The pond just had to elevate the immortal Rowe to the top of the page today … with the usual reminder that there's more immortal Rowe always here …
The pond realises that every death is a loss for someone somewhere - even if only for the poor bugger that carked it - but the pond was particularly saddened by the news that the virus had snaffled Tim Brooke-Taylor …
Once upon a time, The Goodies was essential viewing for the pond … and certain memes of a viral kind - ecky thump, oh Bellamy, goodie goodie yum yum, etc - have stayed with the pond.
Not so long ago the pond revisited the shows, and of course all the low budget contrivances, and short cuts stood out, along with Bill Oddie's peculiar insistence that he could sing, but the spirit was right. It was Goons for young people, and none the worse for that …and as much as any bit of art can change anyone, the Goodies stay lodged deep in the heart and head of the pond ….
But at least British humour will survive, and hopefully carry on the Goodies/Goons spirit, and luckily, only this day the bromancer was on hand to carry the torch …
Sometimes the bromancer's comedy spoofing is so brill that the pond thinks he should be given his own TV show …and this latest bout of Boris worship is absolutely brill …
What did this remind the pond of? Well there's always the question of which animal has the shortest memory span …
Your average reptile must surely be among the top contenders …
Video freaks can go here, but after that piece of brill humour, the pond must persist with the bromancer … and the hagiography …
Say what? Did the bromancer just go full socialist? He does realise that universal health care is the work of the devil, and that across News Corp, other reptiles have been slumping to the floor in fainting fits, as if infected by Graham Garden's new Snooze formula …
It seems that this is catching …
Dear sweet long absent lord, confronted by the Donald, the reptiles are now yearning for FDR. But what of Boris and his team of pumpkins and NHS staff being put in danger by lack of planning? Can we have a Rowson reality check?
Oops, better scurry back to the bromancer …
Phew, the pond can only take so much bromancer nonsense before reaching for a bracing Bell …
And so to the difficult business of why the Donald might not be Boris, but really, isn't Boris absolutely spiffing ...
Now just to get the other matter out of the way - the hunt for the elusive cult master snark - the pond could only come up with this …
And the following piece being as boring as batshit, the pond quickly decided to move on to our Adam, lurking amongst the good news at the top of the reptile digital page …
How the reptiles love their ironies … and for a flat iron, you can't do better than an original Adam ...
Indeed, indeed, and what a chance to feature the deeds and triumphs of the Donald …
Another leech for our original Adam?
Ah, speculative data of the finest kind …
And so back to a final gobbet of our Adam pushing his own brand of hysteria ...
Everyone has a right to a view on this fundamental question?
Of course they do, even if they're a fuckwit, and so have a fuckwitted view, but please pardon the pond if, on the evidence laid out by our original Adam, it takes almost anyone else's advice than his …
The pond rates it down there with some of the weirder talk doing the rounds ...
Phew, it must be catching, because the pond usually isn't a big Ramirez fan …
And so to a couple of bonus items …first the lizard Oz editorialist, attempting, up against our original Adam, to sound a little more measured …
Dear sweet long absent lord. Did our original Adam read that and fall victim to the Snooze virus?
The unions, sensibly, are seeking protections …
Come on, hands up, who snuck into the reptiles' virtual office, and put a potion in their virtual water cooler? There'll be no early marks until the pond gets an answer, and if that means missing The Goodies, think it a fair and fitting punishment … you deviant, prevert young socialist swine ...
Yes, the pond is all for it. For fuck's sake, get the children out from underfoot, and make them the lab rats, and if a few get mown down in the exercise, at least we'll be spared our original Adam's desire to make Tim Brooke-Taylors of us all …
And so to an apology. The pond realises it held over a couple of reptiles from yesterday, and promised to run them today, but the pond is so over the Pell matter, and there's even more Pellist propaganda today, that instead the pond thought it might provide an alternative treat …
Whenever the pond feels troubled, it simply breaks glass and reaches for a Dame Groan …
Fuck a duck. Did the pond just read that?
The interests of people … are best served by government-imposed rules …
The pond's head feels like it's about to explode.
Poor original Adam. Did he read it? Are we all big government socialists now? FDR, how we love your new deal ...
Cafes and restaurants seem likely candidates for reopening? The pond wishes well those who want to sup and dine with Dame Groan … but just for the minute, the pond will pass …
But the pond does have a tentative suggestion for a way that we might begin the slow march back to normal times.
