In which the pond gets Dame slapped yet again, and hears the soothing sounds of the Ley ...

 

 

 

 

 

What a mess. What a disaster. What a calamity. What a cataclysmic misadventure. What a catastrophic mischance. 

 

What a ... Scotty from Marketing ...

 

But luckily the reptiles served up Dame Slap in fiery form as a distraction, a relief, and the pond knew it needed, deserved, a good slapping ...

 

The pond is of course completely onside, there is absolutely no place for provincial pointscoring in a COVID crisis ...

 

The reptiles have shown the way by their complete support for comrade Dan throughout the crisis. No cheap shots from a single reptile.

 

And this very day the unfortunately named Jamie showed how to display calm objectivity when confronted by a provincial toad ...

 

 

 

 

 

Yes, irony has long been dead at the lizard Oz, and irony is the sort of thing that has never been able to pierce Dame Slap's impenetrable IPA chairman's hide ... so it's on with the irony, supping at Dame Slap's table in search of an angry IPA chairman offering uplugged outrage from her putrid trough of incessant, unremitting polarisation ... please, only trash in Murdochian rags is allowed ...

 

 

Dear sweet long absent lord, purveyor of outrage, stoker of division and polarisation?

That's the job of the Murdochian reptiles, and specialists such as Dame Slap herself. How dare that puny upstart try to get in on the gig, and start his own caper. 

Muscle out little boy ... please, stand back, let a professional get on with the job ... 

Sure there have been earlier inspirations for the sort of assaults mounted in the lizard Oz ...

Soon their play turns rough and they are actually hurting comrade Dan, hitting him too hard with their spears. Killer Creighton grabs him by the hair and brandishes his knife. ‘Kill the pig! Cut his throat! Kill the pig! Bash him in!’ The dog botherer too was fighting to get near, to get a handful of that brown, vulnerable flesh. The desire to squeeze and hurt was over-mastering.

But the pond has learned pretty much of everything from the reptiles in how to bring out a big cudgel and bash away ... and by golly Dame Slap still knows how to serve it up ...

 

 

And there you go, another serve of bashing comrade Dan and celebrating gold standard Gladys, just as a reminder of how it should be done ...

Irony truly is dead ...

As for the rest, the reptiles were deep into confusion and lack of confidence this day ... 

 

 

 

 

Everyone from Natasha to the lizard Oz editorialist was sounding confused, with mixed jab messages and mixed jabs shifting the goalpost metaphors ...

Don't worry about the Swiss bank account man turning up in that set. The doddery old Gra Gra is apparently unaware that only a day ago he was cheering on Barners and some political bloodletting had taken place, and now Barners is out and about, like a virus stalking the land ...

More of Barners later, but don't worry about SloMo either ... Dame Slap is ready to take him down while still talking up good old "Lockdown" Gladys ...

 

Twitter? Really? Scribbling polarising tirades that play to fear, outrage and envy is easy, and still best done in the Murdochian tabloids and the lizard Oz, where people expect that tripe, and are even, weirdly, unbelievably, willing to pay for it ...

And so to Cathy Wilcox, who assigned a set of questions for the pond to tick or cross ...

 

 

In the spirit of Dame Slap, the pond found it terribly easy to answer ... and without wanting to sound smug at getting the quiz a 100% right,  scratched a mark, a crude John Hancock if you will, in every box ...

 

 

What else? Well that mention of Barners inspired the pond to take a ley day ...

Here's hoping that Brett Lobwein got a handsome payout for having his snap turned into an environmental underwater cliché used to illustrate something or other in favour of Ley's rambling ... you know, reef, whales, whatever ...

Usually the pond would avoid pollies that lurk behind the lizard Oz paywall when they should be out and about talking to constituents rather than supporting the Chairman's business model, but for once, in the spirit of the Nationals, as evoked by the infallible Pope this day ...

 

 

... the pond is willing to make an exception.

Lay it on the pond, Ms Ley ...

