In which the reptiles stay in a weekend tizz ...

 

Bernard Woolley: What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Then we follow the four-stage strategy.
Bernard Woolley: What's that?
Sir Richard Wharton: Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis. In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
Sir Richard Wharton: In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we 'can' do.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

Or perhaps:

It's clear that the Committee has agreed that your new policy is really an excellent plan. But in view of some of the doubts being expressed, may I propose that I recall that after careful consideration, the considered view of the Committee was that, while they considered that the proposal met with broad approval in principle, that some of the principles were sufficiently fundamental in principle, and some of the considerations so complex and finely balanced in practice that in principle it was proposed that the sensible and prudent practice would be to submit the proposal for more detailed consideration, laying stress on the essential continuity of the new proposal with existing principles, the principle of the principal arguments which the proposal proposes and propounds for their approval. In principle.

Now read on in good spirits and with good cheer.

 

First things first, and the pond is pleased to see that the reptiles have at last listened to the pond and restored illustrations to their commentariat pieces.

It's not the best of cartoons, in fact there's a fair argument that it's a lousy cartoon - it certainly isn't up there with the sadly missed cult master - but there's an equally fair argument that a lousy cartoon is the right match for a lousy bromancer piece ...

 

Now right from the get go, it's clear enough why the bromancer has been press-ganged into writing in uxorious terms about SloMo and his heroic efforts. Ostensibly the bromancer is the lizard Oz's foreign editor, and it's not as if things haven't been happening in foreign climes ...

There's the whole fuss about the orange one and his family business, and his family, that the bromancer might have scribbled about, but the reptiles don't like to go there these days ...and if you head off to the Graudian you might cop a hot blast of fiery air and fire in Canadian inferno: northern head exceeds worst-case climate models ...

Yes, there's a lot going down in the world, but this week has been a troubling one for the reptiles, so it's all hands on deck to pump some domestic bilge ... and the more verbiage that can be pumped out, the more the snow job might succeed ...

 

That last par is a sure sign of just how rattled and disturbed the reptiles are. A quote from the diabolical demonic comrade Dan, and yet with a hint of approval? These are weird times, weird enough for Bernard of Crikey to be keen to bring on the mutton Dutton ...

By way of contrast, the bromancer is content to pump out the hagiography, albeit at a length worthy of nattering "Ned" ...

 

You see? Another weirdness. Here's the bromancer, a wacky zany member of the right, a devoted chum of the onion muncher, taking pot shots at the likes of the dog botherer and mask-fearing Killer ... and it's not just a one-line dismissal, there's a couple of pars of scoffing ...

It's as if the pond wasted its entire time giving space to the dog botherer yesterday, deep into southern madness as he is, and it was with a sigh of relief that the pond saw that Killer had headed off to San Franscisco to get a dose of flower power, and perhaps stand on the corner of Haight-Ashbury, as the pond once did, long after it mattered, to rail at the hippies and the Weathermen (what, no Weatherwomen?) ...

 

Indeed, indeed, though that hint that SloMo is too incompetent to participate in the blame game, and blame the states for his remarkable ability to stuff things up is a tad unfair ... even as ghosts come out of the cupboard to rattle and clank their chains ...

 

 

It makes it bloody hard for a bromancer to go about the business of polishing a turd to a gleaming, buff, super cut shine...
 

 

Actually there's nothing bizarre about what she said, and in a curious way, it echoes the refrain that has run through the likes of the dog botherer and Killer like a dose of salts ... which is to say that the young cope better with the virus than the old, and that the balance of data and statistics suggest there's risks involved, which is why the federal government went through such contortions when it came to recommended ages, and why so many countries, such as Denmark, decided that they'd postpone use of the AZ vaccine ...

The handling of the issue in Australia has compounded vaccine hesitancy in a way that Bowral oganic shop owners could only dream of achieving ...

But back to the apologetics ...

 

 

 

And there you  have the explanation as to why the bromancer was scribbling away so furiously and at such length. It's been all hands on decks, because they've got a turkey for a PM, and pointing out the bleeding obvious looks "like a pile-on against the PM", when in reality Scotty from marketing has managed to pile on himself in a way nobody else in state governments could manage. 

Even Golden Gladwys got a little terse during the week when dealing with vaccine shortages ... but back to the apologetics, and yet suddenly there's the odd little hint of doubt creeping into the bromancer himself when it comes to the Scotty conversation ...

 

 

Uh huh. Never mind the deep shit you're standing in, others are standing in deep shit too, and they have equally incompetent leaders, so please, feel the relief ...

 

 

Well not being into Bowral organics, the pond is all for vaccination. But which vaccine? Ah, then it gets tricky, and then people start to wondering how a singularly incompetent government could manage to produce an epic level of vaccine hesitancy with conflicting announcements, while at the same time ensuring there was no alternative to hand ...

It's a remarkable achievement, and it helps explain why Dame Slap was also on the case this weekend ...

