In which Polonius leads the charge, the pond must deal with a wretched heretic worth a stoning, and the dog botherer comes by to help with the stoning ...

The reptiles were in a wretched mood this weekend. They'd left their hot rocks en masse, and none of them were happy. It had apparently struck them that the world was still in the grip of a pandemic, that people were doing it tough, that death wasn't much of a solution (though better someone else dead so that the economy might flourish), and that conventional political pieties weren't much of an answer ...

Usually the pond saves prattling Polonius for a Sunday meditation, but such was his sourness and his scorn that the pond thought it a most excellent way to begin a Saturday ...

But hang on a mo, half a tick, before we get on with Polonius, an irritating friend who goes on Twitter, sent the pond this ...

Poor child, she's going to still be in need of emancipation, because it wasn't a one minute hiatus, it turned into a Twitter frenzy here, especially when Fox News of all places confirmed The Atlantic's reporting ...

And so we went from this ...

...that being Clifford K Berman back on 22nd February 1942 ... to this ...

Meanwhile, prattling Polonius is terribly worried about Nancy's hair, though why he should bother with such a dropkick loser and sucker is a tad lost on the pond ...

Indeed, indeed, and for a moment there, the pond began to wonder whether Polonius himself shared the Donald's many worries ...

But no, the reptiles, and apparently Polonius, love Xian blondes, on the basis that the more that they lie, the prettier they look ...

Indeed, indeed, and as usual, the pond can't resist a cartoon or two to break up the impending sense of ennui ...

 

Ah, that's better, all that Polonial talk of one rule for some and one rule for others and laura norder and being all for the law, except when you approve of what dissidents do, got the pond terribly distracted for a moment ...

Why the pond, and the Donald, and thus most likely Polonius, are entirely on the side of Vlad the impaler spiking his enemies' drinks with a little toxin, and certainly would never sanction sanctions (but we might put a price on a US soldier if the price was right, and we could turn it into a kind of hunger games reality TV franchise of the kind the Donald would love) ...

Ah, bold and brave Polonius, as usual firm in his stance, confident in his predictions, and the pond agrees that Polonius's brave call may or may not prevail - who knows? - but if he's got it right, it will turn on the fact that everyone understands that the Sydney Institute is certainly not an elitist institute, though it might lurk in Sydney's CBD, but speaks for everyman (and the occasional woman if she knows how to behave, and doesn't let all that foolish vanity get to her, but perhaps not uppity difficult blacks) ... and everyone can see what Polonius himself sees...

There is a disease, an elitist disease lurking in CBDs everywhere, and the Donald is the cure ...

And so to the pond's most shocking, burdensome and appalling task in a long time.

The pond deeply regrets that the Angelic one has jumped the shark, nuked the fridge, left the reptile plantation, and gone where no other reptile dared this weekend ...

The pond has no idea what provoked this moment of madness in the angelic one, all it can do is report with sorrow and deep sadness that apparently the reptiles have a rat in the ranks, a traitor in their midst ...

 

Say what? What's this, you varlet and knave? What is this talk of being pretty sick and tired of the unrelenting, arrogant commentary coming from  your comrades in arms, your band of brother reptiles?

Why it's the reptiles' bread and butter, their daily chore, their life's meaning, and you seek to up turn it by resorting to medical advice? 

Where will this sort of nonsense end? Did she stop and mend her ways? No, on and on she went, in this moment of feckless anti-reptile abandon ...

Say what? She blackens and defames Sweden, like a muppet show sketch, as well as all her reptile chums? Is there no end to this heresy? Is this crazed woman going to turn herself into some kind of post-modern Luther? How can she ever be allowed to scribble for the Catholic Boys' Daily again? (and by golly the pond might also have a word with her parish priest) ...

The pond felt deeply nauseated, sickened by this unseemly spectacle, this wretched, twisted betrayal ...

What could it do to make things right? To restore harmony to the reptile world view, to step back into the alternative reality bubble?

Luckily, the dog botherer was to hand, as he always is, and he was in fine comrade Dan bashing mood, and the pond was vastly relieved, that it was just a temporary aberration, a little moon-induced insanity, and all was truly well in Murdoch la la land, especially as the dog botherer implied that he personally was in touch with reality ... in much the same way that the pond only feels real when it visits Dame Slap in the land above the faraway tree, or saunters into the non-elite Sydney Institute for a postprandial port or perhaps a very fino, very dry sherry ... or perhaps an amontillado, which isn't what the common herd swill, they usually prefer McWilliams in a flagon, but let's not get too non-elite, let's get down to it with some quality doggie fucking, though perhaps you should keep the flagon handy if you want to make it to the end ...

The pond supposes it's not quite the right time to run that poster it sighted on a wall beside Oporto in Enmore road the other day ...

 

Oh dear, you poor sweet southern things, desperate in your lockdown, and daily howling to the pond's partner your despair.

Well don't expect any sympathy from the dog botherer, you suffering wretches ...

Indeed, indeed, to pick up on a Polonial point, if only we had followed the US, and its exemplary example, if only comrade Dan followed the dog botherer to a natural conclusion ...

Now remember, you must forget everything that the angelic one scribbled. She's an outlier, possibly a lunatic, and if a member of the world of the y'arz, would swiftly be labelled by the reptiles as a practitioner of naïve art, or even worse primitivism, or worse still, pseudo-naïve art or faux naïve art.

Only the likes of the dog botherer know how to set down reality, to evoke reality, to draw reality in the sky, so that anyone gazing on it might sense and feel and taste the reality ...

You see?! That photo captures perfectly the dog botherer's intent ... why all it lacks is a few crows ...

Yes, yes, we should tear up the tram tracks, smash down that hideous station, and plant a little wheat to make a more exact parallel, the pond just wanted you to know that it was in synch with the doggie fucker ... busily mind-fucking away ...

Oh dear, a little personal bitterness there from the dog fucker. Could it be that the business model of the Murdochians is under a little strain?

Never mind, those public servant wretches know nothing. They live in a bubble, unlike the bubble that the reptiles live in, which the pond and the reptiles know, in a Christopher Nolan way, to be reality (except when it comes to blockbusters in pandemic times).

Come to think of it, what would the angelic one know? Only the dog botherer knows reality, and lives in the real world, and never cracks a joke, on social media or elsewhere, because he absolutely has no sensa huma, and indeed, has a defamation action to prove it, and so is eminently qualified to judge others and hurl insults, as a man who achieved wonders with Lord Downer in the war in Iraq and even on a more minor scale, produced the Utegate saga ... now there, as Humpty Dumpty would say, is reality for you ...

Meanwhile, on another planet, thank the long absent lord, we are safe thanks to the enormous work and dedication of the dog botherer, and his gifted understanding of climate science ... so that when the pandemic ends, we will be swimming with the frogs, and it won't be a horror movie, no it won't ...