In which the pond is pleased to have comedian Dame Groan for company, and also has another comedy idea to pitch ...

Thank the long absent lord for Dame Groan. The pond was in dire straits this day with the reptiles in a full feverish featherless flight of fury, and the pond yearned for the familiar, and luckily the reptiles still kept Dame Groan front and centre of the commentary section, and the pond is ever so grateful ...

Mind you, it's not for anything that the Groaner will have to say. The minute the pond saw that smiling - nay smirking - gay marriage rights campaigner, it knew the Groaner would be mounting a righteous fury against his wokeness, and against the rest of his woke kin ...

But what could Dame Groan do? Who else could Dame Groan attack? The news for coal - oh sweet clean pure dinkum Oz coal, will only the reptiles loves ya? - seems to be running bad, as per this report in the Graudian here ...

Even more if you follow the link, and gloomy days indeed, with dinkum clean Oz coal loving reptiles filled with quiet despair.

So naturally Dame Groan had to vent her fury with the foolish fops who actually thought it was possible to do two jobs - rub tum and chew gum, or run a business and think it might help the business if the planet continued along, without all these weather records piling up on each other month after month ...

The pond knows many in its readership will gasp in wonder and amazement at that opening reference to the "long march through the institutions." In a way, the pond thought it had already provided enough entertainment just with that opening, but Dame Groan showing her HR skills by berating "ill-educated flunkies" was surely an able capper ...

Ain't it grand to see the 'leets rage at the condescending ways of the 'leets, but what happened to good old-fashioned "ill-educated deplorables"?

And then there was the "woke ethos", and assorted other thought crimes, like people loving each other, the country being diverse and inclusive, as opposed to monocultural, exclusive and Dame Groan cranky, and so on, but inevitably the real crime would be to take climate science seriously, when everyone knows it's a hoax and a Groanian fraud ... so it's on with the denialism ...

Indeed, indeed, the pond would feel infinitely more comfortable if businesses woke from their woke slumber and joined Dame Groan. It's easily enough done - just announce that you see the best way forward as the destruction of the planet, because then tremendous job opportunities will be created trying to fix what has been fucked (call it the Vonnegut Player Piano effect if you will).

Sadly Dame Groan doesn't have much of a sensa huma or a sensa planeta fucketa, and so to the final Groanian gobbet ...

Splendid stuff, and what a wide ranging set of beefs, and how pleasing to note Groan's science credentials listed at the end, so extensive that they require a "read more" to encompass ... or perhaps to find.

But here's why the pond was pleased to see Dame Groan in action. You see, it had resolved that this would be a "No Victoria if you please" day, and yet it knew the reptiles would be in a high state of agitation, and sure enough ...

And yet after all that, all Killer Creighton's effort, all "Ned's" natter, all the lizard Oz's editorial suggestions, the only thing that stuck in the pond's mind was this cartoon by David Rowe (with more immortal Rowe here) ...

But the pond needed a little light relief after that, and again it was saved by the reptile bell ...

... or, to put it a little differently, by a Pommie trading as """ ...

Of late the pond has come to love the flailing Poms. Anyone who'd buy a used onion muncher is a prime target for the pond's lifelong aim of flogging the harbour bridge to someone ... (surely this Australian dream is closer to reality with the Poms than the pond's chance of winning a Scratchie?)

Anyhoo, it seems that Trev ... oh to be a Trev, and so possibly partner a Karen ... was in a funny Wodehouse mood this day, and was intent on becoming a bit of a """ Bertie ...

Good old climate science, it's a wonder isn't it, the way that the reptiles can slip it in, even though there's no apparent connection between koalas and Woeshouse ...

Oh dear, that's a screen cap, but the pond became deeply concerned, given that the pond is deeply conservative and always worried about copyright clearances (something the Donald's campaign can't claim). And sure enough, the pond could have provided a link, but what do you know ...