Might the reptiles not set the scene by getting back to some decent, down to earth, dinkum clean Oz coal loving climate science denialism?
All this talk of the virus is very wearing … even more excruciating than the reptiles fixating on the Pell matter ...
Sheesh, clearly Dame Groan needs a course of our original Adam's cure all pills … only then might all this nightmare talk of big government end, only then might she be able to pass the reptiles' most crucial medical test of all …
DP: "Once upon a time, The Goodies was essential viewing for the pond …" "It was Goons for young people".
ReplyDeleteAnd for me too, once upon a time DP. But really, the Goons were for young people too; because of the ABC rebroadcasting the Goons about 4 years later than the BBC (1955 vs 1951), I was all of 12 when I heard my first Goon Show (and before them, 'Take It From Here' and later on, after TIFH ended, there was 'My Word' and 'My Music' - which introduced me to both classical and jazz).
Aah, them wuz the daze.
All that and more GB. It being colonial days, we had Lion magazine and Jack and Jill and the English Women's Weekly in the house, with the adventures of the Robin family, and we learned to laugh uproariously at those simple words, "This is the BBC …" and yes, the pond's father was a big fan of My Word, and all the other radio comedies of the Hancock kind (and how pleased to hear Bill Kerr's Australian accent). It will never come again, but it was good to be there ...
DeleteAnd Billy Bunter from Greyfriar's ...
DeleteAnd my introduction to scifi: Dan Dare from the Eagle and the adventures with the Mekon. Plus the BBC radio series 'Journey Into Space'.
First up - an apology for not correcting spelling yesterday. It was a Golden Lobbecke, not Golen. Possible Freudian slip? Golem? Nope - carelessness. I had major task out on the estate, to do with another pond, and did not come back to this pond until late.
ReplyDelete‘Notwithstanding the demand for information, the media has suffered a collapse in advertising revenue.’ For a few paragraphs there, I shared your wonder, DP, at what the Dame had written. But that sentence suggests she was doing as some of the others have - trying to persuade her ‘independent opinion’ to appear as caring, and concerned. But, as Julia said to Winston ‘They can make you say anything - anything - but they can’t make you believe it.’
No - not that Julia nor that Winston - Winston Smith, of Minitrue.
So how will we ‘recover’, without that essential source of information - advertising? Where is our great direction if people have discovered, through this period of isolation, that they are even less inclined to buy things they don’t need, with money they don’t have, to impress people who do not greatly care about them? There was a downward trend in retail trading for most of last year, and motor vehicle sales have not been keeping up with population growth since, oh - 2013, so the inclination has been there anyway.
The ‘punish China’ clique would further reduce the prospects for recovery by denying Clarissa and Claude Consumer those items that the Chinese have been converting our coal and iron ore into.
It’s a conundrum. Perhaps that ‘National COVID-19 Co-ordination Commission’ needs more representation from the advertising profession. Singleton might be available, and that would help restore political balance - remember his ‘Workers Party’?
Other Anonymous.
Singleton's Workers Party ? Nope, total blank on that one - not surprising though, I have a total blank on anything about Singleton, although I think he did have some contact with Labor back in the long lost never never.
DeleteSo, was this some clever trick to persuade workers that they didn't need to have unions if they had the right political party ? Because if so it seems to have worked, dunnit.
Not to worry GB - it was an eminently forgettable diversion in a turbulent time of Australian politics.
DeleteFrom a letter to ‘The Australian’ in February 1975 from one Mark Tier, a spokesman for the Workers Party.
“Who, you ask, would handle the country’s foreign policy, defence forces and public transport? Had you read our policy more carefully, you would have noted that the only moral function of Government is the running of defence forces, police and law courts — that is to protect, not invade, individual rights.
Health services would be provided by the free market that would be significantly cheaper and of higher quality than they are now. To appreciate this fact consider that every time you go to a doctor, approximately two-thirds of his fee is paid to the Government through one tax or another.”
I think you get the picture. In best Advertising Genius style, Singleton had taken what would now be claimed as ‘libertarian’ philosophy, but stamped it as something ‘for the Workers’, in much the same way as the cosmetics industry has presented slightly enhanced lard and tallow as the solution to every problem of every woman on this planet.