 

Oh it's rich, no doubt about it, right from the get go with that line about "sometimes troubled waters" down to "poster child of a wider agenda", though the pond would have preferred, if given a choice, "sinister wider agenda involving nonsensical talk from hysterical climate alarmists, preaching a new greenie religion to the masses."

The pond hopes it got that right. After years of trying to learn reptile speak from the likes of the dog botherer and Dame Slap, the pond still flounders with some of the intricacies, the subtleties involved in learning a foreign tongue ... you know, like trying to learn French from those superior, sneering, smug ponces in Paris ...

But back to Ley, delivering a standard bout of blather, of the kind we'd expect from someone solidly behind SloMo's magickal solutions ...

 

 

Yes, let's hear how wonderful Australia is, how it's leading the world ...

Meanwhile, as Ley lies in her chosen bed, good old Barners has been out and about ... as you can discover if you Graudian here ...

 

Good old dinkum clean innocent pure virginal black rocks ... coal!!

Oh a fallow field put down to clover can be useful in the right hands, but can a ley be as useful as a coal-fired power station, with perhaps a few nukes for dessert?

How they love pure, innocent Oz coal ... what a grand role it has to play in climate and the future of the planet, which is going tremendously well at the moment ...

 46.6? In the immortal words of Dustin Hoffman's producer wagging the tail of the dog, "that's nothing."

Climate science? That's just a slogan ...

They're war slogans. We remember the slogans, we can't even remember the fucking wars. You know why? That's show business. Naked girl covered in Napalm. 'V for Victory'. Five Marines raising the flag. You remember the picture 50 years from now, you'll have forgotten the war. The Gulf War, smart bomb falling down a chimney. 2500 missions a day, 100 days. One video of one bomb. The American people bought that war. War is show business.

Now back to the suss Sussan doing her own sloganeering, explaining how everything is right with the world and the reef, and how it's completely impossible to see the reef from Paris, or perhaps even from Canberra or perhaps even from Albury ...

 

Indeed, indeed, could anyone think of better company to keep than the likes of Poland, Hungary and Turkey?

Truly the planet has been fucked, is being fucked, and will be fucked. 

But all is not lost, because the pond can end on a high note of provincial unity, thanks to the immortal Rowe, with more Rowe to hand here ... proving that there is a use for Twitter, whereas the pond is still trying to work out a use for Dame Slap and the rest of the Murdochians ...

In which the pond gives Dame Groan the drum majorette spot in a parade featuring an incoherent Barners, natting "Ned" and Killer Creighton ...

 

 

The pond is always slow to the scene of the crime, and yesterday the Major celebrated the deep love that bush folk had for Barners, and if only the pond had known what was going down, what a lot more fun the pond could have had ...

 

 

 

 

Yes, rorters rewarded for treachery and that man getting it off his chester talking of incoherent ramblings, with the reptiles running a story about it in the lizard Oz, while giving it away for free at news.com.au ... in part including ...

 

So much Major bush love, the pond hardly knows where to begin ... please sir, another serve if you will ...

 

Yes, rorter rewarded for treachery, and the pond hasn't even included the younger Pitt mourning his participation in the game of snakes and ladders and catching a ride on a short snake, which is a novel way to talk of Barners ... because, surely as snakes in the grass go, he's quite a big one ...

And so to today's offerings, and as usual, the pond had to do some winnowing, handing out notes before proceeding with the main game ...

 

There's Troy yearning for Gough, and there's Jim helping the Murdochians and the Chairman by hiding behind paywall, and perhaps best of all, there's the lizard Oz editorialist suggesting high-level engagement would help achieve a thawing of relations ...

Perhaps an Apple Daily level of engagement?

It was as if the lizard Oz editorialist hadn't noticed its own war on China, which has been going on for a long time now and was featured top of the digital page yesterday ...

 

Just a minor note Trev, scribbling as you are about anti-democratic values. Did you note the Chairman's role in the bullshit being spread by the orange one and his enablers? Did you note the lack of guts shown by Wm Barr, only speaking out long after it mattered or anybody cared, what with the big lie now built into the system? Did you note the authoritarian, anti-democratic ways of the GOP and Faux Noise and the Tuckers and Hannitys of the world when scribbling about that anti-democratic resurgence?

