In which the pond downs tools …

Actually there’s a pretty good case for being a quitter, especially if the comparison’s to a dickhead, dropkick, narcissist, relentlessly egotistical, remarkably negative, id-driven, tone-deaf, sniping, wrecking and undermining loser … who doesn’t know when to leave, and is always the last one at the party braying at something or other in his usual gibbering, righteous way … and so eventually has to be evicted, and tossed out into the street, and yet somehow, unimaginably, still manages to see this as some kind of triumph, and promises to hang around even more …

The pond wished it could be as comprehensively up itself as the onion muncher, but now he will endure at the pond as a reminder of the power of delusion … for sadly, at least for itself, though possibly not others, as noted through the past week, the pond has decided to down tools …before it too drifts completely into onion muncher irrelevance …

The poodle gone, the asbestos woman gone, and now the onion muncher … and many others, including Lord Downer's spawn … and it was time for the pond to go too.

All that said, the main reason is a deep sense of boredom, tedium and ennui …

The pond is so over the reptiles, in much the same way that the country seems completely over any claims of accuracy in relation to the lizard Oz’s Newspoll.

How they can return to reporting that poll with a straight face will take all of the reptiles' insouciant cheek and capacity for stupidity ...

The pond at first tried to cope with the sensory overload of alienation.

First the pond cut out the Terror, and the likes of little Timmie and the Devine and Akker Dakker, and the Bolter, and discovered it didn't miss them at all. So that was what it was like to stop beating your head with a hammer?

Thankfully the pond never had to endure the parrot …

What to make of him turning up looking so gay in his mashed avocado jacket, and rabbiting on about climate science, with everyone else on the panel looking embarrassed, and realising that they’d actually invited the mad uncle down from the attic to spice up the night?

But while cutting back on the reptile diet helped, the lizard Oz itself is just more of the same tabloid Murdochian drivel, though perhaps dressed up with more pomposity and self-regard and sense of self-importance. Could anyone, apart from the onion muncher, be more up themselves than Major Mitchell or nattering "Ned"?

The pond looked forward and could see only more endless repetition, whether it was the reptiles berating comrade Bill or celebrating SloMo.

As it turned out, there’ll be more berating of someone other than comrade Bill - the pond can claim it warned the Labor party of Bill’s lack of appeal, but the pond’s not in the party, and the few party members the pond has encountered have never shown any interest in listening to the pond. (Still, a few scores in the extended family feud have at last been settled).

Now Albo, even if he scores a chance, has likely already missed his chance. He didn't have the ticker when it mattered, and the image of a Marrickville 'Bomber Beazley' haunts the pond.

Once again the party has managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, and the pond never underestimates its capacity to keep on with this miraculous strategy.

Of course things will happen in the future that will be of interest. But the pond realised with dread, that whatever the events of the day that precipitated a story, for the next three years, the pond could already predict the response from every reptile, the familiar angles and the rote learning of lines, and the concatenation arising from the murmuration of the whirling, whirring lizards of the Oz.

Dinkum clean coal, climate science as an excuse for world government, the wonders of the Donald, the suffering of Xians, the so and thusness of Brexit, the march of Gramsci through the institutions, the need to watch out for Islamics, the joys of Western Civilisation, the dangers of cultural Marxism and socialised medicine, the importance of private schools, etc., etc., etc., or if you will, yadda yadda to the nattering “Ned” yadda nth degree …

The thought of watching the reptiles channel the likes of Malcolm Roberts produced an eerie sense of déjà vu all over again. The pond will pray to its imaginary friend for the deep north’s climate denialist fantasies to come true, and with a bit of luck, the rest of the reef will be wiped out by the next summer.

But while calling on fire and brimstone to descend on the reptiles is still fun, that’s not enough to stop the pond giving up the game.

The main reason the pond is stopping is a deep sense of existential ennui, boredom and tedium. Oh wait, did the pond just repeat a sentiment already expressed?

Well that’s like listening to the chattering of the parrots blathering on about snowflakes, political correctness, the inner city 'leets (from Surry Hills of all 'leet places) and most horrendous of all, 'identity politics', as if somehow their identifying with Clint Eastwood rambling around talking to a chair wasn't a form of identity politics …

They'll still be there for years, regurgitating and repeating in unison all the usual climate denialist, Ramsay Centre, white nationalist, fundamentalist Xian, homophobic nonsense that can be read almost every day of the week, over and over and over, to the point where the pond can sense its IQ decreasing by ten points in a single hour of reading, helping to explain why there are people in the country moronic enough to vote for Clive Palmer - didn't that work out well for the reptiles, cash in the paw and Labor defeated - or for Pauline Hanson and her cohort of hot cock, bitch, little tit, fuck a lot better fellow travellers, or gorgeous George, rewarded fro being the member for the Philippines, or the mutton Dutton,  celebrated for his gulags …

Yes, no matter what monstrous stupidities they might have committed, they love being stripped of their workers' entitlements in the deep north …and now dear imaginary lord, it's time to strip them of the reef.

