Friday, January 14, 2022

In which the lizard Oz on Friday somehow turns into a carroler caroling, and a Bleagh punchline ...

 

 

End times for Boris? 

Kill the beast, kill the beast, they chanted on Sky News (the real one), as they gathered around the tropical fires so typical of an English winter, and again the pond was distracted, and stayed up late to watch the spectacle ... and then woke late, and not particularly interested in the day's reptile duties ...

Still, there was the tree-killer edition,  yet again crying out Freedumb, Freedumb, as one more time the reptiles pocketed comrade Clive's cash in the claw ...

 

 

 

Is Clive's cash in the paw the single reason the reptiles keep on with their tree killer edition?

Never mind, apparently the virus has peaked, though the pond thought that the virus had peaked back in December when the Iron pyrites' standard Domicron and his strollout mate, holding his hose, had cried freedumb, freedumb ...

 

 


 

We know how that cry of freedumb, freedumb ended ...

... The economy doesn’t work if people can’t work. So the first economic priority during a pandemic must be to keep people healthy enough to keep working, producing, delivering and buying. That some political and business leaders have, from the outset of COVID-19, consistently downplayed the economic costs of mass illness, reflects a narrow, distorted economic lens. We’re now seeing the result – one of the worst public policy failures in Australia’s history.

The Omicron variant is tearing through Australia’s workforce, from health careand child care, to agriculture and manufacturing, to transportation and logistics, to emergency services. The result is an unprecedented, and preventable, economic catastrophe.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet’s decision to relax COVID-19 restrictions in December has turned into both a health and economic disaster. On a typical day in normal times, between 3 per cent and 4 per cent of employed Australians miss work due to their own illness. Multiple reports from NSW indicate up to half of workers are now absent due to COVID-19: because they contracted it, were exposed to it, or must care for someone because of it (like children barred from child care). With infections still spreading, this will get worse in the days ahead.

Staffing shortages have left hospitals in chaos, supermarket shelves empty, supply chains paralysed. ANZ Bank data, for example, shows economic activity in Sydney has fallen to a level lower than the worst lockdowns. If relaxing health restrictions in December (as Omicron was already spreading) was motivated by a desire to boost the economy, this is an own-goal for the history books. (Yes, the Nine rags felt the need to drop in on the Conversation).

The pond just wanted to retrieve that gobbet from the comments section, because it's soooh good ...

Meanwhile the reptiles' digital edition tried to offer the pond a consolation and a distraction ...

 


 

The peak still near and a feeble pun about the Djoker?

But that Djoker ship has sailed and whatever that foolish fop decides to do, it will now be a badly timed, pathetic own goal, not up there with the cry of freedumb, but indicative enough of sublime incompetence ...

But what of the reptiles teasing the pond by sending out the craven Craven to demolish the republic? 

Sorry, the pond didn't come down in the last craven shower, and was content to note, thanks to the reptiles themselves, that things are currently going splendidly with the monarchy ...

 


 

 

Splendid stuff, and as the man on Sky News noted, up there with the talking tampon saga of the nineties, and how could the craven Craven match that for entertainment with his blather about the republic?

But hang on, hang on, if the pond wasn't going to be lured into the republican briar patch by the tar baby craven Craven, what else was available for those in search of a racist metaphor?

 



 

 

Truly grim pickings indeed. The pond had never ever thought it would yearn for Henry, hole in bucket man extraordinaire, but yearn for him the pond does, especially as it's now left with the Henry lite man, Carroll of socoiology, caroling away ...



What better way to start off than with a snap of ruins, as a reminder of where the planet is heading fast, helped along by the reptile climate science denialism? 

Yes, if you've a mind, instead of the caroling Carroll, you could be reading items here ...

 


 


But you're with the reptiles on the pond, so mindless, meaningless blather, replete with classical references, is all the go ...


 

Dear sweet long absent lord, has it come to this? Is the Carroll caroling away about Phocion as some long-winded metaphor for Boris, with the tag "will nobody make this idle, rag doll hair chappie behave himself?"

