In which the pond starts with an old-fashioned Dame Slap rant, gets bogged down with nattering "Ned's" legs of lead, and wraps up with a sorbet serve of our Gracie heresy ...

 

 

 

 

Might the pond start by giving the reptiles a tip? New moral outrage about the Taliban's outrages is an unholy mess on us, and our artificial leg, beer-swilling deeds (no offence). We can't even do the right thing by those who assisted us while in country, and we left the country in a mess, so please, no faux righteousness about what's to follow ...

Sorry, the pond just thought that headline for Dame Slap could be usefully  repurposed before plunging into a standard Slappian rant, with a slap here, and a slap there, and a keening and a wailing ...

 

 

 

 

 

But why start with Dame Slap and that image, when the pond thought, or at least hoped, that we might now be living in a cash-less society?

 

Well in these troubled lock down times, the pond was looking for a reptile rant, and any rant in a storm, and a storming IPA Dame Slap would at least provide a distraction ...

 

 

Or you might just call bullshit on wankers wanking away about the woke, when (no offence intended) the Taliban show just how to do intolerance in an extreme way, and all we offered as a civilised reponse was chug a lugging out of an artificial leg ...

Sorry, the pond tends to get a little ranty in response, especially when Dame Slap starts ranting about something, and the pond recalls that back in the day, the Dame donned a MAGA cap to celebrate the arrival of the brownshirts, followed by the long, slow but sure march to that Reichstag moment ...

 

 

God should get a look in and we should return to the good old days of poofters, because, you know, poofters were just hilarious ... and bigus dickus jokes were a right royal crack-up?

Around this point the pond usually is reminded, as if in a surreal dream or a nightmare, that back in the old days, Dame Slap actually proposed that the UN was using climate science as a way to introduce an Orwellian world government by Xmas ... and yet still she manages to get a look in each week in the lizard Oz ... how weird is that?

 

 

 

Graudian away here, but is it any wonder that Dame Slap these days veers away from the mess that the orange one left in the United States, and from the mess arising from her very own brand of Monckton-ish derived climate science denialism ...

 

 

Ah the litany, the good old Dame Slap litany, whereby the short-cut key is pressed, and it all pours out again ... and the pond presses its key too, and rolls out its litany of Dame Slap woes ... and oh heck, why bother, just serve up the next IPA chairman gobbet, no 'ms'ery for her ...

 

 

But hang on, hang on, in a fully woke world, there should surely be room for the pond's theory that the reptiles in Surry Hills are our alien overlords ... and by golly, if you believe it fervently enough, it should qualify as a religion, unless, unless, they're really spaghetti monsters ...

 

 

Well she got there in the end, much like Brian did when confronted by splitters and so the pond turned to more arduous matters ...

 

 

 

The pond wants it known that it did not use Photoshop to join those two images together. That portrait of a baleful "Ned" just waiting to natter the world to death was there at the top of the reptile page early this Saturday morning, co-joining the bizarre notion of "voice of authority rebooted" (with bonus pompous portentous blowhard image), alongside "Ned" blathering on in his interminable way about states of disorder ...

The pond is always up for a reptile challenge, but this seemed to require springs of steel and the agility of a leopard ... but instead all the pond managed was the usual legs of lead ...

 

 

 

 

 

Hope? How on earth can there be hope? Abandon hope, all ye who enter here ... with the reptiles themselves estimating this "Ned" outing is a nine minute read, which is twice the length a dinkum Australian would allow for a sex act with a happy ending ...

 

 

Ah poor old SloMo, a hostage to events, nothing to do with the humble lad, nothing to see here folks, except "Ned" nattering away about the suffering of the feds ... and fool's gold, iron pyrites Gladys gone as an object of reptile worship ... and yet, and yet, how they loved her and her gold standard so ...

 

Say what? People are averse to an agonising death? Didn't the feds only recently think it was a jolly good wheeze to run a commercial showing a young 'un wheezing their way to death? Where could such heavily risk-averse notions come from?

Truly only a futtock of gigantic proportions could offer this sort of analysis, which is why the pond suffers through "Ned" to arrive at the occasional pompous, portentous gem of stupidity ...