Not to worry, the pond has other fish to fry this day, because lurking in that commentariat parade was Dame Groan ... and for some peculiar reason, the Dame has a fan base among regular pond readers, so come on down and do some Groaning ...

 

Of course Groan was going to get agitated about migrants, she always does, but the pond was more agitated by that bizarre reptile illustration, wisely not credited to a single human bean on the planet. 

Dear sweet long absent lord, hasn't the reptile graphics department gone to hell in a handbasket since the cult master moved along ... but on with the Groaning ...

 

At this point, the pond will admit to its own reason for putting the Groaner at the head of the reptile queue.

You see, elsewhere in the lizard Oz this day ...

 

Yes, there was Patrick going full gloom, and there was nattering "Ned" doing his Chicken Little impression, and bizarrely, there was talk of a Chinese-made camera capturing the kiss, as if the manufacturing origin of a CCTV camera has anything to do with its deployment. 

Just another example of the reptiles' high level of engagement strategy, as we return from this teaser trailer to the soothing sounds of the Groaner ...

The pond and Dame Groan can agree on one thing. Treasury can never get future projections right, nor can other cardigan wearers scribbling reports - because that's what cardigan wearers must do, and the pond once had a hand in a number of wildly inaccurate reports - and so all those numbers should be taken with a huge grain of salt, no matter the hypertension involved - and already we've heard talk of Treasury and Treasurer arguing over the figure for growth that would be plucked out of a hat, and offered up for consumption, and for Josh's political purposes ... and so to the final Groaning gobbet ...

 

And now, having already done a teaser trailer, on with nattering "Ned", inclined to hysteria, completely at odds with the Groaner - how the pond loves to see the reptiles fuss and feud and fight - and suddenly discovering a love of graphs up there with a choleric Kohler ...

 

The pond will just note in passing yet again how odd the illustrations are in the lizard Oz. 

Here we are, about to read nattering "Ned" and be plunged into Chicken Little levels of disaster, alarm and gloom, and yet the reptiles begin with a positively beaming Josh holding up a report allegedly showing how we'll all be rooned ... (unless we follow Josh) ...

The pond will admit that it's scurrying through "Ned's" thunderclaps. As noted while perusing Dame Groan, the pond doesn't give a fig for such reports or projections or speculations or graphs, or such like, which always miss out on key matters, and incidental events, such as a world-wide pandemic ... or other freight trains bearing down on the planet ...

 

 

Well, you can lead a climate denialist to an unprecedented event, but you can't make them feel the heat ... so let's see how climate denialist "Ned" and his thunderclap report have coped, or will cope, with a changing climate and a suffering planet ... perhaps ignore it altogether?

 

Yes, the pond just ran with Dame Groan so she could pick a fight with "Ned" and may the best groaning win, and still the pond is waiting for a graph showing the world suffering from advanced, ever advancing climate change ...

It's not governments that run the country, it's oppositions? So what's the point of having a bickering Barners or Scotty from marketing? Surely there must be some purpose ...

 

Ah there it is, the purpose ... provide a business model for cartoonists. 

Okay, the pond will admit it's not taking "Ned" or the report seriously, but it does hope that at some distant point in the future, this archival remnant of the pond will be taken out and compared to the next IG report and the one after that, and much hilarity at the projections versus the outcomes will ensue ...

The pond hopes it's been splendid fun, because there's just a brief gobbet to go, with talk of a wake-up call ...

Indeed, indeed... but has nattering "Ned" or Josh or bickering Barners or rewarded rorters or the Canavan caravan or any of the reptile denialists got the slightest interest in all the wake-up calls to be observed around the world?

Probably not, probably we're hoping that we handle it as well as we've handled the current crisis, as astutely noted by the infallible Pope ...

And speaking of that "not a race", the pond is pleased to note that the reptiles could at last bring themselves to mention the "L" word at the top of the day's digital page ...

 

Simplistic Simon scribbling about Victorian lockdowns? Wake up sleepy Simon, it's golden Gladys who's bunged on the latest lockdown, as the likes of Jon Faine were cruelly keen to point out ... sending the cockroaches and unhappy reptiles into a frenzy ...

