the Liberal branding as weak on women will last for some years …
Surely it's past time for a decent "Ned" ritual, worthy of a book title ... …
Sorry, "Ned" doesn't do repentance, "Ned" does tedious exegesis, such that people either end up mind numb and agreeing, or flee the room ...
Ah yes, poor Queensland, poor climate science, and here the pond must slip in a Pope. It's true it's a complete waste and verges on the defamatory - fancy putting the infallible Pope in the middle of a nattering "Ned" rant - but it has to be done …
Well there's more Pope here, and it's no slur on the immortal Pope to suggest that for once there's even better news, with only a very small gobbet of "Ned" to go ...
Oh dear, that's how desperate it is, that's how shocking it's become. "Ned" quoting comrade Bill and being lost for words …
It's almost unimaginable, but luckily at this point the dog botherer turned up, just to make sure that any passing stray punter knew this was an ultra-marathon, a march of the canine discontents ...
How could the pond resist that weird invocation of "blatant democratic sabotage"?
But then meaningless verbiage shouldn't just be monopolised by "Ned" - it's the house speciality, and anyone should be allowed to join in, and the dog botherer is no slouch … because yes, there are rats in the ranks yet again, and the whole country might be ruined if they don't join the minor war criminal in his right wing howling at the moon fundamentalism ...
Around this point the pond felt the need to sacrifice a Rowe in the same way it had sacrificed a Pope …
And with more Rowe here, there's simply no reason to blame the pond if anyone stays for the dog botherer ride …
… and so must endure the sight of the dog botherer whining and moaning in his inimitable war criminal way … yadda yadda, wicked moderates, yadda yadda, isn't far right barking at the moon mad fundamentalism appealing, yadda yadda ...
Good old climate and energy policy and a minor war criminal and climate science denialist suddenly wondering about the pickle his chums are in…
Ah, a few more jolly cartoons might be just the way to get through the whining, the moaning, and the hand-wringing, and help the pond avoid running yet another twitter joke about the drover's dog ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, has it come to this? The dog botherer putting in a kind word for former Chairman Rudd?
On another note, the pond has spotted the first cartoons of the Xmas season …
Well it's as good a way as any to introduce some mindlessly stupefying blather about the "wisdom of the crowds" ...
The practical experience of how Britain is currently working?
That's a role model?
No doubt to wrap the marathon up, the pond should at this point run a few of the latest Graudian Brexit cartoons, but there's plenty of them here …some with a Melville flavour, some haunted by Scrooge …
But dammit, the Xmas season has begun, and anyone who survived a double dose of nattering "Ned" and the dog botherer is urgently in need of reasons to be jolly …
Noodling Ned: "In Victoria the Andrews Labor government scored a massive victory having cynically announced pre-election state debt would be doubled from 6 per cent to 12 per cent of GDP."
ReplyDeleteHmm. Well, firstly Ned it wasn't "cynically announced", old man, it was "triumphantly announced" so that we, the people of Victoria, could see that our government was going to be getting on and doing things.
Secondly, I think you mean GSP, Neddy. That's Gross State Product, not Gross Domestic (ie, all of Australia) Product. GDP was Au$1.67 trillion in 2017, which gives us 1670 bilion * 0.12 = Au$200.4 billion. But the Victorian Gross State Product was just Au$399 billion in 2017, and 399*0.12 = Au$47.9 billion.
Thirdly, that great Liberal infrastructure builder Henry Bolte must be guffawing in his grave - he who gave Victoria a debt as high as 40% of Gross State Product just to make an airport and a university or two and a bridge etc etc. Why, nobody would ever have voted for such insane fiscal recklessness, would they ?
Except that Bolte was re-elected back in 1961 (and again in 1964), the year of the destructive Holt-Menzies 'credit squeeze'. Maybe you don't remember that, Neddy, but I do. I spent a summer working on the grape harvest at Robinvale just to get a few bucks to help my expenses attending Melbourne Uni. And my father spent the same summer working on the grape harvest in Mildura just to get a few bucks to pay his rent.
Then we have the Doggy Boverer: "Rather than a philosophical discussion the Liberals need leadership stability, an end to factionalism and an enlivened grassroots membership."
Well good luck with all that Dog Bov. But then I guess you have spent your whole career chasing insane people and crazy dreams, haven't you. And just maybe you should check up on the meaning and applicability of "attribution bias" now that Malware has put that into the discussion.