 

 

Comrade Dan cops it again, and yet SloMo gets off, Scotty from marketing free to roam and pretend he has the first clue?

Here the pond must turn away from "Ned" for a moment to note a house-keeping issue. The reptiles are clearly obsessed by the issue of readers having to confront "Ned's" turtle-like analysis, so they inserted a shot of a jogger in front of the Opera House ...

It has nothing to do with anything, so the pond included it in reduced size, just to note its presence, while promoting its absence ...

 

 

Really, a jogger, when we're dealing with a turtle? Carry on nattering ...

 

 

Only two months behind where we hoped to have been, and "Ned" regurgitates that sort of guff with a straight face, and instead in best bedside manner proposing he's strong on policy detail, but needs a better emotional engagement with the public?

Oh it's too fucking rich (no offence), and perhaps the pond should have led with "Ned", because he's real comedy gold up against Dame Slap's paltry offering ...

And now for another housekeeping matter, because at this moment the reptiles decided they needed another shot of a jogger, and the pond had to note it, but mark it down ...

 

Who knows, perhaps the reptiles thought that the sight of joggers would subconsciously induce in the readership some sense of forward motion, when all the pond could detect was a lurching about ... so it's back to the careening "Ned" ...

 

What a sucker "Ned" is. Or should that be suck? Whatever, the pond was warned that this would be a lengthy mouse tail of woe, and indeed it is, longer than anything Alice might have had to endure ...

 

And so, frabjous day, callooh, callay, the pond chortled  in its joy, because at last there's only a gobbet to go, and it turns out enduring "Ned" has been far worse than enduring a lockdown ...

 

Intellectual nonsense? Apparently "Ned" doesn't read the lizard Oz, which by his definition is full of intellectual nonsense ... but never mind, those who have made it this far deserve a little string-plucking break thanks to the immortal Rowe, with more Rowe here ...

 

 

Ah that feels better and in the old days the pond would have provided a link to the likes of Mandolin Orange and a Tiny Desk concert, but instead the pond looked beneath the fold for a bonus, and sure enough, what a world of intellectual nonsense unfolded before the pond's disbelieving eyes ...

 

Say what? The dog botherer wants the New South Wales lockdown to fail? That's worse than intellectual dishonesty, that's criminal fuckwittery of the first water ...

And there was the intellectually dishonest oscillating fan blathering about "hard decisions" and Gemma pretending she's the only one with real experience of real life, and of course prattling Polonius had to drag the ABC into it ... and what the fuck was the bromancer on, suddenly deciding to give Gough a serve? Did he give tricky Dick a serve too for heading off to China?

 

 

Well there's always Sunday to deal with some of that lot, and their abundant intellectual dishonesty, but the pond decided that the right sort of sorbet, a way of cleansing tongue and brain of "Ned's" natter was a serve of our Gracie ...

The pond has been getting daily indignant messages from the sparrows of the south about fool's gold standard Gladys, and the pond recalls that it wasn't so long ago that Jon Faine produced an uproar in the reptiles, and sent them right off ... Dame Slap amongst the horde that needed a snifter of smelling salts ...

 

And yet here was our hereticial Gracie doing a Faine, some actual provincial pointscoring, and most shocking of all in the lizard Oz, nestling cheek to cheek with the IPA chairman herself ...

 

Yes, the pond can almost hear it echoing down the phone right now. Damn you Sydney, damn you fool's gold standard Gladys with your cheap provincial pointscoring, only to be caught out and fling the reptiles into crisis mode ... with intellectual dishonesty the last refuge for the dog bothering scoundrel, and our Gracie hitting a triumphalist note (was that an E, SloMo, is she hitting an E?)

 

Uh huh, well don't look at the pond for an explanation, Gracie, the pond suspects there isn't one. Please, just go on and finish your rant so the pond might seek a little joy with the infallible Pope ...

 

Indeed, indeed, and the pond continues to marvel that our Gracie still walks amongst the reptiles and indulges in such rich, ripe heresy. How long before she must do a savvy Savva and walk the reptile plank?

And so to that infallible Pope to wrap things up for the day ... because the pond has suffered enough already, and just needs a green shoot ...