No such luck ...


 

Truly, this caroling Carroll has not the slightest sense of irony ... but if we must do a classical reference to stoic virtues ...



 

And now thankfully a final gobbet and let anyone who can muster up the strength take to the comments section ...


 

The Stoic individual should never complain? 

All the reptiles do is moan and complain, all the live long day ... doo-da, doo-da, bet their money on a bob-tailed science denialist nag.. went home with a pocket full of Domicron tin, oh, de doo-day dah day ...

Hmm, the pond can't quite recall the lyrics, but enough of faux classical nonsense, it's back to Boris ...



Of course the pond only went with this so that it could throw in a couple of cartoons, with more here ...





Splendid stuff, and here's the rest of the lizard Oz editorialist celebrating the Boris, though really The National said it more elegantly ...

 




 

Yes, the pond has become quite addicted to UK newspaper headlines of late, as curated by Sky News.

You won't find the lizard Oz editorialist's Brexiting pants on fire in the same lively way...

 

 

That's surely worth another cartoon ...

 

 


 

 

Hmm, a tad grum in the humour dept., Mr Jennings ...

And so to a bonus ...


 
 
Now the pond only went with this one because there's a punchline at the end of it, and the pond wanted to find room to mention this delightful interstitial ...
 
 
 

 
 
Dear sweet long absent lord, fundie Domicron's health department being a killjoy with the fundies at Hillsong ... you don't even have to read the story to get the richness of the joke ...
 
But there's a price to be paid for such distractions, and now the pond must pay it ... 
 



 
What? You couldn't be bothered clicking on the link and wanted more of that Hillsong interstitial?
 
 
 

 
 
DJ Snake? What the fuck? If only the pond had known, it would have juxtaposed all that good oil with the caroling Carroll ...
 
Enough already, you're killing the pond as apples and snakes and complimentary women flashed past in rapid succession, and there's another price to pay for such unseemly snake oil pleasure...
 


 
The pond realises it's gone on too long, and so will just run with the final gobbet and get to the punchline, because Dame Groan is probably already preparing her column for next Tuesday, tearing down all this idle talk of strategies for a big Australia ...



And there it is, the punchline ... 

The good prof is a refugee from the Bleagh years ... 

What a punchline, and living proof of the need to keep the borders open for those who have suffered mightily elsewhere in the world...

Yes, Sir Bleagh is still in the news ...




Sir Bleagh of Oswald's in Mayfair if you please ...

And as refugees have now been mentioned, why not end with a Wilcox cartoon?




6 comments:

  1. "End times for Boris?"

    Maybe, DP, maybe. Here's a thought or two:

    How to commit fraud
    https://stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com/stumbling_and_mumbling/2022/01/how-to-commit-fraud.html

    How much of this is going on here in Australia with our "take personal responsibility and push through" man ? Just a lesser Boris ?

    "Narratives matter. People believe them more than they should. And better still, as Robert Shiller shows in Narrative Economics, some of them go viral. People will do your work for you, by repeating your story."

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    Replies
    1. Here's why the pond must do its research, GB, so that the inestimable John Crace can tell the pond what it just watched …

      https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/13/the-pms-predicament-seemed-hopeless-but-brandon-lewis-had-a-cunning-plan

