In which the pond offers up prattling Polonius, MC Gemma and a bromancer rant ...

 

 

 

Looking at that Polonial splash, the pond realised that its worst fears had come true. It was all the fault of the ABC ...

But then through the mists of dementia and senility, the pond drew a ray of sunshine and comfort. In the land of prattling Polonius, it was always the fault of the dastardly ABC. Always had been, always is, always will be ... and knowing that, the pond could relax, go with the Polonial flow, which happened to be standard reptile fodder, an assault on dastardly comrade Dan, and a pumping up of the volume for kindly Josh and Scotty the marketing whizz ...

 

 

Before getting going on the usual comrade Dan guff, could the pond just pause to welcome back the venerable Meade, fermenting away at the Graudian. Tory didn't quite cut it, preferring a blunt instrument to a scalpel, whereas the fermented Meade offers a taste of bemused bewilderment, as here with this sample featuring Sky News and bully boy Clennell ...

... Unlike Credlin, who criticised Victorian premier Daniel Andrews for subjecting Melbourne to the “longest and hardest lockdowns in the world”, Clennell demanded to know why Berejiklian didn’t lock Sydney down longer and harder.
“When are you going to acknowledge it is time to lock it down harder to get rid of this thing?” he asked.
Coming on the back of the wider News Corp rhetoric of Andrews as “Dictator Dan” who was crippling the state’s economy, it was quite the backflip.

Well Polonius isn't going to hear any heretical talk about backflips ... not when the bloody ABC is ruining everything by asking tough questions and giving comrade Dan a free ride ...

 

Now as an aside, Polonius arguing whether SloMo was acting as premier or prime minister for NSW is a surreal example of the pedantic one's penchant for pompous absurdity ... but back to the many thought crimes of the ABC ...

 

As part of the Polonial church service in worship of SloMo's mob, the reptiles decided they'd introduce a distraction in the form of a talking Josh ...

The pond quickly turned it into a useless screen cap and gave it the presence and prominence it deserved ...

 

Feeling good about that adjustment to the reptile presentation, the pond could press on in good heart to learn more about the shocking, wilful depravity of the ABC ...

 

 

The pond just knew Polonius couldn't resist a spot of history, what with the toffs doing such a splendid job during the great depression ...

 

 

Smith's Weekly here, or here for this one ...

 

 

Or put it another way ...

 

 

And what's why the pond could move on to the last Polonial gobbet in good spirits, because if the ABC does press releases for comrade Dan, Polonius knows how to up the press release ante to the level of servile boot-licking when it comes to SloMo's mob ...

 

 

 

Yes, the coalition government doesn't need to berate the ABC and comrade Dan ... that mob can leave that job to Polonius and get on with the business of fucking up the response to the pandemic, and so life balances itself ...

Speaking of the pandemic, the pond decided it couldn't go with the dog botherer, who was at one point elevated to the top of the page and placed next to the reptile "god" known as "Ned" ...

 Grytpype-Thynne: Oh, Neddie.
Seagoon: Curses, I'm spotted.
Grytpype-Thynne: Why are you wearing that leopard-skin?
Seagoon: So that's why I'm spotted.

 

It'd be best for the country if the NSW lockdown failed?

Fuck the dog botherer, and while the pond is at it, fuck all the horses he rode in on. 

The pond has little time for fool's gold standard Gladys,  but the pond has no wish to urge failure on her. That way lies fucking madness, and much suffering for the unvaccinated mob.

If the pond had one wish after that opening line, it was that the dog botherer cop a bloody good dose of the virus, preferably without a vaccine to hand ...

And so the pond moved on from the line that we had to destroy the village to save it, pausing only to note another couple of jolly notes in the Weekly Beast ...

The podcast world was rocked by the news this week that Paul Kelly, the eminence grise of political journalism, is launching a podcast. With elegant simplicity the podcast was named Paul Kelly: Columns. Because that’s exactly what it is: the 73-year-old journalist reading his columns aloud.
As if that wasn’t enough to take in, the piece announcing the move contained the remarkable claim that Kelly is so “surprising” with his insights he even surprises himself.
“If you think you know what Paul Kelly is likely to write on a certain topic, you’re probably wrong,” the Oz executive editor Claire Harvey wrote.
“The Australian’s editor-at-large, the guru of national affairs, has devoted his 50 years at the heart of political journalism to surprising the reader – and himself – with insights even he doesn’t see coming.”

He reads his column out loud? Narcissism isn't dead ... and how long before "Ned's" venture joins the knewz?

Some unkind observers believe the podcast, read in Kelly’s distinctive tone, might also be a cure for insomnia, much like the BBC’s Shipping Forecast, which has been used by Britons as a sleep aid for decades. 

Actually the pond prefers the BBC's world service reading of British soccer scores, much loved by comedians of a certain age, but to each his own, and then came this ...

