In which the pond gets the moths out of its cardie, though the moths remain in the bromancer, the dog botherer and nattering "Ned" ...

 

 

These days, the pond's training regime for the reptiles isn't that onerous. 

When feeling the need to harden the fuck up, the pond usually turns to Marina Hyde, who shows the pond how it's done, as in her latest opener ...

Great to hear that a 57-year-old Downing Street man is keen to help the police with their inquiries into a growing number of potential misdemeanours at his address. Boris Johnson says that “of course” he will tell the Met the truth, which pretty much guarantees they’ll never get to the bottom of it. When you want Sherlock Holmes but have to settle for Elizabeth Holmes.
Still, here he comes – Shagatha Christie, trying to deduce what the hell has happened this week...

Then it helps to take a dose of John Crace, not just his daily sketches of life with BoJo, but his weekly summary ... 

Friday
The chaos in Westminster continues with Johnson now reported to have misled Lord Geidt, the independent adviser on ministers’ interests, about when he discovered Lord Brownlow – we all need a man like the deep-pocketed Brownlow in our lives – was paying for the expensive refurb of his Downing Street flat. There is surprise from some quarters that Johnson has been found out to be lying again, but lying is what sociopathic narcissists do. The real surprise would be for Johnson to be caught out telling the truth...
 

That means the pond doesn't have to worry about life with BoJo, it's all done and dusted, and the pond can focus on life with the reptiles, though it's handy when a friend sends along some piece of idle tomfoolery ...

 

 

 

Then of course the pond visits the Weekly Beast, because the pond never does follow-up, and it's nice to discover that the rest of the world finds Killer Creighton as funny as the pond does ...

Those who dip into the pond regularly will recall the Killer's last piece about Covid catching up with him and it being no big deal, and the Beast provides a link to the Twitter storm that followed ...

“I own a house so buying a house is no big deal,” was just one answer to Creighton. “Aren’t you the champion? I drove my car and didn’t die, I don’t know why we’re bothering with all of these road rules,” was another of the more than 800 largely negative responses.

And then there's the late night TV comics, who of late have been making hay with Fox's self-pitying saga of the burning Xmas tree ... as if Xianity isn't littered with yarns about burning bushes ...

And so to a little housekeeping, because as of next weekend, the pond will be downing tools for the silly season break. 

The pond has to do this because it will be going to a place where Malware's broadband is triumphantly non-existent, and besides the pond refuses to travel with a computer, but hopefully, as noted above, people will still find ways and means to experience their political and reptile jollies ... while the pond goes full ABC. 

The moths have already been evicted from the cardigan, and the pond has begun to think about a hearty set of gum boots ...

Meanwhile, it's on with the weekend reptile stew, and inevitably the war with China has once again devoured the mind of the bromancer to the point of frenzied obsession ...

Why does the pond bother? 

It's heard it all before, and frankly the pond's hopes of a war with China to celebrate the Xmas season are diminishing fast. 

Could it be that it's just the most elaborate piece of fear mongering and election distraction the reptiles could muster? 

Well there's a closing gag from the bromancer about that one, there's always a closing gag, and in the meantime, the pond could still raise a chuckle about the US never having offered Ukraine a security guarantee ...

The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances refers to three identical political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary on 5 December 1994 to provide security assurances by its signatories relating to the accession of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The memorandum was originally signed by three nuclear powers: the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom, and the United States…The memorandum included security assurances against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan…In 2009, Russia and the United States released a joint statement that the memorandum's security assurances would still be respected after the expiration of the START Treaty (wiki away for more)

Is an assurance a guarantee? Possibly not. Is the bromancer a first class futtock? The pond can assure you that's part of its reptile quality guarantee ...

After that it was all downhill and the pond quickly lost interest, because it was just the usual bromancer game of "what if?"

 

Of course. since then. Washington has systematically tried to undermine Beijing, although it cloaked its intentions by allowing its capitalist class to use Chinese slave labour to produce cheap goods to keep its own slaves in line at the two dollar store ...

This isn't conjecture, it's readily demonstrable, as anyone who has joined the pond in a shopping spree at the two dollar store will acknowledge ...

 

Hmm, the current Philippines government as a reference point for criminal behaviour? Oh right ...

A gunman shot a journalist in Calbayog City, 482 kilometers (300 miles) southeast of Manila, police said on Thursday.
The attack is the latest against a reporter in the Philippines, which has long been seen as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.
Jesus Malabanan died while being transported to a hospital after being shot in the head, police and officials said. One of two motorcycle-riding men had shot him late Wednesday at a family store that he was tending... (DW here)

No doubt it was all the fault of the Chinese government, and had absolutely nothing to do with the journalist's work covering Duterte's war on drugs, his war on the citizenry and his war on journalists ...

As for the rest, the pond will only play the bromancer's "what if?" game if the mutton Dutton is wheeled in, so he can join in ...

 

 

Oh indeed, indeed, it's looking grim for that war on China, the war that the bromancer so desperately yearns for ... but look how dire and grim it will get if we don't have the war ...

 

Yes, it's desperate times, but remember that pond talk of the punchline to come at the end of the journey? Well here it comes ...

 

Roll that last par around on the tongue, play with it, fondle it, cherish it, slobber all over it if you like, there's nothing like a bit of slobber in a tongue kiss ...

These are worst-case scenarios. Probably they will never come about. But they are all entirely possible in the event that the Chinese Communist Party establishes rule over Taiwan. And the truth is, we have absolutely no idea of whether a victorious Beijing would do these things or not.

