In which the pond remains convinced the reptiles have lost their mojo and their appeal, and offers nattering "Ned" and Dame Slap as irrefutable proof ...

 

 

It goes without saying that the pond appreciates the sudden surge in comments, and the unexpected, miraculous return of Kez, but the pond remains convinced that the relentlessly repetitious reptiles have lost their mojo and their appeal. 

When confronted with a one trick pony, there's only so many times you can revisit the trick (or the well) without stifling a yawn ...

Take this day's tree killer lizard Oz edition, which is a predictable bit of fear mongering of the most deplorable low rent kind ... showing the real fear and desperation at work in the coalition of clowns and their horrible, horrible leader ...

Of course they pretend it's a brawl, just for the pun of it, but it's really just a smear, and with dangerous overtones ...

And look, down there at the bottom of the tree killer edition ...

How many times can the pond crack a joke about the reptiles taking Clive's cash in the claw, in a way that completely undermines the rag's main message? Re-elect that truly horrible, horrible man ...

Even nattering "Ned" could see where this sort of phony politics was taking the country ...

 

 

Of course it's a high risk play by a desperate man, yet cheek by jowl with "Ned's" natter came simpleton Sharri, repeating the smear ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forget the shamelessness of the trudging Tudge.

 

Again the pond was reminded that the University of Melbourne deemed smear merchant Sharri a significant journalist of the kind they'd want advising their students on how to carry on the business of a smearing journalist of the delusional Murdochian kind ... 

And just for the record, how is quoting The Global Times an EXCLUSIVE? What's so EXCLUSIVE about parroting a Chinese newspaper that routinely makes mischievous comments about Australian politics?

Back to "Ned", impotently wringing his hands, doing a Chicken Little sigh to the skies, and blathering away, as the truly horrible, horrible man turned up on a radio station black spot to carry on with a lead tonsil man from the dim, distant past ...

 

Is there anything worse than the naked opportunism of the complete psycho, the liar and hypocrite? Surely "Ned" gets close with that shameless plug for his book, handily launched this week, or so he tells us. All the reptiles needed to do was drop in an ad for a great offer, to match the shamelessness of the plug ...

But at least the pond has reached the final gobbet of this low rent salesman spruiking his version of reptile snake oil ...

 

And there you go, more of the same, "Ned" quoting others to pad out the piece, and then blathering on about bipartisanship, as if the tree killer blaring headline and simpleton Sharri's EXCLUSIVE was just a passing reptile nightmare ...

And then it got even worse for the pond ...

 

 

 

No, no, hang on, no reminders of how you were once in New York and slipped out into the night in your MAGA cap to celebrate the elevation of the mango Mussolini, because travel rarely broadens a Slappian mind ...

More to the point, of late the pond has been watching Sky News and its preview of the front pages, and when not about BoJo and his tendency to party on, or the carry on at the corrupt Met, the British newspapers have been filled with the fraught conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and there's been sweet bugger all time spent on cancel culture wars ...

This Rowson cartoon summed it all up nicely ...

 

 

And how could the pond resist mentioning Rowson's inspiration?

 

 

Or this spin off ...

 

And yet the pond is stuck with Dame Slap hand wringing, and leaving the pond to wonder why it was always about transexuals who'd transitioned to being female. 

Why was Dame Slap never vexed about transexuals who'd transitioned to male?

And yet Australia has an honourable tradition in that area, remembering Eve Langley's intriguing and beguiling 1942 novel The Pea-Pickers ...

The novel has a thin plot: two sisters, dressed as men and taking men's names, Steve and Blue, decide to work as agricultural labourers in Gippsland, the place their mother has told them about throughout their childhood and with which they feel they have a "spiritual link". The book chronicles their life and work over a few seasons, and particularly describes "the multitude of eccentrics”….

And again, a little further down in the wiki, just before Patrick White mentions the book alongside his reading of the bible ...

…Spender comments on the fact that Langley was criticised at the time for having her heroines in The Pea-Pickers and White Topee wear trousers, despite the fact that trousers "permitted freedom of movement" and enhanced personal safety by letting a woman "pass as a man". She says: "but if Eve Langley knew the benefit of trousers, her critics did not: it is distressing to find that sometimes there is more comment about her eccentricities as a person than about the strengths of her writing".
Ellis, on the other hand, writes that "it is almost impossible to side-step the biographical data that often obscures discussion of her work whether it be the eccentricities of her life -- including her transgender wardrobe and her decision to change her name by deed poll to Oscar Wilde -- or her lonely and somewhat grisly death. As a result, commentators of The Pea-Pickers have been fascinated with its presentation of the transvestic, its homoeroticism and its status as (semi)autobiography"...
 
Nope, none of any of that. 

Instead the pond is stuck with Dame Slap thinking Tony Bleagh has something useful to offer ...

 

The reptiles only turn to this sort of cancel war confection when there are things they need to distract from ... such as that other recent matter ...

 

 

Remember when the reptiles and the Speccie mob were outraged at the treatment of this vacuous vacuum cleaner?

 

 

And then it started to come out ...

 

 

The rest of that is easy enough to google, and currently outside the AFR paywall here ... meanwhile, before returning to Dame Slap, can the pond note that her attempt at a distraction was at the top of the reptile digital edition ...

It should be possible to express empathy and concern? 

Might the pond gently suggest you take your empathy and concern, and taking into account the very little that it means, shove it up your MAGA cap?

 

 

 

Alas the only road to solutions is via the facts? Oh fuck that for a bigoted trannyphobic joke ... but speaking of phobias, Vlad the impaler has a similar feeling about homosexuality and Ukrainians ...

 

 

 

Did that segue work? Not really?

Never mind, the pond just wanted to get in that Wilcox before enduring more Dame Slap drivel ... and yes, yet another click bait video, shoved in at the end by the reptiles to make some cash out of this Dame Slap cancel wars distraction ...

 

And so the transphobic witch hunt continues at News Corp and so the pond comes to the end, convinced that the reptiles have nothing to offer, except the same old rhetorical bullshit ...

Best turn to a Rowe and wrap it up, with more rapping Rowe always to hand here ... and what do you know, there's a kind of over-priced slave labour vacuum cleaner for sale ...(it helps in the interpreting of this cartoon if you know what "Dirty Dyson" and "Handsy Heydon" refers to ...along with lines such as "The judge's hands became very busy under the table ...")