In which the bromancer backs Boris and Dame Slap struggles to tear down statues in churches ...

The bromancer easily won the battle of the headlines during the week …

Word came back to the pond from the land of the Poms that it caused immense amusement …

Oh sure, there was the usual supply of reptile stragglers and strugglers, doing their bit for climate science, as the IPA did for tobacco, and the always reliable Lloydie was the leader of the pack of doubters and deniers …

Ah yes, it's Camus with existential science from L’Étrangers … but it was no match for the bromancer.

Of late the pond has even taken to watching the old dodderers staggering about in the House of Lords for its entertainment … how could a movie or Air Crash Investigations compare, so naturally when the bromancer had another go, the pond was completely on board …

Talk about a winner … everybody smiles when they see the bromancer out and about, doing an onion muncher for the Brits …

It takes considerable skill to bring the battle of Britain into a headline, especially when Boris - gasp - took down the grandson of Churchill - oh sainted aunts of heavenly sorrow - but nothing is impossible for the bromancer ...

Dear sweet lord, did the Economist just call the bromancer a fanatical supporter of an extremist? Well fie, rich ponces, the bromancer cocks a snook in your general direction, and shows that ninety per cent of the time he knows how to produce a meaningless statistic, as if channeling Bob Ellis at least eighty five point seven per cent of the time ...

Unfathomable! And yet as the regal Rowe reminded us, with more Rowe here, the behaviour of Boris and his chums has been impeccable, if a trifle languid …

But yes, the pond is all for Boris breaking the law passed regarding the calling of elections in a time of fixed terms, and delivering a Brexit which will be as smooth, calm, efficient and tranquil as the early days of Boris's regime ...

Dead in a ditch? Well of course the Graudian cartoonists have also been having fun, with more Graudian cartoons here …

And so to what might be called a Rees-Mogg down under assessment of the situation, because the bromancer, like the Donald, is always winning … because, you know, the last time the Tories bunged on an election, they had a huge win … just ask Theresa ...

Ah yes, fear and fright … where would the bromancer and his buddies be without them? Roll out the four horse persons of the apocalypse, and get on the winning election bandwagon …

Now read on, expecting some sense from the bromancer, or not. Because, you see, when the bromancer scribbles, it may mean something, or not. In these existential times, who cares if it's sense, or nonsense, or not ...

Indeed, indeed. Did the pond just get a whiff of paranoia and fear from the bromancer? The pond can't imagine why …

Well the bromancer has gone on so long, for a minute or an hour or an eternity, the pond felt it was back in the House of Lords, but things are gradually beginning to wind down ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, the bromancer expects blind faith in the Boris, when he wants an election as the easiest way to crash out?

And now for a little more paranoia, and that comparison to the Donald ...

And there you have it. The bromancer denies the Donald, and then erupts in a last thought into pure Donaldism, with blather about an EU super state. Of course we all know what the bromancer would prefer …

Europe in flames, divided back into warring nation states, and with the plucky Brits on hand to sort out things in yet another Battle of Britain. Oh vision splendid …

And so, because the pond rarely thinks of the reptiles and had to read the Graudian to discover that the Murdochians had shipped the Devine abroad so she could shit in American nests for a change, the pond was pleased to see that it's a two way traffic, but was at the same time profoundly disturbed …

You see, during the week came this headline from a certain Lionel ...

Shocking stuff, and an attack on the way the genders should be. The pond grew up in a world where a man was a man and a woman was not wimyn, and 'Lionel' was used for manly men like Lionel Rose …

There was no gender confusion or chaos, of the kind that so agitates the reptiles caught up in the identity storm …

As always the pond needed Dame Slap to sort things out and smash up orthodoxy, which is to say, swallow the reptile kool aid and sound like a member of an obscure cult of the Warren Jeffs kind ...

Oh the sacrifices, oh the suffering that will follow...

What's this? A siren song, a clarion call to leave the lizard Oz? Gee, that's a tough one, but no doubt Dame Slap's resignation is in the post (though that means it'll probably be delivered to a post office half-way across the city by a driver eager to meet his or her or gender-neutral quota).

And now for a hearty dose of delusion of grandeur ...

Yes, there's nothing like a MAGA-cap wearing columnist to invoke giants of the past, and imagine she's the same sort of truth-teller …

And so to talk of tyranny and suffering, because what better way to indulge in narcissist self-pity?

Hmm, given Dame Slap's love of the Donald and her MAGA cap wearing ways, perhaps she should also run a weather forecasting service …

But here's the funny thing ...

Did any one other than the pond notice it?

"Fox is an iconoclast" …

"When a group of students turn up and say 'pull down that statue', you just say: 'No, we are not doing that, that is ridiculous.'"

Yes,  it has to be said, that's well beyond three fifths of totally fucking clueless …

It's what iconoclasts did … tear down fucking statues …the more statues and churches the merrier ...

So many fuckwits, so little time … blathering on about Shakespeare and Britain and an awareness of history, and elevating the likes of Hardly Normal into the ranks of the iconoclasts … and apparently without a sense of irony or any awareness of what iconoclasts should do when confronted by a statue that offends them ...

As for the rest, the whining, the moaning, and the keening, the pond has heard it all before, and how tedious and tiresome it sounds, when endlessly churned through the Dame Slap regurgitator machine ...

Uh huh …try leaving the cosy world of the reptiles and see what happens.

The author of the acclaimed memoir One Hundred Years of Dirt was chatting to students at the University of Technology, Sydney, when he revealed some of the secrets of working at the Australian, such as knowing where the “editorial line is at the paper”. “It’s not always a Murdoch line; it’s just that Murdoch hires editors who are very much like him.” Not long after dropping that truth bomb, Morton was out the door. He has already made a splash at the Saturday Paper with a story “Murdoch media fuels far-right recruitment”, which was roundly attacked by the News Corp army last month, including columnist Nick Cater, who called it a “vile anti-Murdoch hate speech dog whistle”. (Weekly Beast here).

Clearly Dame Slap finds it hard to wrap her head around the notion that her brand of alleged non-conformism is profoundly conformist … an elite gathering of smug, well-heeled and well-rewarded Murdochian elitists, who tolerate no dissent and punish any who wander from the path … especially when it comes to actual science involving actual scientists …

None of which stops the delusional Dame from representing herself as a victim ...

Uh huh. She lost a board gig, and had to settle for life sucking on the chairman's well-provisioned teat? Boo-hoo ...

When Dame Slap actually stands up to the reptile line, then we can talk. As for the rest, she's just a kool-aid swilling member of the reptile pack, a MAGA-cap wearing Donald lover with as much of an awareness of climate science and history as he has …

She should write her columns with a Sharpie ...

And then glorious, iconoclastic, or at least bombastic victories will surely follow …