In which the reptiles offer a bumper book for Catholic boys looking for freedumb and the odd crusade ...

 

 

It's a big day for the reptiles, but the pond couldn't resist noting at the get go that the cry for freedumb, freedumb had taken a slight twist, as the reptiles keep accepting Clive's cash in their claw ...

 

 

Of course, of course ... new hospitals, because freedumb can often find the unvaccinated in need of hospital care ... and clogging up the system, and fucking up the lives of health workers ...

Ah freedumb, and as for the reptiles, it was war footing day ...

 

The pond was ready ... it knew exactly what needed to be done, conscript the children and force them into service!

 

Of course there were all sorts of crybabies and sooks ready to carry on about this stroke of genius ...

Dammit, you slack layabouts, the Jennings has let loose the dogs of war, and everybody must get with it ...

And now on to what is a veritable Friday reptile feast, a bumper book day ... and up front is a politician ...

 

 

 

Usually the pond wouldn't help a politician escape the Murdochian paywall - let useless idiots fork over their shekels to discover a useless idiot berating others as useful idiots would be the pond's usual line ...

But this particular politician is such a useless idiot that the reptiles had to send in a Jensenist to transcribe his thoughts so that the reptile readership could understand what he was blathering on about ...

 

 

Such considerate and caring reptiles, such a kind and thoughtful Jensenist, though the pond was still under the impression that Fletch wouldn't know good art if it bit him bigly on the balls ...

 

Um actually if we're speaking of Stalinist art, might the pond put in a word Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich.

It's true he had a tough time and a couple of denunciations to live through, and some works were forbidden, such as Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. 

Some of his work was programmatic and conformist, but at the same time he could write incredibly powerful string quartets, and the pond still has a very soft spot for his thirteenth symphony, subtitled Babi Yar ...

The symphony sets a number of poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the first of which commemorates a massacre of Ukrainian Jews during the Second World War. Opinions are divided as to how great a risk this was: the poem had been published in Soviet media, and was not banned, but remained controversial. After the symphony's premiere, Yevtushenko was forced to add a stanza to his poem that said that Russians and Ukrainians had died alongside the Jews at Babi Yar.

Good artists will find a way, no matter what sort of fuckwit of the Fletch kind is at the helm, berating them about what constitutes good art ...

 

 

Such a fuckwit. The entire point of being an artist is that they can dispose how they please, and embark on whatever addled, potty notions they like ...

Whenever a useless idiot of the Fletch kind starts blathering about creativity, expression, telling stories and audience experience, the pond is inclined to reach for its metaphorical Glock ... yes, when Fletch starts banging on about kulture, the pond yearns for a gun ...

And now to the excellent news of the day, for those who have been hanging out for the return of the hole in the bucket man ...

Our Henry is back, and buckets in need of urgent repair can now be presented at the lizard Oz, where they will be fixed, once enough children can be found ...

The bad news? Henry hasn't changed over the hols, and remains as useless an idiot as our Fletch ...

A dose of the Clive freedumbs so early in his return? Yet strangely the pond feels no sense of assault on its freedumbs by the BDS movement ... in fact, the pond freely boycotted the Sydney festival of its own volition ...

Meanwhile, in another country our Henry hasn't apparently heard about ...

Such a corrupt man, but to his credit, he did his very best to cultivate an apartheid state.

 Oh, did the pond just say something naughty? Better keep on with that blather about freedumb ...

 

Meanwhile, in a country that our hole in the bucket man apparently hasn't heard about ...

 

 

 

Yes, the apartheid project is moving along quite nicely. Oh did the pond say something naughty?

Meanwhile, on another planet, the pond wouldn't usually recommend HRW, but here it is ... and this is how it begins ...

