In which the pond has no choice but to visit ancient Athens ...

 

 

 

 

 

Not only was the pond in the middle of its hunger games, it had completely lost interest in the United States, which no matter what happens will remain comprehensively fucked ... so the assorted assembly of reptile sages this day seemed completely useless, not least an imported Rove and the ruined visions of Troy.

 

Desperately the pond looked at the top o the digital edition, but it was more of the same.

 

Oh sure there was some piquant about old man Gra Gra, he of the Swiss bank accounts and Gold Coast, writing about old men, but the pond even thought of reverting to the second eleven offered up yesterday afternoon...

 

 

They finally realised that their very own columnist, Jolly Joe, is a dangerous loon? And nattering "Ned" was doing the Overington and demanding ballots rather than barristers settle the matter, perhaps because "Ned" has an original thought only in his dreams?

No, there was nothing for it, but to go with the pond's regular Friday favourite ...

 

 

 

 

 

Not old Henry, blathering on about the US election, and worse, with a statue of Lincoln at the top of the piece, as if the US is now heading towards a civil war? the pond can hear remaining readers shriek ... there's too much suffering in the world already.

 

Relax. The pond has been completely aboveboard in revealing its thinking, exposing its decision-making, and will feel fully justified by end of piece ... because for the few remaining pond readers, our Henry is guaranteed to take us on a tour through ancient times, even less relevant than that Lincoln statue ... and so the pond's deep desire to avoid the sights and sounds of a dying United States might be partially assuaged ...

 

 

 

Pericles! Thucydides. Orwellian. The Furies. Ancient Athens. The pond just knew that our Henry would come through. As for those silly Athenians getting their knickers in a knot about the plague, if only they'd had our Henry to guide them through ... as he did only a few issues ago for the readers of the lizard Oz. Perhaps a few excerpts as reminders of our Henry in plague days, talking it down?

 

Ah that's right, our Henry was not so long ago in the Killer Creighton School of Death ... incidentally a school still currently open for business in the US, the UK and many parts of Europe ...

 

 

There you go ancient Athenians, cop that ...

 

But enough of sampling ancient Henry treasures, shouted - or in Henry's world 'proclaimed' - from the rooftops, let us return to the present so that we might return to another past, still filled with meaningless sound and fury ...

 

 

Remarkable, really, this far in, and no mention of the Donald as a classic authoritarian nepotic demagogue and populist, but that's why Henry is a pond favourite. Instead you cop Tocqueville, Lincoln, and talk of Cleon and Caesar ...

 Whatever one makes of our Henry's taste for ancient clichés - this is hardly the first time it's happened, and will hardly be the last - it seems certain that he will manage to end the piece without once mentioning the Donald ...

 

 

Dear sweet long absent lord, no wonder America is fucked ... but at least, thanks to the hole in the bucket man, the pond remains completely clueless as to the cause and to the cure ... and surely that's something. 

Apart from the odd reluctant mention of the country, there's not a thought about the Donald, or the way that the dirty digger divided the country in pursuit of profit, and then hammered the divisions wider and harder, in pursuit of profit, and so the pond escaped this day with a history lesson, and little else ...

For some reason a line about Servius Galba together with the Twelfth Legion being sent into the territory of the Nantuates, the Vergargri and the Seduni stuck with the pond, for the mortifying experience of having to translate the Latin out loud to the entire class. Now that's first hand experience of suffering at the hands of tyrants ...

As for dear old hole in the bucket man, Henry, he becomes more peculiar and eccentric by the week,  retreating into the past, away from the Donald, away from the reptile world at a rapid rate. It's impossible to imagine him sitting down and watching Fox News 24/7 for a month ... but perhaps he should pull his nose out of ancient tomes (that's books) and experience its wonders ... and then he might have some remote grasp of modern realities ...

No doubt he'd immediately go Plato and think of people watching shadowy figures on a cave wall and that's as good a reason as any to stay loyal to our Henry's sublime disconnection from reality ... 

And if he thinks that last line means he's being sternly judged as a writer, he should take comfort in the thoughts of Dr Johnson:

Success and miscarriage have the same effect in all conditions. The prosperous are feared, hated, and flattered; and the unfortunate avoided, pitied, and despised. No sooner is a book published than the writer may judge of the opinion of the world. If his acquaintance press around him in publick places, or salute from the other side of the street; if invitations to dinner come thick upon him, and those with whom he dines keep him to supper; if the ladies turn to him when his coat is plain, and the footmen serve him with attention and alacrity; he may be sure that his work has been praised by some leader of literary fashions.
Of declining reputation the symptoms are not less easily observed. If the author enters a coffee-house, he has a box to himself; if he calls at a bookseller's, the boy turns his back; and, what is the most fatal of all prognosticks, authors will visit him in a morning, and talk to him hour after hour of the malevolence of criticks, the neglect of merit, the bad taste of the age, and the candour of posterity.
 Johnson: Idler #102 (March 29, 1760)

Well if Henry can do it ...

And now the pond feels that Henry has blazed a path, and it's more than acceptable for the pond to end with the immortal Rowe, though he too mentions the United States, with more mentions here ...