“I then had a partner who didn’t want to be involved in the campaign at all so to soften my image I did two things,” Kelly said. “First of all I mainly campaigned with my dog.
“Everywhere I went I had my little yellow car [with the slogan] ‘Ros Kelly Cares for Canberra’ and my dog. And I had Mrs Kelly’s cook book.”
Kelly’s husband at the time was of course journalist Paul Kelly, whose name she retained after they divorced.

Someone was once married to "Ned"? Oh you poor thing, with the pond's imagination whirring into overdrive and conjuring up a scene at the breakfast table.

Never mind, with the dog botherer ruled out - did the pond remember to say fuck him, and fuck all his horses? - the pond turned to Gemma. The pond doesn't usually get this desperate, but any Gem in a storm ...

 

The pond's point is, who is this loon? What experience is she drawing on while rabbiting on about credentialed people offering health advice to politicians?

 

 

Ah, there's not much more to be said, is there, seeing as how she sits in a stable of entertainers.

And so to some housekeeping because the reptiles tried to pump up Gemma's piece with a few snaps, which needed to be brought down to an appropriate size ...

That's better, as we turn back to the seasoned MC, operating at a very senior level ...

 

What the pond would like to note for the clueless one is that specialists in the field are involved every day in the decision making. In fact, the pond's partner had a meeting cancelled last week because an infectious diseases expert suddenly had to race off to talk to the relevant Minister about important matters.

More to the point, why did the pond bother with the ramblings of an experienced MC, delivering classical billy butts of the "to be very clear, I'm not suggesting no action is required at all kind", or the equally impressive billy butt, "I'm not for a moment saying they're not highly credentialed..." ... though of course they might be lacking in the MC department ...

What a fatuous, mealy-mouthed fop, and yet she has one virtue ... she's not the dog botherer ...

 

Maybe they had something better to do, like trying to sort out the fucking lockdowns ...

 

Yes, the pond reduced that snap to size, but there's only a gobbet to go, and see how the space-saving helps ...

Oh dear, but what a relief that nobody has apparently bothered to ask Gemma what to do, and how to adjust our course ... here's a cartoon for anyone who made it through to the end, with more such cartoons here ...

 

 

And so to the bonus, and of course it had to be the bromancer embarking on one of his classic rants, entirely out of step with the lockdown mood ...

Now this is a long bromancer outing, so all the pond is going to do is wind the bromancer up, and let him fly ...

 

Um, Hawkie? What about the head prefect, Malcolm Fraser, the original Malware?

Following the Whitlam dismissal in 1975, Fraser became Prime Minister and, in what seemed to be an abrupt departure from the Liberal Party's position, thoroughly embraced relations with China. As Leader of the Opposition, Whitlam called out the hypocrisy of the Liberal Party's radical policy shift. This study examines the domestic and international dynamics that shaped Fraser's views on China and ultimate adoption of a successful China policy. This is the untold story of a crucial turning point in Australia-China relations under the leadership of a conservative government, in which a strong relationship with China became a cornerstone of bipartisan Australian foreign policy.

Um, just that abstract will do, the pond promised it would let the bromancer flap away in free featherless flight ...

 

Around this point, the pond must pause to note that as with any government, there were good things done and bad things, and yet when you get an old DLP type flapping about, all you can expect is a goodly dose of vomitous hysteria ...

 

And yet, and yet, the United States really did fuck over Vietnam in acts of monstrous Agent Orange and bombing from the skies thuggery, which helped produce Pol Pot and sundry other disasters ... not to mention an insane obsession with body counts, as if destroying My Lai village would save it ... and Gough did crank up the pressure until it gradually dawned on the Tories that they were on a hiding to nothing ... but do go on defending the indefensible...

 

Oh fucketty fuck, another coulda, woulda, shoulda myth about the Vietnam war and how it was winnable, and only Watergate did it down, and who puts the mega strength kool aid in the water coolers at Surry Hills ... because how else to explain the carry on about the treatment of Vietnamese refugees, when right at this moment we are doing exactly the same to Afghani refugees, up against fundamentalists who make the North Vietnamese seem vaguely sane ...

Well the pond promised the bromancer would go into full reptile litany of grievance mode, and hasn't got the time or the energy to do the same for the original Malware, or little Johnny, or other leaders, all of whom have skeletons in the closet and dirty linen on the bed. Right now, the pond just wants an end to it all ...

 

Here's the thing, you have to actually get a relationship going, before the relationship can go pear-shaped, as they often do in marriage or in politics ...

The real pioneer in the Myanmar relationship was Bob Hawke and look how that ended ... and yet here we go with the reptiles never learning, and the bromancer talking of gold standards, as if the memory of fool's gold standard Gladys had already been forgotten ...

 

An utter disaster? That's the sort of conclusion that comes from a black and white man who's favourite analytical term is "nuts".

Well nuts to him, and nuts to the simplistic ramblings and simpleton assessments and the litany of abuse, and if we want to talk of utter disasters, right now the reptiles are doing a dinosaur walk towards doom, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan upped to a planetary scale, as evoked by First Dog, with the full version and more of the doggie here ...