About 6.8 million Jewish Israelis and 6.8 million Palestinians live today between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River, an area encompassing Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), the latter made up of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. Throughout most of this area, Israel is the sole governing power; in the remainder, it exercises primary authority alongside limited Palestinian self-rule. Across these areas and in most aspects of life, Israeli authorities methodically privilege Jewish Israelis and discriminate against Palestinians. Laws, policies, and statements by leading Israeli officials make plain that the objective of maintaining Jewish Israeli control over demographics, political power, and land has long guided government policy. In pursuit of this goal, authorities have dispossessed, confined, forcibly separated, and subjugated Palestinians by virtue of their identity to varying degrees of intensity. In certain areas, as described in this report, these deprivations are so severe that they amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution...

Well yes, and that sets things up nicely for our Henry's final gobbet ...

 

Our freedumbs? Go tell it to Clive or the hand, but at least the silly old codger is back, even if there's bugger all by way of classical references, and only Noam Chomsky got the nod ...

But here's the thing. You can't make an artist perform if they don't want to, and the basic freedumb everyone's blathering about is the freedumb to take a stand on whatever hill you prefer. 

It might not be Fletch's hill, or silly old Henry, who also wouldn't recognise art if it bit him on the balls, nor the pond's personal hill, but that's the way freedumb's supposed to work ...

If you don't want to be in Sydney's y'artz festival fine, the pond didn't go to anything anyway ...

And speaking of freedumb, the reptiles and the IPA offered up another contender this day ...

 

So what have we here?

Apparently it's not okay for artists to indulge in a little personal freedumb, and yet the IPA gets outraged when the personal freedumb of some loon basketballer is breached?

The pond uses the term "loon" advisedly, because the freedumb we're talking about soon becomes apparent ...

 

Ah, the old straight shooter routine, with bonus rejection of woke politics and being over-governed ... and the horror of vaccines and such like ...

Come on down the pond's anti-vax loon of the week, as celebrated on the BBC ... so many, so little time ...

 

 

And so on, and on, and there's your ultimate form of freedumb, the chance to do a Buster Scraggs and ascend to heaven singing,  and now back to a final loon gobbet, courtesy of the reptiles and the IPA ...

Sheesh, it's only January and yet the pond is already tired and worn out by all the fuckwits running around yelling freedumb, freedumb ...

And now the pond feels an obligation to go the extra yard, because the pond remains eternally loyal to the thoughts of Killer Creighton, and as the pond reported on his thinking pre-Biden speech, it's only proper to catch up with him afterwards ...

 

 

The thing about this Killer outing is that while it might on the surface appear lengthy and considered, the reptiles have helped give it that impression by stuffing it full of snaps ...

Some might also come away with a discordant perception ... didn't the pond note that the Jennings had placed us on a war footing, with children sent to the front line to help out?

Surely we're well-prepared and well-placed ...

 

 

 

And so to the usual Killer sport, berating jolly Joe ... because the mango Mussolini was such a whiz and a Faux Noise triumph ...

 

Funny ... only a few days ago Killer was writing off jolly Joe as a senile, doddering, weak and useless old fart, well past his use by date ...

Now suddenly he's got Vlad the impaler worried about his manhood?

You see how the reptiles have padded out Killer's piece with snaps? There's worse to come ...

Now for all of that, the pond can find some common ground with Killer. 

Jolly Joe has failed badly in a number of areas, and left himself open to some canny criticism ...

 

Well, it's been a long journey with the reptiles this day, but at last we've reached the final Killer gobbet ...

Uh huh, it was a jolly good attempt at a beat-up, and to shift attention from sociopathic Vlad's intentions by blaming them all on jolly Joe, and Xi must surely be hoping for Killer's able support when it comes to Taiwan ...

But the pond is resolute, bloodied but unbowed, and making preparations for war, as instructed by the reptiles ...

 

Consider it well and truly ditched.

Send in the children, the pond says, and if we don't have enough children, why then send in the cartoonists, or if they flinch, and y'artists bung on a boycott,  why not assign forklift duties to the politicians ... it's sure to work out well ...