Say that again?

These are worst-case scenarios. Probably they will never come about...

...And the truth is, we have absolutely no idea of whether a victorious Beijing would do these things or not.

What the flying fuck? All that to land there, which is to say nowhere ... except an acknowledgment that this was a particularly silly game of "what if?" and the bromancer is deeply clueless ...

And they say that wanking is worse than indulging in a deeply rich paranoid fantasy life with the bromancer? 

Well let's hear it for wanking the pond says, because there surely has never been a bigger, sillier wanker than the bromancer.

Oh hang on, the pond has to immediately retract that last statement, because next in the reptile conga line of fuckwits is the dog botherer, and surely he has a claim on the title preeminent reptile wanker ...

 

What the fuck? The pond thought it was joking about dragging the cardigan out of the cupboard and evicting the moths, but the dog botherer's still holding up old Gough to scare the children?

Want something truly scary, kiddies?

Oh okay, the pond is already bored, but realises that to return is as tedious as to go o'er, and so must finish what it started ...

 

Here's the thing? Would anyone take political advice from a fuckwit who's best effort in the political arena (excluding helping Lord Downer produce a splendid war in Iraq) was Utegate?

Oh they were grand days for the pond, they were, and no need to go back as far as Gough ...

 

 

 

 

Okay, it's only because the pond is bored shitless and if the dog botherer can go back to Gough, the pond can surely go back to its hey day, before the cardigans attack, and it heads off to recover from this year with the reptile follies ...

 

Oh fucketty fuck, not the dog botherer on climate science. When was that Xmas break coming?

So predictable, so repetitious, and yet there are mug punters who actually fork out hard, precious shekels to the chairman for this shit ... but then the reptiles delivered a comedy note of the kind that keeps the pond hanging in ...

 

 

Did you read that note on the chryon? That's the Kroger's idea of a sensa huma. 

So that's what it's like to be krogered ... is it any wonder that Dame Slap went not so quietly, but in full public view, more than a little mad?

And with that comedy relief, the pond came to the end of the dog botherer ...

 

This climate extravagance? How wrong of the pond to give that wanker award to the bromancer ... surely there should be a toss-off before we can determine the best tosser ...

And so to the usual weekend Everest that is nattering "Ned", which must be climbed, as the pond has explained many times, simply because it's there...though there won't be any triumphant snaps of people at the peak, just a grim sense that the dirty work had to be done, and it was done, and dusted ...

That said, there's a bright side to doing the dirty work today, because it means Sunday will be cleared away for a dinkum meditation with Polonius, and for once "Ned's" natter is relatively short, and best of all, there's absolutely no sign of "Ned" reading his words to himself, which hurts his chances in the reptile tosser competition, but which will be a vast relief to pond readers determined to make it to the bitter end ...

Imagine hearing in head "Ned's" words in his tottering, doddery squeak, while reading away ... it would simply be too much for a bear to bare ...

 

 

 

Did the pond say that "Ned" had leaned towards brevity this day? 

Well there's the first Boris, right there, and what a big porky it was, because there's actually five gobbets to go, count them if you like, and don't let the first short sprint to base camp fool you ... because as any fule would kno, once "Ned" gets into full portentous, verbose mode, there's no stopping him ...

 

 

Well that was just "Ned" warming up ... and if anyone feels like they've stumbled into a cul-de-sac of words, it could be worse. You could be driving in Paris and trying to navigate the grand traffic circle around the Arc de Triomphe where a dozen boulevards converge. 

Compared to that, inhaling a whiff of "Ned's" endless natter is a piece of piss ... just get out the scones and a nice cup of tea, and nod occasionally in the direction of the mad uncle down from the attic, and he'll be pleased, and you can get on with the knitting ...

 

The pond will admit that slobbering and salivating at a Labor loss is a tad unsightly and unseemly, but wait, "Ned" is always up for any kind of handwringing and sighing at clouds, and so SloMo will also get a serve, albeit a much more modest one ...

And here the pond should pause for a moment to note how the reptiles have been greatly agitated of late ... and so are determined to undermine anything or anyone wanting to do anything about climate science ...

 

 

What set them on this path? Well it was another rich loon ...

And what particularly triggered them in that story?

Mr Holmes a Court, a clean ­energy investor and director of the Smart Energy Council, said he considered himself a “Menzian Liberal” who had lost faith in the modern Coalition.
“I would have been a Menzies voter. When I read the ideals of the party, I go ‘that’s me’,” he said.
“I’m a big believer in markets, a big believer in humans flourishing and individuals having the opportunities to make the most of themselves. I don’t see the current government being faithful to the Liberal ideals at all.”

Oh not the invocation of Ming the Merciless's name, anything but that.

And so to "Ned", being triggered, and having a quiet word in favour of Clive, the least that could be expected, given how much the freedumb man has poured into the reptile coffers ...

 

 

Indeed, indeed, and so to a principled stand by "Ned" on the matter of morality. You know ...

 

 

Take it away "Ned" ...

 

 

Yes, yes, we must embrace full SloMo ...

 

 

And so at last to the last "Ned" gobbet ...

 

 

 

So much blather, so little time, but at least "Ned" did warn us of the dangers of the BoJo trap ... the big Xmas party state, and party on like you're always woke and have no need of a sleep, as celebrated by the immortal Rowe, with more celebrations here ...