In which the pond looks forward to the bromancer bunging on a nationalistic do in 2020 ...

So the reptiles have finally started to notice … must be time to send in some more loons …

Of course the pond has always advocated that the nation's bush be burned to a crisp, along the lines that the village must be destroyed in order to save it. Pyromaniacs should stalk the countryside, and soon enough we'll have the perfect Brazilian solution, and won't that do wonders for the planet.

Alternatively, why not just take a quiet, coal-loving holiday, and gaze admiringly at this  cartoon from the infallible Pope?

Aah, treasured memories …

And what about that lump of coal in SloMo's paw? It happens that it's just the thing for Xmas …

… which brings the pond to its final business for the year. It's laid up a goodly supply of cartoons, and it's got a goer reptile ready to go ...

But to begin, it should go without saying that the pond is a proud nationalist - dinkum clean Oz coal oi, oi, oi, burn the bush to a crisp - but the pond will say it anyway, and frankly it stuck in the pond's craw that the last word for the year should be left to a Pommie bastard (would it be politically incorrect, given the sex involved, to talk of a Pommie bitch?)

As well as tar and cementing the bush, the pond has long held that we should stage a quick war with the New Zealanders and turn them into a minor state, a bit like Tasmania … that's the nationalist way, bung on a do, acquire a little turf, though there'll have to be some re-education camps to get rid of that terrible accent, and they're unseemly bum-sniffing religion ...

Say what, you've got a problem with that? With a little harmless nationalism proudly venturing forth? Steady on, do a prattling Polonius and think of the past, or at least mother England.

It worked out terribly well in the twentieth century, and that's why the pond is solidly on board with the bromancer, who should surely have the last say in the pond this year on assorted subjects …

Yes, nationalism is a wondrous thing …

Devotees of the bromancer will recall that he just loves the barking mad Hindu fundamentalism of that Narenda Modi cuckoo clock to the north west …

Alarmists might, in a feeble attempt to rebut the bromancer and the pond, point to Dexter Filkins' recent story in The New Yorker, Blood and Soil in India (currently outside the paywall)…an ominous survey of Hindu nationalism.

Modi is almost up there with China's attempt to finally produce an ideal, relentlessly surveyed and thought policed 1984 society of fervent nationalists …

It's a good read, and the pond doesn't want to do spoilers, so this tidbit will suffice as a teaser …

During the dispute over Babri Masjid, Ashis Nandy, a prominent Indian intellectual, began a series of interviews with R.S.S. members. A trained psychologist, he wanted to study the mentality of the rising Hindu nationalists. One of those he met was Narendra Modi, who was then a little-known B.J.P. functionary. Nandy interviewed Modi for several hours, and came away shaken. His subject, Nandy told me, exhibited all the traits of an authoritarian personality: puritanical rigidity, a constricted emotional life, fear of his own passions, and an enormous ego that protected a gnawing insecurity. During the interview, Modi elaborated a fantastical theory of how India was the target of a global conspiracy, in which every Muslim in the country was likely complicit. “Modi was a fascist in every sense,” Nandy said. “I don’t mean this as a term of abuse. It’s a diagnostic category.”

The pond looks forward to a nationalistic/fundamentalist religious war between India and Pakistan, of the kind only devout nationalists can produce …

Sorry, the pond got a little distracted, and now should hand over to the bromancer, and it's only a diagnostic category, not a term of abuse, when the pond notes that the bromancer is a loon in every sense ...

He's a great political leader? His main achievement was to fuck up and fuck over London, before fucking over Theresa May, and now he's been in the job less than a month and he's a great political leader?

But the pond goes along with the bromancer's general argument. All this nonsense by the Europeans about wanting to demonise nationalism, when everyone knows there's nothing like a decent stoush to bring out the plucky Dunkirk spirit, with a dash of Biggles and lots of Churchillian rhetoric …

Let's get back to some decent feuding and fussing and fighting. Sure, it might not do much for trade, and it won't help the deluded folk in the north of England facing structural issues (though it might just work for Moggsy if London can be turned into the Canary Islands), but there's nothing like a stoush to take the mind off being fucked over by the Donald in a trade deal …

Speaking of the Donald, the pond was inspired by this recent triumph of nationalism in The Atlantic …

And that's why the pond thought it might slip a few Donald cartoons …

And now for some bloody good nationalism, courtesy the bromancer ...

Indeed, indeed, and hasn't the retreat into bunkers around the world worked out terribly well, with tolerance and magnanimity on view everywhere …

Enough of making humanity great again, let's do another grab of the bromancer ...

Uh huh, a defining moment … much more a defining moment than Prince Andrew fucking under-aged girls, supplied with care and style. After all, what better symbol of the monarchy than a fucker of the under-aged? It's emblematic of the times. It's not just the Catholics that can do it you know …

Sorry, the pond is dreadfully sorry to mention the monarchy and religion and all that stuff … when really, what should we be talking about in these nationalistic times?

Please three huzzahs, let us all embrace fundamentalist coal and even more fundamentalist Christianity, and what could go wrong? Just celebrate a Young Earth nearing its End Times, and wait for the Rapture to save the chosen, and the unwashed can trot off to hell where they can experience a good burning, as a lesson and a reminder that they should have burned the bush to a crisp, and put in decent tarred parking lots for the malls ...

Let the pond hasten to add that a leader's religion shouldn't be targeted … and that religion is wonderful, and has done wonders for the Indian sub-continent, and the Middle East, and assorted other countries, not least Europe in its hey day …

And we might yet manage to return to the time of monarchs …

And there is one, assured, guaranteed result ...

Soon enough, the north of England will hear that they've been heard from enough ...

And so to a final nationalist gobbet from the bromancer …determined to stoke bigotry, hate, division and despair, by doling out insults and rabbiting on in a way that is reminiscent of a Lord Hee-Haw ...

Uh huh, that sort of hagiography is remarkably puke-inducing, but it seems that in these times, that's what assorted monarchs, chairman Rupert, the Donald, Boris and other egomaniacs demand, because we can never have enough reminders of the Europe of the 1930s ….

As a result, this column is one for the ages, a keeper, and if the pond remembers, it will likely drag it back out into the light of day in a year's time, and see how it's all held up, and how things have worked out for an authentic liar, cheat, fraud and scribbler of falsehoods …

It's hardly fair, a year is a long way off, and not giving a fuck or a whit or a jot about what happens beyond next week to a reptile celebration, or sundry reptile predictions, is an important sign of reptile in-breeding.

And on that cheerful note, all that's left to do is for the pond to hand out nationalistic Christmas cheer and a nationalistic new year to its remaining readers, and let's bung on a few beauties in 2020.

Now, in lieu of Xmas presents, cards and letters, here's a few more cartoons …and try to stay safe and well. Remember there's always an under toad or a Murdochian ready to fuck things up, or worship those guaranteed to fuck things up ...