In which the pond is reads our Henry and is enlightened, and so revives Dame Groan ...

 

After all the excitement yesterday, the pond was struck this day by the lizard Oz's infinite capacity for comical juxtapositions - the weirder Kelly in boots and a hat- and the way forward in new technologies to do something about the state of the planet, which is to do nothing ... thereby allowing the pond to start the day with an infallible Pope ...

 

 

And then there was this comical juxtaposition ...

 

 

What an experienced arse-licker the bouffant one is, how professional and enduring ... but the pond has done enough time with this kind of hackery, and looked further afield ...

 

 

What a great bunch. There was Rocco, ready to be given a microchipping, and simplistic Simon doing the usual, but above all, there was this classic juxtaposition ...

 

 

What could the pond do, but listen to the loudest voice from the city? 

Why waste time with Jacinta Nampijinpa Price? Isn't she some sort of rustic? How could she possibly compete with our Henry? 

Will the hole in the bucket man apply his infinite philosophical understanding - perhaps a little Nietzsche - to sort out uppity and difficult blacks and make them understand the deep enrichment they have received from the white way?

Ah the old 'perpetuating victimhood' routine ... completely predictable. No point complaining about that angle, because it gets you coming and going. If you keep on playing the victim, why then you're just a whiner and a moaner ... but if you stand up and become a tall poppy, the lop it off syndrome kicks in ...

The pond thought of another juxtaposition ... Twiggy rabbiting on this same day ...

 

Systemic racism? What on earth is he on about? Hasn't that been contained to Collingwood FC?

But the loudest voice from the city had the floor, as was right and proper ... and never mind that Australia Day is now a fading memory, our Henry's gimlet mind never forgets or forgives ...

 

You see, a dash of Botticelli here, and a dose of Nietzsche there, and the entire situation is fixed, and the pond has no need to read the meandering thoughts of a rustic ...

No need to worry too much about actual Australian history either. What's the point of dragging up unpleasant memories, don't think for a moment that our Henry is going to display any contrition. Goddamit, he's proud of everything this country has done to the pesky, difficult blacks ... if only they'd been Enlightened, they would have taken death and penury and slavery in their stride, like a proper British man ... please, let us have a little Hegel to heal the wounds.  And as for that talk of ongoing systemic racism and disadvantage, please, read on rustic, and learn from your louder city betters ...

 

 

 

 

Whatever its date might be? Odds bodkins, the pond had it fixed in its mind that the day celebrated the invasion of the country by white forces, who managed to exterminate a good deal of the then resident population, by force, poison, disease, or whatever else it took, with Tasmanians showing how to do a decent extermination.

Silly pond. Now rustic, stand by for a blaring of trumpets in the Purcell manner, just to round out your lesson for the day ...

 

The pond almost sobbed with relief at the thought of the wise and humane way unappreciative Aboriginal folk have been treated down the years ... there's nothing like a bunch of convicts being dumped in a faraway country to show true enlightenment ... and what better way to celebrate that enlightenment and shove it up the victims?

And now the pond had promised that if nothing else appealed, there was always Dame Groan from yesterday ...

 

 

Even the clunky header suggested that the reptiles didn't quite know what to make of Dame Groan's rambling outing, and nor did the pond ... but the pond knew that Dame Groan was on the right track, because she started with Killer Creighton ...

 

 

 

A tad dry? No, no, it's fascinating, and compelling.  We are all hapless corks upon a teaming, vast, incomprehensible ocean ... best to adopt the teenage policy of staying in bed until noon, and then only emerging to grouch, because let's face it, there's no point doing anything, there's no point in attempting to control things, and governments aren't much good for anything. Certainly not attempting public health. How much better they were in Victorian England, with sewerage in the streets and cholera rife ...

Yes, everything is futile and life is full of existential despair and control is just an illusion of the mind, so let us see if the pond's cork can bob back to Dame Groan's, heaving away in the vast, unknowable ocean, or perhaps cosmos ...

Um, might the pond be so bold as to ask what gap? Didn't the pond just celebrate the triumphant arrival of the First Fleet and all the joys it brought to Aboriginal folk? Have they not been blessed by Enlightenment and perhaps a passing knowledge of Botticelli, Nietzsche and Hegel? What gap is this whereof the Dame scribbles?

Indeed, indeed, and Dame Groan should carry on, because each time she does, she enriches the pond ... her know it all humility each time reminds the pond to be arrogantly humble, in the way of a Uriah Heep ...

 

When I was quite a young boy, I got to know what umbleness did, and I took to it. I ate umble pie with an appetite. I stopped at the umble point of my learning, and says I, ‘Hard hard!’ When you offered to teach me Latin, I knew better. ‘People like to be above you,’ says father, ‘keep yourself down.’ I am very umble to the present moment, Master Copperfield, but I’ve got a little power!

...They used to teach at school (the same school where I picked up so much umbleness), from nine o’clock to eleven, that labour was a curse; and from eleven o’clock to one, that it was a blessing and a cheerfulness, and a dignity, and I don’t know what all, eh?

Ah yes, that's the Groanian lesson for the day, to be umble, a bit like that umble lad who learned to be humble, and so turned up in an immortal Rowe cartoon, celebrating the very best who are in country to spread the Enlightenment, and in government to control the bobbing corks, with more celebrations to be found here ...