In which the pond's year begins to splutter to a close with our Gracie ...

The pond looked around desperately for a last post to end the year - Melbourne is calling, and there's a chance to find a tram that actually works - and hoped it would find an opportunity to run a little more salt in the reptile wounds.

But with his endless capacity for relentless banality, Bernie ruled himself out. Of course millennial mocking of boomers can't last, soon enough all the boomers will be dead, and what's the point of mocking then? Might as well mock the Victorians, though perhaps Bernie is yearning to be mocked beyond the grave.

Okay boomer, that feeble attempt to reignite the generational war, in lieu of the war on Xmas, was a flop. 

The pond even scurried back to the beginning of the week, wondering if the Major might be worth a final fling, him having gone all relativist and post-modernist …

Say what, boomer? You're going to pander to student interests, rather than worry about news, facts, events, and all that sort of humbug. Okay boomer, whatever … but indoctrination went out with the Jesuits, the Stalinists and the fascists … just saying.

Of course the bromancer and Dame Slap and a lot of the other reptiles were dancing with joy about Boris's win, but all the pond could remember was the way that they danced wildly into the night in their MAGA caps at the arrive of the Donald, and hasn't that turned out well. Little England is going to be a wild ride next year, so why indulge in fanciful and foolish attempts at spoilers at the end of this one?

Then things got even gloomier, because the pond happened to notice that our Gracie was still banging on about that dud bill, and as 'tis the season to celebrate fundamentalist creationists with a Young Earth bent and a profound taste for bigotry, the pond turned to her, only to strike a bummer note …

Why was the pond made gloomy by our Gracie? Well the poor thing's out in the field, and has to deal with all the crap that the federal government and her fellow reptiles think is a good thing …

Why blame social media, when the reptiles themselves manage to start a thousand fist fights? 

The pond suggests no mention of the Murdochians at the Christmas table, or their pets, like the Donald and Boris, or it could turn into an American-style Thanksgiving bloodbath …

But the pond could see Gracie's point - the days of bunging on a do out the back of Maguires aren't what they used to be, even in Tamworth, centre of the boofhead universe, at least until Barners moved to dry as a bone Armidale (just the place to dump a lot of ag scientists and teach them how to use divining rods).

And reading on, the pond began to wonder just how long our Gracie might be able to stand being surrounded by combative reptiles, always willing to mount a verbal stoush, and humiliate anyone passing by ...

For a Christian, Porter is as thick as a brick. Vinnies is on the liberal side of the tyke empire, and prides itself on its tolerance, as anyone might discover if they happened upon a tranny working in the store in King street …

But that's what happens when you live in a Christian bubble of the Porter kind …

Meanwhile, as our Gracie looked ahead to the agonies of having to deal with all this crap, which had become relatively settled in recent times, what with tolerant folks ending up in places that suited them, and bigots doing their fundamentalist jig with the likes of the Israel-ites, the pond began to wonder how our Gracie might cope with that recent lizard Oz outing  by the Mocker, apparently a thin disguise for the highly bigoted dog botherer … (why not call himself the Blocker?)

Sexist and fundamentalist, and fucked if the pond was going to go down memory lane to Frank Spencer, as if that now stood for anything … might as well head back to the Glums, and a round of "Oh Eth," and "Oh Ron" … 

Okay boomer, enough of that, so how would our Gracie cope?

Dear sweet long absent lord, she mocked the Mocker!

A lot of the more interesting reptiles left the lizard Oz this year, from columnists to cartoonists, and only the dullard extremists remain, with the occasional exception such as our Gracie, refusing to put in the boot, and politely wishing everyone season's greetings.

The pond felt some remorse at her plight. Fancy seeing yourself published up against the ravings and the rantings of a lunatic like the Mocker, imagining Frank Spencer held a message for our times. What next? A thesis on the sexual politics in Are You Being Served? …

Never mind, it wasn't quite how the pond imagined the note on which the blog would end this year, and perhaps a reptile will arrive in the next few days with an essence of ratbaggery that can redeem the situation …

In the meantime if that doesn't happen, please allow the pond to echo our Gracie, and offer up as Xmas tribute, a moving Rowe cartoon, with more moving, indeed deeply spiritual, offerings here ...

And here's hoping the advice of the infallible Pope works out for the silly season, and for any millennials anxious about the state of the planet the reptile boomers have gifted them … (no pleasing them, so that's why they'll be getting socks or a bar of soap).