In which the pond worries for the onion muncher, but is saved by beautiful coal and the Donald ...

 

One of the pleasures of reptile-watching is to see the dear things run around and around in circles, bewildered, confused and alarmed, before plunging down the rabbit hole …

Climate science? Polar vortex? Record floods in Townsville?

How could these possibly compare to GetUp, with the dear things failing to understand that the more attention they pay, the more ferocious their worst nightmares seem to become …

It was the onion muncher's fate that exercised the reptiles yesterday, and what a sorry tale it was …

Aimed at changing perceptions of Mr Abbott?

What, the onion muncher didn't manage that himself, what with knighthoods, green armies and sundry other follies too numerous to list here, but which excited his indolent colleagues enough to give him the royal order of the boot …

But the reptiles were wildly excited because they'd got hold of the script ...

It all seemed terribly complicated, the sort of thing designed to bamboozle and befuddle the older demographic … and what a reptile nightmare that is.

An army of parrots flooding Warringah, reciting a script that strayed from the script prepared daily by the reptiles of Oz …"dinkum clean Oz coal, oi, oi, oi…"

Poor old people, how could they cope, how could they refute this army of disciplined parrots? Especially as the parrots are left no room for ad libbing …unlike the reptiles, who ad-lib all the time and know how to vary the pitch … "oi, oi, oi, clean coal dinkum true blue Oz…"

The reptiles ran a snap of the victims … look at the poor suffering old things in their grey-haired lostness ...

Oh wait, hang on, hang on, the pond didn't read the tag. Those grey-haired loons are GetUp volunteers?

Has it come to this? Et tu, aged lizard Oz demographic?

Scrub that illustration, what we need is a snap of shadowy figures dancing beneath a demonic Big Brother sign, hands ominously raised, as if at a Nuremberg rally ...

Is there any way the reptiles and SloMo can stop this dastardly scheme?

Luckily the infallible Pope has an infallible answer, with more infallibility to be found here …

And so to today's triptych of reptile terrors ...

Angus is, of course, just the reptiles doing their duty as Pravda, the state government organ publishing the thoughts of dear leader and his acolyte servants, and the pond need only do an extract … because Angus won't have any of that talk of polar vortexes, record heat, record floods, record this bit of climate, record that bit of climate …

Angus is a plain, old-fashioned, dinkum clean coal man, and coal doesn't come much cleaner than the beautiful brown coal of Victoria ...

Oi, oi, oi ...

How to keep this forward-thinking coal-loving luddite in power? Luckily Rowe also chipped in with helpful advice, with more helpful Rowe here ...

And so to the dog botherer, and though it's a trifle stale, things have been going so spiffingly well in the UK, that the pond felt the need to pay attention ..

Hah! No doubt the dog botherer thought he was being clever, and avoiding the pond's injunction on virtue signalling, by talking of "signals virtue", but what a mindless assembly of cliches he manages, beginning with that opening flourish "to the self-proclaimed sophisticates of the political/media elite …"

… scribbled furiously for an organisation situated on prime real estate in Surry Hills in the heart of Sydney. 

It made that talk of "so-called elites" even more piquant. Who is doing the so-calling? Come to think of it, what the fuck does "so-called elites" mean, given that the sophisticates are self-proclaimed? Can you be both self-proclaimed and so-called?

As for defaming Groucho Marx, the quote was a little more stylishly written … "I don't care to belong to any club that will have me as a member."

Oh okay, there were a dozen variations, check in here, and there's no actual evidence it actually happened and the club famously received said telegram.

Let's just say it was a good joke by one of the sophisticates of the comedy elite …unless you have a problem with 'leets - and carry on ...

Well thank the long absent lord that example of the dog-botherer's pig-headed, mindless stupidity was short, but it does evoke just how the Tories have produced a complete and utter fuck-up …and then tried to pin the blame on Europe …

Fortunately the brevity leaves room for a much longer trek through our Henry's 'hole in the bucket' effort …

Now those who've already forgotten the reptile splash for Henry might need to be reminded that it was riddled with academic equivocation and caution.

"China may dance to Trump tune" will be quickly followed by "China might dance to trump's tune - for a while…"

What's that you say? Their should be a capital T on the Donald's name?

Sorry, the reptiles and the pond take there typography from the Donald …

Back to school indeed, and so the pond is off to school with our equivocating Henry, not least because he earned cult status with the Lobbecke of the day ...

Indeed, indeed, and haven't things been going well with the Donald's schemes, not least in Wisconsin: Foxconn backtracks over promised factory jobs at $10bnWisconsin site ...

Foxconn initially planned to manufacture advanced large screen displays for TVs and other consumer and professional products at the facility, which is under construction. It later said it would build smaller LCD screens instead. Advertisement Now, those plans may be scaled back or even shelved, Louis Woo, the special assistant to Foxconn chief executive Terry Gou, told Reuters. Woo said the company was still evaluating options for Wisconsin, but cited the steep cost of making advanced TV screens in the US, where labor expenses are comparatively high. “In terms of TV, we have no place in the US,” he said in an interview. “We can’t compete.”

Never mind, another day, another rorting of the taxpayer dollar, Brexit's a winner, or so the dog botherer says, and it's back to our Henry, equivocating away …

Yep, it turned out that Henry was doing what is a favourite reptile talking point tactic at the moment. Raise fears and alarums about China …a kind of Penn and Teller which sees the Donald disappear ...

Well yes, and the pond has a particular distaste for Xi, but here's the thing.

The Donald loves his good friend Xi, he loves to spend quality time in private, completely off the record conversation with Vlad the impaler, he loves all sorts of dictators and authoritarians, and he fancies himself in the same league …

His friend? Should our Henry have written, "In contrast, the United States is an authoritarian, one-Donald presidency in which every business decision is potentially subject to the Donald's monstrous stupidity?"

Never mind, it's almost over, the pond's eyes are glazed, and our Henry talks of reducing tensions and uncertainty, only to undermine it all by then talking of the fire next time ...

Well there's nothing like a spiritual to wrap things up, but in the current climate the pond has the taste for a little Frost …

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice, 
I think I know enough of the Donald's hate
Of spelling and grammar
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Yep, it's the Donald at his finest, it's the great Waming, up there with the great wall of China ...