In which "Ned" does a fine Mosfilm impression in the pond's ongoing festival of reptiles ...

 

Of course any festival director faces a challenge by beginning its reptile screenings with the bromancer war gaming World War 111.

How to follow up? How to match, however remotely, the prospect of the destruction of the planet?

Back in the day when the pond helped organise festivals, we had ways of handling such matters. 

After the fireworks, best to wheel in a long dirge that was the rough equivalent of soma, something that would settle down viewers for the long haul, so that they'd forget what they'd seen only a moment ago, and give not a fig or a whit about what was to follow.

A three hour long offering from Mosfilm, perhaps, or a well-meaning, dour Iranian show, or perhaps a retrospective of Tarkovsky ... or a dose of nattering "Ned".

 

 

Now it will be noted that "Ned" is in the same turf as the bromancer ... but beneath that placid, dull, prolix surface is a steely determination ...

 

Oh okay a tinny determination, as we escalate, and respond to provocation with provocation ...

 

Yes soon enough we will stop sending iron ore to China, just to teach them a lesson ... and pretty much everything else, and that'll make them think twice. If we can't have apocalyptic war gaming of the brass knuckles kind, then at least we can have economic war gaming ... now is not the time to be faint-hearted lads ... now is not the time to blink in the face of enemy fire ... now is the time to go off the rails ...

 

Small beer indeed ...

 

 

 

Oh there's a steady drumbeat, and even though "Ned" could have done with his usual back and sides trim,  to get him on a war-footing, and just to keep the endless ramble at a decent length, there's no mistaking the call, interminable as it is ...

 

 

Indeed, indeed, we are now fully "woke", and in our "wokeness", there's only one path forward ... though "Ned" might try to downplay the only viable option by raising saucy doubts and fears ...the sort of faint-hearted quisling routine that will surely fail to impress fearless mutton Dutton ...

 

Say what? "Ned" is reluctant to ban iron ore? "Ned" is hinting that there might be several shades of hypocrisy at work?

But the alarm bells are ringing and surely the hand wringing chicken little must start doing some proper town crier work ...

 

 

Now we have mutton Dutton leading the charge, things are going to change ...

 

Indeed, indeed, because when world war III erupts, Darwin and the Collins-class subs are going to be vital, a real page turner, just as Singapore was in the last shindig ...

 

 

 

 

Now the pond is going to hear the usual complaints by festival goers that routinely turn up at festivals. 

Shouldn't "Ned" have come before the bromancer, thereby setting the stage for the world war III which is to follow?

But please, "Ned" as a festival opener?

You can't open a festival with an interminably long pondering "Ned" style... even if his last gobbet has some delicious moments, beginning with "in short".

When has "Ned" ever been "in short"? His entire brand is to be "in long" ... and even worse, it seems that SloMo has yet to reach the conclusion that we need to go to war with China ... when movie-makers around the world are anxious to do yet another post-apocalyptic, end of world, flick ...

Give the bromancer his due, he was gung ho ... while too often "Ned" ruins the drama by posing as a jelly fish ...

 "Let's get real"?

Only in the world of "Ned" could the reptiles pretend that reality is a real thing ...

 

Actually the only choice in a reptile festival is to include a cartoon, and fortunately the pond has an infallible Pope to hand ... showing how the real really works ...