One of the more vociferous supporters of the party, at the time, was - Viv Forbes. Forbes still has letters to editors published in Limited News publications, largely on denialism of climate change, but burnished by promotions for the mining industries which apparently paid him for his life as a ‘worker’. He has had something of a resurgence just lately as one of those recommending removal of virtually all environmental legislation so ‘private enterprise’ can take us to opulence hitherto undreamed of, after this unnecessary isolation thing is over.
Oh, in retrospect, given how unhappy the current ‘libertarian’ writers (the DWAGs) are with our defence forces, police and law courts - perhaps an updated ‘Workers Party’ would contract those functions out to the Trump family.
Other Anonymous.
For a mad moment OA, I thought DWAG might stand for Dim Witted Advertising Genius, not Don't Wanna, Ain't Gonna. Thanks for the short tutorial, however I am pleased by the thought that my tired old memory will soon have forgotten all about Singleton once again.
DeleteThough I'm thinking that calling it a 'Worker's Party' is typical Advertising Genius thinking: like Trump says "You tell them and they just believe you". Libertarians are such happy delusionists, aren't they.
I simply can't recall a Viv Forbes at all, but of course the mining industry is full of deluded climate change denialists (eg Ian Plimer).
From the Bro's wank: "...Boris Johnson said that without question the country's National Health Service had saved his life..." "It [this video] is a paen of love for Britain's National Health Service."
ReplyDeleteYes, but will BloJo now resile from a decade of Tory lies and destructiveness aimed at 'privatisimg' the NHS and instead, save, and possibly even promote, the NHS ? No, I don't think so either. But it will increase the privatisation sale price, yes ?
Then we get to our Adam, and he turns out to be a perfect example the three primary rules: 1 - ignorant people are unaware of their ignorance; 2 - incompetent people are unaware of their incompetence; 3 - decoupled people are unaware of their decoupling. And Adam displays all three.
Consider: "If Austria and Denmark - each with many more total deaths and more new infections than Australia - can see the sense in beginning to lift restrictions, so should we." and then just towards the end, he throws this in: "We urgently need randomised testing to see how widespread the coronavirus already is."
Ok, so we'll just accept the lead of Austria and Denmark - despite them being very different, they must somehow be a lot like us anyway, mustn't they ? - and start unlocking but without any real idea how widespread the virus is in Australia. Goodoh, off we go then.
And if anybody is at all interested in what Paul Frijters had to say, remember that the pond gets there first and a link to Frijters' blogpost was given last Saturday:
http://clubtroppo.com.au/2020/04/08/how-many-wellbys-is-the-corona-panic-costing/
Now we can all measure our lives in WELLBYs.
As for The Editorialist and Dame Groan, well, strike me lucky ! So we're going to have politically active unions and government regulation. But just hold for a sec, isn't the leading question "Is coronavirus stress to blame for the rise in bizarre "lockdown dreams" ?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/12/coronavirus-stress-lockdown-dreams-vivid-scientists
Did that affect both The Ed. and Dame Groan perhaps - writing through their dreams ? But also I thought that Dame Groan's piece wasn't too bad. However, as kinda alerted to the Dame by Other Anony, she originally presented that to an audience not guaranteed to be knocked insensible by the reptile Koolaid, so maybe she was just trying not to totally destroy her non-reptile reputation.
Paid mendacity, anyone ?
Five minutes of effort here:
Deletehttps://ourworldindata.org/charts
finds you all sort of charts for Covid 19 (among lots of other things). You can add or remove countries on some charts to see trends.
The apparent trends would suggest that Denmark and Austria would be well advised to consider adopting the Australian or New Zealand model.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-cases-covid-19?country=AUT+AUS+DNK+NZL+SGP
I'm not sure why the fatality rate is worse for Austria and Denmark - maybe under reporting of cases?
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/coronavirus-cfr?time=49..&country=AUS+AUT+DNK+SGP+NZL
Anyway, this is likely the chart that matters:
https://www.asx.com.au/asx/share-price-research/company/NWS
Shutting down AFL and NRL must be hitting the advertising revenue really hard. Poor old Roopie.
"Five minutes of effort" Unk ? Are you sure your name isn't really Kevin Drum ?
