In which the pond offers a teaser ad, followed by the Faux Noise mother lode ...

 

 

The pond wishes it had lots of back catalogue on Spotify so it could make a stand, heck it wishes it had a Spotify account, so it could make a stand, but alas and alack, the pond has always thought of Spotify as the Deliveroo of music ...

Similarly the pond would like to pretend it was making a stand by boycotting the Winter games, but the pond never developed an appetite for winter sports, what with frost about the only feature in a Tamworth winter. The pond does regret missing Nadal turning from a heap of sweating doom into a winner, but the pond values its sleep ...

There's not much point moaning about the things missed. In a way the pond regrets giving up its herpetological studies, turning from reptile whisperer into just another blog ... but if the reptiles want to do a Greta Garbo and shriek "I want to be a loam", who is the pond to soil their stand? 

The pond went down the Twitter path once before and it was a desperate struggle to dig up content, and for what? Three fifths of sweet reptile fuck all ...

At the moment the pond is pleased to be enjoying its freedumb, and it can show off the sort of stuff which makes up its usual reading fare. 

Sure, it doesn't conform to the daily routine the pond once knew, like a chook being feed reptile gobbets each morning, and dutifully clucking away, but it has its charms ...

 

 

The pond does feel vaguely guilty about recycling content for which it has paid actual shekels.  

But it can console itself that at time of writing the whole piece was outside the New Yorker paywall, and could be found in full here ...

So rather an attempt to mock a reptile business model, this is more by way of an advertisement and a  promotion ...

 

Of course The Federalist Society was out and about, calling the piece a hit job, but providing a link to that would be like linking to a bunch of luddite reactionaries intent on ruining the justice system for anyone outside the gated community of authoritarian capitalists ...

In any case, if it is a hit job, it has to be noted thatThomas is such a big barn door that it's not remarkable that Jane Mayer managed to lob a paintball on the door ...

 

As noted, the piece is much longer, but this is just some fair dibs quoting ... heck, the pond just scored an NY tote bag, which will produce glazed eyes among the vulgar youff of Newtown. (Yes, it took months to arrive, but given the ruination of the United States' mail system, it's a miracle it arrived at all).

The pond will admit to one spoiler ... the end of the piece, but only because it confirms to the pond that in many deeps (and with due respect to its American correspondents) the United States is deeply fucked, and not just in its mail delivery system to the antipodes, which has seen the pond give up on snail mail entirely ...

 

 

Well, that's fucked, but it was an interesting read ... in much the same way as climate science can be fun.

Usually the pond would have had to spent its time pretending reptile mutton had been dressed up as lamb ... but the pond will admit to a vestigial interest in the reptiles ...

In the old days, the pond would never go to the local mother lode, the Bolter, and it soon got tired of the repetitious works of the likes of Akker Dakker and little Timmy Bleagh ... and Miranda the Devine was just too weird, a bit like simpleton, scheming Sharri ...

But here's a go ... here's the pond tackling the Everest of Faux Noise ... the current mother lode, at least until the next mother lode arrives ...

 

 

Note that portrait. The pond used to think of Cucker Tarlson as the bow tie boy, and was amazed any woman was willing to be seen in his company, what with the prejudice at twittish bow tie wearers the pond developed growing up in Tamworth ...

 

 

 

 

But it would be wrong to dismiss Herr Adolf simply because he was a lousy amateurish painter, who for a time attempted to make a living doing landscapes ... and it would be wrong to focus just on the bow tie and thereby miss or ignore everything Cucker is saying and doing...

 

 

It's a long read, but what a chuckle ...

 

 

 

It takes the pond back to the days of the Woodchucks and their chuckle-headed ways ...

 

 

 

 

Don't expect any answers here. But do expect a special disingenuous, ingratiating, wheedling way to be on show here.

It's remarkably smarmy, and to help the smarminess along, there's not a hard question in sight ... just a lot of supine fawning ...a kind of oily, oleaginous, unctuous approach rather akin to being covered in a particularly disgusting kind of peanut butter ...

 

 

Perhaps the pond was wrong to think much had changed ... in the end, he's still just a lad on the make ...