There’s other practical reasons. The pond is tired of getting up early in the morning to observe the reptiles in their herpetarium, happily crapping away on their hot rock, when the pond would like to be having a winter sleep-in before going on with a normal day’s business.

It also has to be said that blogging isn’t what it once was, with the hits down, but who can blame stray readers for avoiding what is, what must be, in the end, an endless repetition of tedium and ennui-inducing, yawn-producing, repetition? Given that the topic is the reptiles, and the pond has always been specific in its content, here's no way to escape that sense of somnambulistic nodding-off ...

Oh wait, the pond has already said all that, and more than once, even if the repetition does conjure up what it’s like reading the reptiles …

… as when they’re having a series of brain farts about climate science without ever having actually stepped away from their computer screens and joined experienced observers noting events in the real world.

Besides, the action has turned to the likes of Twitter, which has the advantage of brevity, and the disadvantage of brevity, resulting in shorthand flashes of wit, and a tedious inability to say anything useful or meaningful because of the brevity. As for Facebook, don’t get the pond started, or it might have to resume blogging for a year to cover the enormity of its crimes.

An anecdote will illustrate the turning tide.

Just before the pond’s version of Don’s party got underway - and it has to be said, with much the same resulting howls of horror - the pond went for a cliff-side walk by the sea.

There was an island in the distance, surrounded by a golden glow of light. It was magic hour, and if there’d been any DOPs nearby, they’d have been rushing with cameras to film the vista.

The sea was magical, the cloud-strewn sky a dusk dream, and on the cliff edge there was a young woman sitting in a Buddha pose, at the edge of the rocks, perfectly positioned to drink in this stunning landscape. It looked, for a moment, as if she'd achieved, or was achieving, enlightenment.

Instead she gazed relentlessly at her phone’s screen, never lifting her head, tapping away, perhaps messaging, perhaps Twittering, in any case, wittering something away …as if what was before her held no charm at all ...

And at that point, the pond knew that young people were a different country, and this was no country for older folk. The pond couldn’t help but remember that Leunig cartoon showing one of his characters pointing to a setting sun on the TV screen, while outside the actual sun was setting …(well an actual cartoon sun, if there’s a pedant reading).

As it was for the telly, so it is for the phone.

And finally, it has been slowly dawning on the pond that all this attention to the reptiles is in some way enabling them, suggesting that they might be of interest, when really, much like the onion muncher they celebrated for years, they’re actually a kind of dinosaur … as irrelevant to that girl on the cliff as the pond is … for who amongst the under-thirties has ever picked up a tree-killing newspaper, when they can instead stare at a small screen?

Well the pond is done and dusted, though, like Sean Connery, it is happy to don a wig, and never say never again. There might be occasions when the antics of the reptiles chanting and carrying on like ratbags might be enchanting enough for an occasional comment, but the pond is unlikely to return to daily blogging … so, if the pond returns, it will only ever be as a momentary indulgence and for personal pleasure.

The pond first posted a blog way back on 20th July 2008, and here we are on 20th May 2019, and that’s way too long to be in the company of reptiles.

The pond is tremendously grateful for the feedback and the comments of diligent readers, many of them much more informed, insightful and intelligent than the pond, but which has turned the pond into a learning experience for its writer for years …

The pond admits that while reading and enjoying, of late it hasn’t been commenting on the comments, but did someone mention an overall feeling of fatigue, as the day’s other business called?

The pond is also extremely grateful, and hopefully hasn’t offended anyone too much for the borrowing of images, most notably the immortal Rowe and the infallible Pope, though there have been many others. It was only ever done as a tribute and a homage, and is one of the main reasons that the pond never sought to monetise the site. It’s one thing to borrow an image and celebrate its genius, it’s quite another to try to make money off it. The pond apologises, but also gives thanks to, these conscripted contributors to the pond.

And now in that spirit, and with best wishes to all, the pond is downing tools, or if you will, the pond will now stop downing clowning tools, fools, reptiles, the deep north, dumb cluck Clive and Pauline voters, and all the other loons that gave the blog its title.

Is there anything else? Well in keeping with the reptile spirit, and just to get in early, and to celebrate pagan rituals dressed up in Xian form, Merry Xmas to all, may the force of angry old white nationalists shouting at clouds, and telling you to get off their lawns be with you, and what good luck that there’s this final Rowe to help say farewell with a vision splendid …

Long may he tweet his splendid visions here …

And thank the long absent lord, he left the pond with one splendid last onion muncher vision, as if knowing that the pond would love it…

You're welcome, have a nice day, and don't you bother coming back now, ya here?