      ...In the end, there had been only one man left standing. “I need someone with a cunning plan,” Johnson had told Brandon “Baldrick” Lewis, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland. “I am that man,” Lewis had replied. “I have a plan so cunning it will defeat even our most cunning enemies.” Good, then you’ve got the job, Boris had said. So it was that Baldrick came to be sent out to defend the prime minister’s lies on the following morning’s media round.
      Baldrick first came unstuck when Sky’s Kay Burley made it clear from the off that she thought she was dealing with a halfwit. Though that might have been to overestimate Lewis’s intellectual faculties, as he couldn’t really explain anything very much. He reckoned that Johnson’s boyfriend apology had covered all the bases and been both heartfelt and insincere.
      Why should he say sorry and mean it when he didn’t think he had done anything wrong? Besides it had been commonplace at the time to use Boris Johnson impersonators – it’s amazing what you can do with a clown in a blond toddler wig – for roleplays in No 10 work meetings, so it was possible the real Boris hadn’t even attended the party.
      Not that it had been a party, of course. And even if it had been, then the prime minister definitely hadn’t read the email from his principal private secretary about it. We had Johnson’s word for that and what more could you want from a man who has repeatedly lied to wives, friends, parliament and the entire country. That’s what made him such a great leader. Because he wasn’t afraid to take the big decisions on when to lie and when to merely conceal the truth. Bring on the next election and another five years of the Great Dissembler.
      Err … hang on, said Burley. Back to the party that Boris was unable to tell was a party even though there were trestle tables with food and drink and various staffers were lying face down in the flower beds by the time he turned up. Still that wasn’t a party, said Baldrick. It was just a cunning plan to make it look like a party. Besides, the trestle tables had really been there for spreadsheets.
      Baldrick’s head was still spinning by the time he had moved studios to Radio 4’s Today programme, where Nick Robinson concluded the dismantling that Burley had started. No one was sorrier than Boris, Baldrick said, and instead of being the only person who was in the garden to not recognise that a party was a party, he wished he hadn’t stayed for 25 minutes wondering what work event had been taking place, before conveniently forgetting about the whole thing until details of the party that wasn’t a party had been leaked to the media at the end of last week.
      It was the insincerity of the apology that made it so sincere. After all, no one would have believed a sincere apology from The Liar. And he had heroically gone to prime minister’s questions, which he was obliged to do, to explain why he hadn’t really done anything wrong. Something he was sure the inquiry would establish as it was being undertaken by Sue Gray, who just happened to be employed by the prime minister and was therefore far from independent. It was all just a huge misunderstanding that could soon be cleared up. Then everyone would be free to have a massive work event to celebrate.

      Delete
    2. A true Baldrick plan then - tell so many different versions and stories that nobody knows which one(s) to pick you up on. "He reckoned that Johnson’s boyfriend apology had covered all the bases and been both heartfelt and insincere."

      Yep, there's a real kind of 'innocence of the idiot' there.

      Delete
    3. The John Crace piece was very funny.
      So who needs the Stoics, when there is the far superior
      Baldrick School that so many reptiles have embraced.
      I hope DP opts to grace these pages with more of
      Crace in the future.
      While DP is as cunning as a fox who's just been appointed
      Professor of Cunning at Oxford University, Crace is no slouch either.

      Delete
  2. So, John Le Carroll says: "If misfortune strikes, if you are treated unjustly, even outrageously, you have no grounds for lament, for that is how things are."

    Now let me see: "Athens alone was home to an estimated 60,000–80,000 slaves during the fifth and fourth centuries BC, with each household having an average of three or four enslaved people attached to it."
    Slavery in ancient Greece: what was life like for enslaved people?
    https://www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-greece/slavery-ancient-greece-life-society/

    And: "How were slaves in Athens treated? Slaves in ancient Greece were treated like pieces of property. For Aristotle they were 'a piece of property that breathes'. They enjoyed different degrees of freedom and were treated kindly or cruelly depending on the personality of the owner."
    The Principles of Slavery in Ancient Greece
    https://www.thegreatcoursesdaily.com/the-principles-of-slavery-in-ancient-greece/

    Yep, I guess a heap of stoicism was totally necessary; as Le Carroll puts it: "The stoic individual should never complain. To withstand bad fortune, you will need prodigious strength."

    I wonder what happened to Phocion's slaves in that "other main foundation source of Western culture" that Le Carroll clearly admires.

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  3. Hmmm: https://independentaustralia.net/_lib/slir/w800/i/article/img/article-15929-hero.jpg

    ReplyDelete

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