ReplyDeleteDenmark doesn't look too bad compared with Australia for confirmed cases, but Austria doesn't look so good, especially given that it is about 1/3rd the population of Australia. And given that Denmark's population is just a bit more than 1/5th of Australia's, in fact it isn't doing real well either.
So yes, maybe they should adopt our, or NZ's, model. Though I freely confess that I do not understand why Australia's death rate is so low, and NZ's way lower.
But this time of the ascendancy of the long-sellers is just small change to Roopie, isn't it ?
Talking about the trend more than the total number. If we come back in a week I think I know what the chart will look like.
DeleteIf you had to guess I would think that the infection rate is understated because of inadequate testing (IE the denominator should probably be larger).
Hi GB,
DeleteIf you are talking about the rather slow spread of COVID-19 in Australia and New Zealand I do have, as Trump would say, a gut-feeling or instinct about why.
Ultra-Violet light especially shorter wavelength UVC (which is generally filtered out by the ozone layer) is a potent virucide. It directly damages the nucleic acids when it is absorbed by RNA or DNA and has been effectively used to sterilise water and surgical instruments.
At the tail end of an antipodean summer with a still less than perfect southern ozone layer, it might be that good old sunlight has limited transmission by sterilising exposed objects such as external door handles, hand rails, benches or just other peoples skin surfaces.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3298127/
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200327-can-you-kill-coronavirus-with-uv-light
Maybe transmission is much more difficult at the beach?
Of course all that UV ain’t great for avoiding skin cancer so it might be a choice about which devil to dance with.
DiddyWrote
Unk: not being a statistician I'm not altogether sure about this guessing of trends without knowing the underlying numbers. I'd agree that the infection level is under-stated but I'm not sure whether the inaccuracy in estimating the level doesn't carry through to inaccuracy in estimating the trend. But I guess we'll see in time.
DeleteDW: interesting thought. Lots of caveats in your second link though, so maybe. Especially given that there's still a large hole in the Antarctic ozone layer, so we might be getting a little more UVC than we think. Though I'd guess that most infection transmissions occur inside buildings via 'close contact' for an appreciable time (hours ? or just minutes ?).
But who knows, maybe UV (A, B and C) is why infection transmission appears to be less in the southern hemisphere (Australia, NZ) than in the northern, and especially in the more temperate (lower UV) zones.
Hi DP,
ReplyDeleteAlas poor Tiedemann, he’s obviously a neat bloke and a Lobbecke wannabe but he’ll never replace the cult master with such literal offerings. Unfortunately there’s nothing to see here other than what we see here. No seditious Lobbeckian codes, no glorious grotesqueries, no mysterious mashups of multiple meanings. Where be the occult signifiers, the contrarieties, the deliciously challenging unfathomableness of a Lobbecke?
At best the Tidyman has provided a concise, albeit pedestrian reading of the headline and thus saved astute observers the tedium of actually reading the article it heads. Grounded airlines, struggling CEOs, Canberra handouts – WGAF Henry? That said this cartoonist does display more talent than the execrable Leak Junior.
Talking of loathsome things, the Bromancer’s phenomenal suck up to Boris has left me stunned. Of course it’s ridiculously fawning but it’s also the type of toadying commentary that encourages certain narcissistic leaders to continue their contemptible behaviour.
Oh c'mon now, Kez, Boris is just one of the Bromancer's assorted bromances. He hasn't mentioned Ree-Smogg fpr a while now though - oh it's sad when young love dies.
DeleteGranted GB, but do I feel that this ingratiating ode to a malignant narcissist like Boris was exceedingly more vomitous than the Bromancer’s usual gushery - even over his beloved Onion Eater. For any rational observer the words ‘magnificent’, ‘heartfelt’, and ‘genius’ just do not spring to mind as suitable descriptors for Johnson’s shallow character and bizarre behaviour. His bumbling buffoonery is total pretense – even down to the strategically tousled hair. On that hirsutal note I would love to see Boris and Donald shave their heads for some charity or other and then watch their ratings plummet afterwards! Although, on second thoughts, Il Duce was bald…and fat…and ugly, and that never stopped him from gaining power and leading Italians down a very dark path.
DeleteFair point Kez, but the Bro has done at least equally vomitous stuff on Trump, so I guess it's just his way.
DeleteNot altogether sure that baldness is a negative in general, but maybe it would work out that way for Boris and Donald.