 

 

 

... though now he's made it ... and bigly at that, a veritable Father Charles Coughlin of his day ... or should that be Charlies America First Lindbergh? The obvious comparisons, say to a latter day Rush don't really cut it ...

 

How many more bow ties can the pond dig up? How much time have you got?

 

 

 

 

The pond realises it should take this cackling goose seriously. It is the goose that has laid many a golden egg for the Chairman and son ... but the pond still finds it hard ...

 

 

There is of course no point in attempting to examine the logic. Why would someone with only an American passport give a stuff about Brexit one way or another? It's simply that contrarianism and picking an argument is the way towards rating success ... provided other adjustments and transformations have been made ...

 

 

 

 

The pond hastily adds that it didn't do those crude Photoshop inscriptions ... though it gives the snaps a certain rustic charm ...

 

 

Why China and not the autocratic ways of the dictator Vlad the impaler? It's a pee tape too far for the pond to work out ...

And now if the pond could just interrupt for a moment to explain how it ended up here ...

You see, the pond watched the usual PBS gabfest on the weekend, and was so curious it took a screen cap of another likely candidate for pond studies ...

 

 

Apologies for the roughness of the image ... it was off the big TV in the lounge room ... but at least you can see that alarmingly kitsch plate ... and perhaps see that on the shelves dressed in, is Clausewitz on War and a book on Samuel Johnson ...

Really? What could be done with such a man? 

The pond would have been better off reading Catherine Bennett's Grilled by 'girly swots': what poetic justice for a man as misogynistic as Boris Johnson ...

The narrator of King Solomon’s Mines, published in 1885, at least acknowledges to his schoolboy readers that “there is not a petticoat in the whole history”. That is, except for a female fiend and “she was a hundred at least, and therefore not marriageable, so I don’t count her”. It’s still one more petticoat than you get in a Johnsonian “quad”.

Now there's a reference to gladden the pond's heart and clearly from a girlie swot (we can argue about the 'y' later).

The pond might revert to Brooks when things get desperate, but things will have to be truly desperate.

Sorry, what's that? Cucker Tarlson is still rambling on? 

Well he does love the sound of his voice ...

 

The point? What point is that? 

The pond has had all sorts of blathering on about Xianity from the reptiles for years, and it made no difference to the pond's understanding of the world. 

 

 

 FT here ...or perhaps The Atlantic here ... (soft paywalls)

 

 

Indeed, indeed, it's pretty hard when your head is stuffed so far up your bum it's impossible to see the light ...

Which brings the pond back to its theme.

Germany was supposed to be an Xian country, and bow ties were a feature by those who knew the right time and way to wear them ...

 

 

But then the pond has contended that western civilisation is really all about fashion sense, and truth to tell, the Nazis had the best uniforms and a good sense of style ...

 

There's something about a double breaster that still moves the pond ...

 

By golly Shirley Ann Richards looked good, but the pond must return to the bow-tie prat, though his presence is increasingly tiresome ...

However rest assured there is a point to it, because in due course the wanker purports to be fond of aesthetics ...

 

 

Talk about useful idiots. The pond guesses that Herr Adolf had more than one Chamberlain in his life, and thanks to Faux Noise, Vlad the impaler has a fair range of choices too ... but the pond can sense a growing impatience, and perhaps a w wondering when the trivial moment will arrive ...

 

 

 

 

 

Don't worry, it's coming ... just one more gobbet go and we're there ...

 

Yes, we're here, and it's so simple too ...

 

 

 

It'll be a while before the pond ever turns back to Cucker Tarlson ...

 

 

There's just one more gobbet to go, and a thigh slapping joke about the importance of aesthetics - it really is a final stroke of genius - and then the pond can celebrate with some exciting news.

 

Actually Albert Speer was a bit more cunning and clever than a man with a bow tie pretending that aesthetics matter ... but on with the exciting news. 

You see the immortal Rowe has at last returned from his break, and can be found at his usual spot, not via the AFR, but at Twitter, a little late, but still satisfying ...

Rather than being used for reptile hunting, at last there's a good reason to head off for a tweet ...