In which the pond takes some time off from the reptiles ...

 

 

 

The pond is really pleased the year is winding down, and the pond will soon be taking its traditional "I hate Xmas" break ...

Look at today's commentary line up - Lynton Crosby, Killer Creighton, a couple of lizard Oz editorials as padding, stuffing, and stocking fillers ...

And elsewhere it was just as grim ...

 

 

Hubris about coal, and if the ACTU doesn't deserve national prominence, why are the reptiles and Dame Groan so obsessed with it?

The pond shed a tear for the old days ... by now the cultural warriors would have filled the pages with decks of holly, and the pond could proudly wear its badge of honour, and drink from the cup of reptile tears ...

 

 

Oops, apparently some veterans have taken this as a slur on their service, but dammit, the pond fought long and hard in the trenches with the reptiles ... is there any harm in honouring that time? 

Now the calls are coming from inside the (White) House. I mean, who gives a fuck about the Christmas stuff and decorations. Am I right? But I need to do it, right, working my arse off ...

Is it any wonder that the pond is easily distracted? Where's the bromancer, where's nattering "Ned"? Why not a guest column from the onion muncher bemoaning the war on Xmas?

Why this tedious second eleven? Why must the pond wait on Media Watch to catch up on the genuine Trumpist, Flinty, parroty loonacy that infests Sky News?

And these days Crikey keeps coming with the best reptile gossip, as with this story ...

 

 

Is that why the Bolter fled to the Mornington Peninsula in a huff? All that rage, all that spleen, and nobody gives a fuck about him, the war on Xmas and all the rest of it? All those years of furious scribbling, and nearby some crooner screeching into the mike "is that all there is my friend, is that all there is?"

The challenge for the tabloids is the challenge faced by traditional local or city-based media around the world: an audience too diffuse to resist the flood of advertisers to the micro-targeting of the tech platforms; yet too geographically focussed to find enough people prepared to pay subscriptions.
In a surprise for long-term Murdoch watchers, it looks like the once-vanity project of The Australian is now more financially stable — even profitable, maybe powerful — than the once-dominant tabloids. At June 30, the company says, The Australian had about 200,000 paying subscribers (in digital and print), the most the paper has ever had. It positions the paper to claim a lion’s share of any payment for news from Google and Facebook.
News Corp will be betting that, along with Sky News, The Australian will sustain its clout in Canberra without the tabloids
By comparison, the Herald Sun, once Australia’s largest paper with more than 600,000 in circulation, now claims only 125,000 paying subscribers. Like The Courier-Mail, it failed spectacularly in turning its power against the local Labor premier.
London’s The Sun, which boasted a circulation well over 3 million back when it was making and breaking British governments, now limps along at about 1 million. It has no paid-for digital offering.
Traditionally, when Murdoch has sold mastheads, he’s sold to other media players or to a management buyout. For the Australian tabloids, that would make local management and Seven West Media the front-runners. Owner Kerry Stokes has been a long-term ally of Rupert. The West Australian already shares copy with News Corp.
And the price? Nine’s sale of New Zealand’s Stuff earlier this year may have set the market: NZ$1 to its local CEO. Sounds about right, but expect that to be buried in exchanges of rights, share-holdings and liabilities.
 

The HUN is in freefall, but the lizard Oz soars into the skies, no matter today's lumpen dross? 

Well the pond wants some credit, some share of the Google action, because for years the pond has been campaigning for people to pay attention to the cretins at the rag, and apparently some fools, some dopes, some dickheads have taken the pond seriously and subscribed ...

Speaking of cretins, as the pond often does, the story at the top of the lizard Oz page today was pure gossip, so the pond thought, what the heck, why not do a Toobin, kick back the heels and have some holiday fun with the reptiles ...

The pond can join in this sort of Xmas spirit ... goodwill oozing everywhere, jolly japes amongst chums ...

 

But with the crackpots regularly off to hospital or in isolation, why not keep on with down under follies?

 

Colourful? If the pond wants to add a little colour, it always turns to a cartoon ...

 

 

But back to the transcripts ...

 

Frankly the pond is happier calling some people scam artists, crooks, and deeply corrupt rather than talk of fashion, about which the pond is no expert ...

And of course all those who consort with con artists and snake oil sales folk are just as crooked and corrupt, and we all know who that means. Come on down Fox News, come on down Murdochians ...

And here we are at the final gobbet, and the pond is immensely pleased that it hasn't made a single comment on the matter before the courts, which is also the matter before the Overingham. It is of course a serious trial on serious matters, and the pond would never attempt to comment on matters before the courts, no matter the extraordinary temptation to do so ...

Well the pond can think of a punchline to one old joke ... you know, two Donald lawyers walked into a bar ...

 

Clearly the reptiles couldn't get enough of the saga, because this also turned up ...

 

 

 

Sure, it's just more fluff-gathering and navel-gazing, but what's the pond to do? Read Dame Groan? Yabber on about industrial relations and the gig economy and the hard rain that will eventually fall, thanks to the transfer of public assets to cover the private sector, which will be needed thanks to the boondogglers not giving a fuck or benefits to cover job insecure young 'uns when they get too old to peddle for a living.

 

Why bother, the pond has a scrunched up infallible Pope to do that job ...

 

 

 

 

 

And so back to that other circus, though it's getting more and more marginal ...

 

 

 

 

Peanuts? But that's the bromancer's favourite term of abuse, unless it happens to be 'nutty' or 'barking mad'.

 

 

 

 

 

The pond couldn't resist. It just had to have a few 'barking mads' from the bromancer... and with bonus pictures ...

 

What, they want to turn the town into a dour, dun-coloured shade of grey?

 

 

 

 

And so to the final gobbet of the day ...

 

Oh dear, and there was the pond reading about poor old Charlie Waterstreet, reduced to a bed sit.

Being a colourful Sydney identity isn't what it used to be ...

Never mind, the pond can always give thanks that this year, Killer Creighton and the reptiles didn't prevail, and the country didn't attempt to replicate the United States ... and for that, small mercies ... as elsewhere, the war on Xmas has taken a real turn for the worse ...