Not to worry, just as there's a climate denialist for every occasion in lizard Oz land, so Killer Creighton was out and about, and drawing the pond's attention away from that nostalgic trip down memory lane with the Terminator and Jolly Joe ...

 

 

 

 

Of course rhetorical questions are the cheapest device to deploy in an argument. The pond might as well propose, "What if fuckwits like Killer Creighton were to be put in charge of public policy? How many deaths would there be?" 

 

Or "What if Covid down under had the orange one as the head responder? How many deaths would there have been?"

 

Oh wait, we know the answer to that one, so on with "what latest damned fool Killer question is on the table this day?" 

 

 

Meanwhile, Australians who prefer to be alive rather than killed by a virus, and wondering whatever happened to the vaccination roll out - apparently it's not a race - might just want to take Killer's talk of authoritarian hubris over liberal values, and shove it up his arse ... or perhaps make him wear a mask so he might experience yet another deeply Freudian psychic shock to his system ... the point being, would you rather have a US response to the pandemic, or a state premier response, or a Killer response?

 

Let's hope that Killer is never given a chance to dictate government policy, and instead is left to burble away about the thoughts of French economists in 1850 as a way to respond to a current pandemic ...

 

Or speaking of picks, what about the one left out of Killer's choices? That one about the good fortune of not having a mask-fearing Killer in charge. 

Now that's a pick the pond can make quite easily before wrapping up with a Rowe ... with more Rowe as usual here ...

 

 

Of course the pond enjoyed that echo of the way it started the day with blathering Barners and a rorter rewarded, but found the reference to Lady Wakehurst Drive a little outside the pond's comprehension ... perhaps this might help others, in the way that it helped the pond ...

 

 

 

And if that doesn't tidily draw together Barners, Scotty from marketing, nudity, COVID, lost in the bush, lost in the rorting, not a race, and the thoughts of Killer Creighton, the pond is in the wrong game ...

In which the pond helpfully suggests the reptiles just Lockdown Off ...

 

 

 

Gently, softly, the reptiles are quietly grieving for golden Gladys. 

Oh sure, there's simplistic Simon talking up SloMo, and there's the Major bold as brass, and there's simpleton Sharri, still obsessed with chilling China, and there's a link to Josh talking up population, no doubt sending Dame Groan into a frenzy, but please note how little at the top of the page the reptiles talk of the lockdown ...

Sssush, shameless pond mouth, you've gone potty mouth and used the "l" word. 

Next you might be suggesting that the virus doesn't give a flying fuck about ideology or the thoughts of the lizard Oz about it or ways of dealing with it, and thank the long lost lord for pragmatic state politicians of whatever stripe. 

Elsewhere you might find the "l" word flung about ... and even a picture of the reptile betrayer ... is traitor too strong a word for her "L" behaviour?

Oh the wilful obscenity, and even talk of sticking with the lockdown ... sticking!? How that sticks in the reptile craw ...

There, the pond has used the "L" word again ... enough of this idle obscenity, on with the Major ...

 

Just as an aside, is there something weird about that reptile snap? The curious mix of leering and sneering and simpering, as if determined to break the camera lens, or generate an ingratiating sense of nausea?

Never mind,  the Major is hurting too ... but at least the pond, after years of experience helping hunt for that missing Order of Lenin media, can decode the Major's meaning.

By Twitter, of course, he means the ABC, and soon enough the ABC will present itself for the Major's ritual beating ... though it's also understandable why the Major might be agitated by Twitter of late ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

And so on and on and on,  #NikiSavva.

 

No need to buy the lizard Oz on a Thursday? No need to buy the lizard Oz, period!

 

Over the weekend the pond had a thought, possibly a vision. If the pond could cut off the likes of the Bolter, little Timmie Bleagh, Akker Dakker and the like, why then the pond could add petulant Peta to simpleton Sharri and others on its scab blacklist. 

 

In the end, the pond might become a simple list each day explaining why the pond couldn't be bothered reading this reptile scab or that...