Uh huh, so he doesn't have a copyright clearance (in fact the pond has sampled his offerings before), and so for that matter, neither do the reptiles, and so they encourage the giant YouTube monolith, and its relentless disruption of copyright ...

Even worse for the reptiles,  the incorrigible rogue  uses a bullshit excuse, but the pond is delighted to see the reptiles accepting it, because should anyone from the lizard Oz decide to come after the pond as a mindless minion of Google, all it need say is "copyrighted material used in this blog forms part of a series of educational posts on loon pond, and are included herein under the fair use exemption, whatever that might be, except that it's clearly exempt (see the loon pond explanation of how to use this blog, starting by learning to read)" ...


Sorry for that detour, on with the hapless Pom trying to grind out a comedy column, as if purchasing a used onion muncher wasn't already enough of a laugh fest ...

Actually all this is a bit silly ... but the pond was reminded of a recent column in the Graudian in response to a call by the BBC for more right wing comedy ...

The new director-general of the BBC, Tim Davie, has voiced his determination to show more rightwing comedy and less leftwing comedy. Many are concerned, on account of the fact that there are no rightwing comedians worthy of the name.
It’s an unusual job, isn’t it? You could be a doctor and fail to heal a person, but, hey, you would be trained; you would still be a doctor. A comedian, contrariwise, needs to get a laugh, or it isn’t comedy. It’s a minimum two-person job. Ideally, you want tons of people, as many as possible, all laughing, a yardstick of complete inclusivity. It is no job for the rugged individualist, the dedicated Ayn Rand-reader.
This is the kindest possible explanation for the non-existence of rightwing comedy, and it’s the one I’m sticking with.

Yes, yes, fair point and all that, and quite possibly Hayek devotees might have the same trouble as Randians and Trumpians, but what's your pitch?

... the announcement could not have come at a better time for my sitcom idea. So there’s this house. It’s a bit like The Young Ones, except the flatmates are all people who were previously darlings of the liberal left who, for one reason or another, veered wildly and with velocity in the other direction. When it starts, it’s just Germaine Greer and Morrissey, and they get on OK, but he hates the word “menopause” so she says it constantly, and they, inevitably and vehemently, fall out over the ins and outs of veganism.
It’s actually a three-bedroomed house, so they interview John Cleese, but he is just insufferable from every political and human angle. Instead, Kate Hoey moves in, which is fine up to a point, except that she never does any washing up, which gets right on Germaine’s wick, and the house descends into entropy and squalor – OK, that bit is heavily Young Ones-influenced – as they walk the emotional tightrope of who has and has not been invited on to an LBC panel that week, and whether the invitation related to a personal project, or they were just a representative from Planet Wow Do You Really Think That, Or Are You Just Beefing With the Liberal Elite?

Now we're cooking, and all the pond asks is for the spin-off rights down under.

You see the pond reckons it would be great to have Pauline Hanson and Mark Latham set up a shared house, and each week they interview a new candidate for the other room. There could be Gra Gra Richo, but all he wants to do is talk about is Swiss bank accounts; another episode might feature Phillip Adams, who pretends to be a socialist atheist, but confesses to being a Murdoch hack, a looter of Egyptian antiques and a squatter; or we could have Barry Humphries, raging at the fine pine hidden beneath the cheap veneer ...

And now - sorry, no-one was excited by the pitch - back to the prattish, both sidererist, boofhead Pom, doing what Poms usually do, standing in queues and letting the likes of Boris and the House of Lords roll all over them ...

Actually what everyone needs is less fuckwitted columns of this kind in the Murdochian press, flatulent and foolish, and fuck the need for the punctured balloon to fall to earth ... the entire point of The Red Balloon is that it has a fine time, you mindless futtock, and it certainly wouldn't have the first clue why one minute you're talking of rum and hedonism, and the next being a total downer and sticking pins in balloons ...

Fly free, ballon rouge, but here, in that shared desire for comedy, have an infallible Pope ...

... and while we're at it, why not a succinct analysis of your column and the Donald's wittering twitters ...