In which the pond takes a Pooterish pleasure in scribbling about nothing much for its Sunday meditation ...

 

 

Look, it's only a few sleeps until the next stage in the Gaetzgate saga, and if that's your idea of excitement, stick matchsticks under your eyelids in approved cartoon style.

It's certainly more interesting than the lizard Oz.

The pond can only offer more genteel pleasures, inspirations of the Pooterish kind ...

 Edwin Poots has been elected leader of the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) on the promise of remoulding Northern Ireland’s biggest party and ratcheting up opposition to the Irish Sea border.
On Friday the Stormont agriculture minister narrowly beat Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, a DUP MP, in a two-horse race to succeed Arlene Foster.
He won by 19 votes to 17 from an electorate comprised of the DUP’s eight Westminster MPs and 28 Stormont assembly members. The tight margin reflected deep division about the party’s direction and may complicate Poots’s efforts to stamp his authority.
Poots, 55, is a young Earth creationist from the party’s conservative Christian wing who believes the planet is 6,000 years old, a belief that could impede the party’s effort to court new voters. (Graudian here)

 A young earther! A creationist! And he's supposed to work with rampant, serial fornicator BoJo!

Or how about this offering from Marina Hyde, marinating a foolish fop slowly ...

Hauled before two select committees to answer for his Greensill lobbying role, David Cameron yesterday claimed his text to the Treasury mentioning a “rate cut” might in fact have meant to say “VAT cut”. As the former prime minister put it: “I think I’m a victim of spellcheck here.” A what now? Still, you’ll have nothing but respect for this excuse, which is basically: “I fear that I, a standup guy, have been autocorrected into a complete chancer.” And yet … on which phone software does VAT autocorrect to rate? I’m afraid I found it rather difficult to watch this section of the hearings and not think: can you ducking believe this aunt?
I say “this section of the hearings”. In fact, Cameron’s appearances provided if not an embarrassment of riches, then certainly an embarrassment of embarrassments. (and so on at the Graudian here).

Ducking believe this aunt!

But back to Poots, who immediately reminded the pond of its hero ...

April 6.—Eggs for breakfast simply shocking; sent them back to Borset with my compliments, and he needn’t call any more for orders.  Couldn’t find umbrella, and though it was pouring with rain, had to go without it.  Sarah said Mr. Gowing must have took it by mistake last night, as there was a stick in the ‘all that didn’t belong to nobody.  In the evening, hearing someone talking in a loud voice to the servant in the downstairs hall, I went out to see who it was, and was surprised to find it was Borset, the butterman, who was both drunk and offensive.  Borset, on seeing me, said he would be hanged if he would ever serve City clerks any more—the game wasn’t worth the candle.  I restrained my feelings, and quietly remarked that I thought it was possible for a city clerk to be a gentleman.  He replied he was very glad to hear it, and wanted to know whether I had ever come across one, for he hadn’t.  He left the house, slamming the door after him, which nearly broke the fanlight; and I heard him fall over the scraper, which made me feel glad I hadn’t removed it.  When he had gone, I thought of a splendid answer I ought to have given him.  However, I will keep it for another occasion.  (Project Gutenberg the whole book here).

But how to segue from Poots and Pooter and sacred aunts to prattling Polonius? This illustration provides a clue ...

 

 

Eggs for breakfast! Well, it's not Gaetzgate and salivating over seventeen year olds, but it's what the pond does ...

All this has already been covered at tedious length by the pond yesterday,  thanks to nattering "Ned" offering up a endless hagiographical take on the matter, but it's the season for simpering, and so room had to be found for a fawning, simpering Polonius... all the more remarkable because our man actually has the cheek to begin with an approving Keynes quote, and then - so startled is he by his audacity - has to pretend he doesn't know its source ... whatever!?

 

Ah yes, all that old stuff about the former chairman and Swannie and whatever. Water off a duck's back or under a bridge, or whatever ... and anyway nattering "Ned" covered all that yesterday, so now it's just a swallowing of the regurgitation of the repetition ...

 

Ideology has no place at a time of national or international crisis? Passing strange. Although the pond has already covered it, who could forget the never-ending rage of the reptiles during the stimulus package? Ming the Merciless as the history lesson? What about Swannie?  Could it get any more insufferable than this?

 

And that was in 2020, long before the current splurge!

