In which the pond is entranced by nattering "Ned's" meanderings and the onion muncher in killer mood ...

The pond just had to start the day with an apology to its son. For years, the spawn had been warning the pond of the dangers of zombies.

Growing up as he did in post-George Romero times, he was acutely aware that zombies were everywhere, ready to strike at any time, and eternal vigilance was necessary.

The pond had scoffed - what zombies where, outside the movies? it asked - but thanks to Herman Cain, the pond now realises it was all true ...

Zombies stalk the earth ... and then came a dread realisation, an unnerving fear? What if Surry Hills had been taken over, and the reptiles had become zombies?

For a moment, the hairs on the back of the pond's neck stood up, and the nerves tingled ...

But the pond is made of stern stuff, and shrugged it off, as it looked like there was going to be another battle which would make World War Z look like small beer ...

 Oh the rich irony of News Corp talking of bullies.

The pond particularly enjoyed one comment at the bottom of a Crikey story about the impending saga ...

Who knows what will happen? Perhaps the pond will be collateral damage, but the pond will be grateful if it's put out of its misery, because these days, studying the reptiles tends to come by rote.

Just look at this line up in today's digital edition ...

Hmm, the war on China is going swimmingly well, but of course the pond focused on the white trash sending us their words, and who better to start the word-sending than nattering "Ned"?

Hang on, hang on, before we get past that header, credit where credit is due. 

It's the dirty digger from down under, who'd sell his soul and his citizenship for money, wot done it. Has there been a better effort to divide the United States than the money-making machine known as Fox News, with its fanatical tribalism and its barking mad after dark hosts? The Ingrahams, the Hannities, the Tucker Snarlsons?

Each day there's a new set of wonders ...

Please "Ned", no false modesty, embrace the darkness of the empire to which you belong ...

The pond apologises for leaving that sub-header "Compromise is forlorn" just hanging there, but the insidious reptiles followed it with a series of click-bait links of no interest to the pond. The poor darlings, they do so want to keep their readers locked into the bubble ...

What did interest the pond was that the reptiles now feel the need to punctuate "Ned", to break his ramblings up with sub-headers, as a way of helping unfortunates caught in his word web through the tangled weave ...

So okay, compromise is forlorn, because Fox News is all about compromise ...

 

The pond reluctantly had to admit that the reptiles were on to something. Reducing "Ned" to a series of chunky beef soup gobbets made sense ... created a tabloid sensationalism at odds with his usual dullard prattling, as in the next gobbet, featuring King Kong unleashed ...

 

What is it with Andrew Sullivan? Nobody at News Corp paid attention to the loon until he parted ways with New York Magazine, and the notion that he resigned is a little more nuanced than Ned's wording would have you believe.

Have no doubt he would have stayed on, blathering his irrelevancies to the moon, if he could have, but in his farewell column, he himself began this way ...

The good news is that my last column in this space is not about “cancel culture.” Well, almost. I agree with some of the critics that it’s a little nuts to say I’ve just been “canceled,” sent into oblivion and exile for some alleged sin. I haven’t. I’m just no longer going to be writing for a magazine that has every right to hire and fire anyone it wants when it comes to the content of what it wants to publish.
The quality of my work does not appear to be the problem. I have a long essay in the coming print magazine on how plagues change societies, after all. I have written some of the most widely read essays in the history of the magazine, and my column has been popular with readers. And I have no complaints about my interaction with the wonderful editors and fact-checkers here — and, in fact, am deeply grateful for their extraordinary talent, skill, and compassion. I’ve been in the office maybe a handful of times over four years, and so there’s no question of anyone mistreating me or vice versa. In fact, I’ve been proud and happy to be a part of this venture.
What has happened, I think, is relatively simple: A critical mass of the staff and management at New York Magazine and Vox Media no longer want to associate with me, and, in a time of ever tightening budgets, I’m a luxury item they don’t want to afford. And that’s entirely their prerogative... (here, and BTW, a reader's link Andrew Sullivan: The 'polite' fascist is a fascist nonetheless).

That sounds much more like a none too gentle shove out the door rather than a principled resignation ...

Still it was good fun to see the man who called the United States the most tolerant country on the planet discover the limits of his co-workers' tolerance ...

There's only so much stupid shit anyone should be forced to deal with (except pond readers of course, highly skilled and trained and adept, and ready to take a job in any sewage works).

The pond only read Sullivan if it wanted to get angry, at the pompous prat's enormous self-regard (on view in the few pars above), and these days getting angry seems like a real luxury item.

But speaking of pompous prats, the pond must return to "Ned" and his next sub-heading:

Oh come now "Ned", surely any red-blooded American and News Corp scribbler would support the right of any 17 year old carrying an AR-15 style weapon to roam the streets, and if a few people happen to get killed, it's not vigilantism, it's just collateral damage. Where would good old Charlie Bronson and the Death Wish series, started by that terrible hack Michael Winner, be, without guns in the streets?

And as for that talk of the Donald's lack of discipline and chaotic administration, how unfair is that?

And so the last sub-header and the last chunky gobbet of "Ned" goodness ...

 

Well we could hope that fatuous fops of the "Ned" kind could stop quoting pompous prats of the Andrew Sullivan kind, but the pond doubts this will ever happen. Like starlings, they get together and crap on everything, and call it insight ...

Oh, and "Ned" might at some point stare at his own navel, hitched as it is to News Corp and so to Fox News, and realise that instead of Andrew Sullivan, he should be quoting Laura or Hannity or Tucker, his kissing cousins across the Pacific ...

The United States is fully fucked, and full credit to the dirty digger that helped make it so ...

And speaking of other monstrosities forced on to the world by News Corp, of course the pond was going to pay attention to the onion muncher in the lizard Oz this day ...

Such a pompous illustration for a clown, and the pond immediately felt the need to repeat that classic Pope ...

Ah, that felt better but then a very strange thing happened at the end of Magnay's far too short report ... as if the onion muncher was now an outdated irrelevancy that needed some pruning to stay in readable shape ...

 Say what?

"Mr Abbott, who is poised to be appointed to the UK Board of Trade ..."

"And then?", as the dude with a lost car would ask. Isn't there a sentence to be finished? Apparently not. No "and then" ...

Is it any wonder that for once in its life, the pond looked elsewhere, and lo and behold, the Graudian had a much better angle ...

Eek, he's been transmogrified into Killer Creighton ...

Now the pond doesn't wish to steal the Graudian's thunder.  Patrick Wintour's report can be found here, and it contains a graph which the pond excised,  and a video clip which here is only a screen cap, but please, compare this to Magnay's wretched outing, showing she might have a career in forensic cleansing ...

Of course if you die of Covid, it's hardly a natural death, more an agonising one, but the more the pond contemplated the onion muncher's infinite wisdom, the more that the pond wanted to echo Sideshow Bob: The Onion Muncher The, which anyone can translate into German, though only if you know the meaning of "Die wanker" ...

Yes, it's no wonder the reptiles kept their report short, and Magnay attempted to excise the deepest depths of onion muncher thinking. The man who brought you knighthoods was now posing as Dr Death ...

At the end of it all, the pond breathed a heartfelt sigh of relief. Imagine if this loon had still been running the country when the virus hit. Why we'd probably have matched the Donald in the US ... but at least we'd still be handing out Pom gongs for brave survivors ...

But here's the thing, and the sour note to end on. 

Some of the onion muncher's spawn are still active and in power, and this day their mischievous work has been celebrated by the infallible Pope ...

Why it's just like the United States, in its own way ...