 

Well, perhaps not scabs in the traditional sense, more the sort you find after meeting up with a tar road, and perhaps more a blackballing in exclusive gentleman's club fashion to keep out the riffraff (along with disagreeable minorities), but now back to the Major ...

 

Hmm, talk of the Caterist? That reminded the pond, where is the Caterist this day? Last he was sighted he was furiously railing at the banks on 22nd June, 2021? Is he grieving too? 

But at least he can be consoled by the Major quoting him, and the Swiss bank account man given an approving not too, and why,  the bouffant also scores a mention, and by golly, so much fluff-gathering, and navel-gazing, and anal probing, and in house incestuous mind fucking that the pond began to reel a little ... and yet the Major had only just begun in his rejoycing ...

As for the Major spending half his time in regional Australia, the pond hails from up Tamworth way and still has rellies there, and would like to suggest to the Major that "I have to report people outside the capitals love Joyce" should have been amended, to read "some people", because indeedy do, some people love Joyce and equally, and with as much intensity, some loathe him, and some bush folk in particular despise the way an allegedly socially conservative Catholic could indulge in excessive womanising, not to mention his luddite ways and backward policies, more in tune with Gina's big mining mob than with farmers interested in preserving land for future generations ... but never let bush folk get in the way of the Major herding them together like mindless sheep,  all baahing "we love Barnaby", or worse, baaing like collective baaing inner city 'leets, or so the reptiles say ...

Now off to the Major back paddock, for more rejocying ...

The one thing the pond will concede is that the Major has stayed as resolute and as firm in his climate science denialism as he has been determined to find that Order of Lenin medal, and so a snap of the "coal that batters" man would help him this day ... 

See that it is done, lizard Oz reptiles ... show the Canavan caravan triumphant ... see the wicked ABC done down ...

All the same old, same old Major talking points, but he never tires of them, in much the same way as senile old folk in the grip of dementia like to harp on certain topics, much the same as the pond never tires of the Major blathering on ...

 

Incurious about the facts? Coming from the Major that's rich, but typical of the reptiles, where the "L" word is never mentioned and the grieving for Gladys goes on ...

 

 

 

Oh sheesh, the pond has done it again. LOCKDOWN?! Why it's far worse than putting FUCKETTY-FUCK in colourful caps ...

And there this day the pond came up short. No Caterist, no recovered, reformed feminist Oreo to munch on ... just a bunch of news the pond had absolutely no interest in ...

 

 

Hmm, has MP Laming ever thought of suing himself? Well if we're talking about people who've done irrevocable damage to his reputation ... and it's great so see comrade Dan back, because where would the reptiles otherwise be, now that Gladys has abandoned them? They need someone to bash on a daily basis, and comrade Dan it will be ...

Things didn't get better beneath the fold, it not being just toads who are pointless this day ... the reptiles too are pointless ...

 

 

Say what? Simplistic Simon went from "coalition firm" at top of page to "next election couldn't be tighter" at bottom of page, and all in the blink of an eye?

There's a mystery the pond couldn't be bothered solving, just as it has no interest in rescuing Josh from the paywall. If Josh wants to talk to the public, let him put it out on his special Josh page, rather than help line the pockets of the Chairman ...

As for the swishing Switzer talking up Jacinta, is this the best the reptiles can do? An ABC hack in lieu of the Caterist and the Oreo?

And what about Bob Carr lining up to help the reptiles pick the pockets of silly subscribers?

As for the lizard Oz editorialist, the effort was short and snide and, in a way that sums up the lizard Oz this Monday, truly pathetic ... in the manner of reptiles, or more particularly, crocodiles pretending to shed a tear before embarking on a feast ...

Cartoons? Did someone mention cartoons? 

How about a cartoon from a real cartoonist, because all the pond could think of about this day's reptile offerings was why don't you all just LOCKDOWN OFF, you pathetic bunch of LOCKDOWN cretins ... but please, remember the toilet paper, as you LOCKDOWN OFF, and also note that there are more Rowes here, helping to explain why you can just LOCKDOWN OFF ...