 

 

 

 

It's always three steps back, no steps forward for the reptiles.

The pond patiently explains to them the importance of having decent illustrations, and then they hit up Dame Slap's piece with a cartoon that is irredeemably childish and crude ...

It almost turned the pond off before it started. It seemed like an attempt to remind the pond of the glories of the roadrunner and the coyote, but it's back the front, what with the state premiers being the roadrunner, and Scotty from marketing being the coyote ...

Never mind, Dame Slap was in all hands on deck form, and she too scribbled at length ... though there was also a fair amount of sea food extender, by way of illustrations ...

 

 

What's interesting about this? Well anyone who has followed the pond and its record of Dame Slap scribblings will recall that in the past few weeks Dame Slap has been relentless in her assault on Scotty from marketing.

Yet here she is discerning some hope, and hailing a sensible plan, and never mind the complete lack of detail, and it's interesting because it shows just what a fright the reptiles had this week, and how even the most recalcitrant types, of the Dame Slap kind, have felt the need to rally around the SloMo flag, and join with him in speaking in tongues to imaginary friends ...

 

 
 

Um, actually she's a doctor, and possibly even suffers from the delusion that she should follow the oath she took by offering the best medical advice available to her as she understands it, advice that happened to be shared by the AMA and others.

But we're not in a debate on such issues, we're in a rally round the flag mode, because the IPA chairman can sense that the chance of perks and rorts and Gina-led, Barners-inspired policies might suffer a little if SloMo enters a terminal decline in popularity ...

That dying from taking an aspirin joke, while down there with Dame Slap's prediction that the UN would use climate science to introduce world government by Xmas, shows just how desperate things have got ...

 

 

Under 40s? That's why the reptiles have such trouble getting their story straight. It was only on 17th June 2021 that ATGI led off its statement with this ...

The pond is terrible at maths, but even the pond understands that under 40s ain't under 50s or under 60s, and that's why Scotty from marketing has been in terrible trouble with confusion, chaos, mixed messaging and vaccine hesitancy, and that's why it's all hands on the distorted reptile deck ... and now to a standard litany of snowflake whining from Dame Slap ...

 

Ah, of course, the suffering of Double Bay woman, and the reptiles even offered up a snap wherein all the suffering takes place ...

 

Well after all that suffering, you might have expected Dame Slap to go the full hog, yet strangely there's no desire to bung on a full-on Bowral organic do, there's just one gobbet of eastern suburbs suffering to go ... and what do you know, it's wheel out a psychologist time for the snowflakes and the cream puffs ...

 

Was it so long ago that Dame Slap was railing at the prison warden, the man she now hails as valiantly trying to rebuild the national cabinet? The useless man from marketing with a useless skill set?

Indeed, it wasn't long ago at all ...

 

 

And so on and on and on she ranted and railed, but this weekend, as Dame Slap herself noted, it's all reptile hands on deck, and true to her duty, the IPA chairman has run up the flag and saluted it, and Scotty from marketing, and good luck to all who sail on that ship with her ...

And after all that, what a relief to turn to prattling Polonius as a a final treat ...

 

 

It's true that Polonius is a little late to the scene, what with so many reptiles having already celebrated the 100th birthday of the Chinese Communist party, and it's true that Polonius seems keen to make more of a T-shirt than David O'Byrne's problem , one of those #metoo, woke issues that usually sends the reptiles into a frenzy ...

 

 

But in Polonius's world there are far bigger thought crimes, like T-shirts ...
 

 

Love it. Here's a prattler who fled the Fairfax, later Nine papers, so that he could flock with the insular brethren of the lizard Oz ... a paper with a more than passing fondness for the Donald, authoritarianism, and Pellist style fundamentalist religion ...

Physician heal thyself. No utopian Catholic state has ever existed, in fact the theology mitigates against such a condition. We are by definition all sinners, all in need of constant confession, and even more constant giving to the church.

No utopian capitalist state has ever existed either, unless you happen to be one of the filthy rich who accumulate enough cash to make sure you get treated the right way by the legal system ... go the Donald and his nepotic crew ... but do go on explaining how a black vote in the United States might at best be worth three fifths of a white vote, or better still, worth nothing at all ...

 

Around this point the pond became confused by Polonius's history lesson. There were good things happening and bad things happening, and known unknowns and unknown unknowns - unless the known knowns included bunging on a bloody big, totally useless war, then dying peacefully in bed, which sure beats dying in country in the mud -  and possibilities and speculations, and things to be welcomed and things to be deplored, but most astonishing of all, there came the possibility that a T-shirt should summarise an entire world view, a theology, a philosophy, an economy, and a political universe ...

You know, the sort once thought fashionable in the DLP ...

 

 

We keed, we keed, but now there's just one gobbet to go ...

 

 

And after all that, what better than to head off to the Saturday Paper, here, and celebrate the the reason the reptiles were in a complete tizz this weekend ...