Oh it's a long hard road back from there, we are all Keynesians now,  but Polonius does his very best ...

Strange, the pond can't remember Polonius being so agitated about that ancient stimulus package, but the work of a diligent hagiographer is never done, air brushing the past and painting a rosy glow over the present, and using a fog filter to produce a hazy look into the future ...

No doubt some will remember these predictions, and might even have a chance to hold them against Polonius, but the pond is content. It takes exceptional skill to scribble "she'll be right Jack, or Jill or gender identity as the case may be", instead of "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy" ...

And so to the next reptile, and just to be perverse the pond decided to put Dame Groan cheek by jowl with Polonius ...

 

 

 

The pond can't understand why Dame Groan is a reader favourite, but as she was scribbling about the same weighty matters as Polonius, toujours gai Archy, wot the hell ... 

 

Unlike Polonius, Dame Groan is full of petulant foot-stomping and whines and moans, and who is the pond to stand in her way ...

 

Questions, questions, and none of them asked by Polonius, and none of them answered by him either, just the benign assurance that she'll be right, Jack, or Jill, or whatever gender identity, while the Groan goes on groaning ...

And there you have it. Polonius happily munching on  his magic pudding, and Dame Groan thinking there's something wrong with magic pudding, and all the pond wants to do is have a bite of mushroom ...

“One side will make you grow taller, and the other side will make you grow shorter.”
“One side of what? The other side of what?” thought Alice to herself.
“Of the mushroom,” said the Caterpillar, just as if she had asked it aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight.
Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as it was perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question. However, at last she stretched her arms round it as far as they would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each hand.
“And now which is which?” she said to herself, and nibbled a little of the right-hand bit to try the effect: the next moment she felt a violent blow underneath her chin: it had struck her foot!
She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but she felt that there was no time to be lost, as she was shrinking rapidly; so she set to work at once to eat some of the other bit. Her chin was pressed so closely against her foot, that there was hardly room to open her mouth; but she did it at last, and managed to swallow a morsel of the lefthand bit. (Project Gutenberg, here)

Ah so we've nibbled on the left hand bit! Alice is a lefty. The magic pudding is probably a pinko commie perve!

The pond could feel a meaningless song coming on:

Go ask Groan
When she's ten feet tall.
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you're going to fall,
Tell 'em a hookah smoking Polonius
Has given you the call.
Call Alice
When she was just small.
When knightly Josh and bishop SloMo on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving slow.
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know.
When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead,
And the White Knight is talking backward
And the Groan has lost her head!
Remember what the dormouse said:
"Feed your head. Feed your head. Feed your head"

Well it's hard to segue from there, but the pond will give it a shot. 

Aficionados of Dame Groan will recall that recently she scribbled a screed denouncing migration and big Australia, and so the time seemed right to bring in the Angelic one as the bonus Sunday offering ...

Now this means missing out on other matters, but the infallible Pope is on hand, so he can take care of that business ...

 

Now the pond can return with a clear conscience to the Angelic one, and her array of heresies ...

 

Where to start with that lot? Perhaps with "pivot", and a list of pivots at WaPo here ...

 

 

Yes, 'pivot' is positively ancient, and so yesterday, and whenever the pond drops Silicon Valley into the conversation, young people look at the pond as if chatting with an Ancient Mariner ... but they're probably a bit slow to catch up in Canberra, and really the main fun here is the way that the Angelic one dare not speak the name of Dame Groan on the matter of immigration.  

There are a few conservatives is as close as the Angelic one gets to speaking of she who shan't be named groaning away ...

But here's the conundrum for the Angelic one, and the Ponzi scheme known as the Catholic church. In past times, they could always rely on the breeders ... within the pond's Irish Catholic circle, anywhere between 5 and 10 were considered reasonable numbers for bundles of joy, and anything less a matter of slacking and a cause for consternation. Lately the church has turned to immigration just to get enough priests to stock the declining churches. What to do, oh what to do?

 

It's an agonising dilemma, and in best Angelic one style, she splutters like a damp wick to arrive at a limp, feeble conclusion ...

On the one hand, I don't really have a clue ... but on the other hand, complete cluelessness offers the possibility of a change for the better ...

Meanwhile, on another planet, the immortal Rowe can be found here offering a little more than the Angelic one ...