In which the pond is swamped by so much lizard Oz choice, it gave up scones for hambergers ...

The pond started off its latest journey in the lizard Oz in good spirits, with the onion muncher front and centre, as is right, because our very own narcissist has of late been suffering from a deep irrelevancy syndrome, and it doesn't matter what they're saying, right?, so long as they're saying something ...

Imagine the pond's disappointment to discover that the rest of the piece was really a slack-arsed, sorry excuse for a story which featured a whole bunch of Sky News tweets and embedded video clips.

When you excised this dross, this internal house cross-promotion, this is what you were left with ...

Sod that for a joke, the pond thought. Is that the best Magnay can do these days, troll for Sky News? 

The pond wanted a real Pom saga, and luckily our hole in the bucket man came to the rescue, with another piece in the ongoing Promgate saga ...

Before beginning to feast on our Henry's entirely predictable Pomgate Promgate, British to the bootstraps, the gatling's jammed, the square runs red with blood, play up and play the game crap, the pond wanted to draw attention to this stunning controversy ....

The pond had wondered if it might ever find the chance to reply to Joel Golby scribbling in the Graudian This phoney war over Last Night of the Proms is everything we deserve ...

Sir, with the greatest respect, and with the first sightings of starlings in the garden this spring, the discussion is not over. If the pond happens to like to dollop cream on to its scone, followed by lashings of jam, then learn to live with it. If the pond happens to like a rich bed of killer butter beneath the cream, then so much the better for a heart attack.

What's that you say, enough of these culture wars, and on to our Henry?

Oh dear, another tedious history lesson from our Henry. What a boring old fart he is, but the pond dares to suggest that he is everything the readers of the lizard Oz deserve ... while readers of the Graudian might be more amused by Golby's positively brill (once the scones matter was settled) take on the sublime stupidity of old fogey cultural warriors doing a Colonel Blimp...

 

But enough of conscious comedy ... here have a slice of Kendal mint cake, it'll get you buzzing and shaking like a dose of speed ...

... and you'll need it, because we now must return to the comedy stylings of our Henry ...

Oh fuck he really is a classic goose, and a pompous ass, but the cunning way the pond has arranged it allows the pond a final serve of Golby before a final Henry gobbet ...

Alas and alack Joel, wrong again, with your talk of dim eight-year-olds.  Why our Henry is of a goodly age, and yet he still loves a tantrum and the penny behind the ear ... and we know why this is so, because he's reached that other, final stage, where gibbering and drooling kicks in ...

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

 And  to that childish treble, that second childishness and mere oblivion in a final gobbet ...

But some good can come out of nonsense, because it's a good chance to remind readers that the proud British tradition of Punch-drunk cartooning survives in The Graudian in the form of works by Chris Riddell, with more recent outings here. 

And so to the Oreo, and as we're speaking of cancel culture, it was the pond's turn to get indignant ...

Now the pond had to put the Oreo on a warning. Apart from the health risk that the biscuit after which she's named poses, the pond truly hopes that the reformed, recovering feminist will not under any circumstance launch an attack on the lifestyle and dietary choices of the Donald ...

Sure the Donald himself talks about mini-strokes and such like, but what a meal for kings and emperors and Donalds ... it's only in woke rags like The New Yorker that you'll read pathetic stories about The Pure American Banality of Donald Trump's White House Fast-Food Banquet ...

What's the best thing to do with a vegie garden in the White House? Dig it up. What to do with children who refuse to eat their vegies? Certainly not spank them, give them a hamberger ...

Now the pond has given the Oreo fair warning about this woke cancel culture crap, let her begin ...

Strewth, has the bloody useless Oreo, itself a fabulous food treat, heard nothing of what the pond said?

The pond prescribes her a goodly dose of hambergers ...

Oh she might think she's doing good in her woke recovering, reformed feminist way, but it seems that something of the puritan still lingers ... what she needs is a gallon of soda pop and a few dozen 'bergers ...

The pond was shocked, nay appalled by the Oreo's behaviour. Her anti-Donald woke posturing is exactly the sort of thing that would shock our Henry and many other reptiles. It's anti-tradition, it's anti-American, it goes against the god-given right of people to eat how they please, without nagging do gooders and vegans and such like whispering in their ear. Please prepare the banquet ...

By golly, he doesn't need loaves and fishes, he just needs a good collection of hambergers ... with lots of cheese, and if the pond wants cheese, cream and jam on its scone, then it will bloody well do what it likes, and none of these culture warriors will stop it ...

And now the pond must report with shame on the many excellent pieces it has missed this day ...

 

Oh how the pond was tempted by that talk of a police state, but was content that it had covered the anti-berger police state offered by the Oreo ...

But lo, look there, is that not the venerable Moorice?

Could the pond at any time ignore Moorice, expert on climate science and just about anything else you might drag to the banquet?

It would mean the pond running way over length, but sometimes patriotic duty and standing to attention to listen to the British anthem is something every reptile reader must do ...

You see? The reptiles blessed him with a gift from the cult master. It's a tad opaque, but still it resonates in the mind ...

And there's an even bigger point. When interested in solving the difficulties presented by tricky, wilful perverse black folks, should we pay attention to what they might have to say? Of course not!  Is there any better way than to invite an aged white fart to give them a lecture on their sullen, resentful ways?!

Of course when you're Moorice, no one else has a clue, which is why he's such a wondrous climate scientist, and if put in charge, would soon sort out those pesky, difficult blacks, and in the process sort out SloMo too ...

Of course a few pesky difficult blacks might observe that their lifestyle is a tad distinguishable from others in cities and towns, if only by the frequency with which they're given a dose of the slammer, but what would the pond know, up against the regurgitated wonders of Moorice's splendid, positively brill insights ...

And so on to the blame game ...

Of course, of course, and if Moorice were allowed to box a few ears, and perhaps introduce universal conscription,  that would sort everything out, and if anyone got uppity or difficult, why lock 'em up, because a few months in the slammer always works wonders ...

And so the pond headed to the weekend feeling righteous and justified. Running with Moorice had been a good thing, and the Oreo had been put back in her apologetic white, greenie-vegie sympathising basket, and all that was left was to put an infallible Pope on top of the cream and the jam to wrap things up ...

By golly that's a worthy addition to a great line in representational art ...