In which the pond hits a snag and is shut out of Mount Olympus, just as the keen Keane posed a challenge ...

 

 

The pond feels it has reached some kind of peak with the adorable Dore and the larrikin Lachy - could reptile delusion climb any higher, and the pond with it? - but the pond had hopes of seeing how the reptiles would rise to the challenge posed by the keen Keane in Crikey yesterday ... (paywall affected)

Meantime, there’s a fascinating test for the press gallery ahead. The gallery has worked hard to churn out more than 370 articles about Kimberley Kitching since her tragic passing — or about 19 a day. On that basis, we should be swimming in a sea of tens of thousands of words about Fierravanti-Wells and Morrison for weeks to come — her revelations about how Morrison and his cronies engineered the overturning of Michael Towke’s preselection in Cook, his alleged racist views about Towke’s background, the briefing of journalists (later the basis for successful law suits by Towke) using material supplied, Fierravanti-Wells says, by Labor’s Sam Dasytari, and the whole saga of Morrison’s attempts to halt rank-and-file preselections in the NSW Liberal Party.
Plenty of material to work with there, you’d think.

So how did the gallery respond? Well Granny went crying to little Johnny ...

 

 

 

 

Oh diddums did nasty Fierravanti-Wells say naughty things about the notorious liar from the Shire?

Yep, quick, suddenly make a move from mean girls blather to little Jonny talking about bile ...

L'Age noticed a little storm in a little box down the page ...

 

 

 

The Hun and the Terror knew nothing about it ...

 

 

And as for the reptiles of the lizard Oz?

 

 

Sure, they were still taking Klive's kash in their klaw, but it seems that the time to pay attention to fundamentalist Catholics of the old school had long gone ...

 

Et tu reptiles? The keen Keane's challenge to hand, and all the talk of mean girls and mean boys just disappeared up the old reptile fundament?

The pond did a check of the digital edition, to see if Fierravanti-Wells had made it to the top of the digital page, ma ...

 

 

Nope, not a whisper, not a sigh, just petulant Peta banging on in the usual way ...

Only The Canberra Times paid attention and answered the keen Keane's challenge ...

 

 

 

 

 

Wow ... and they threw in a CSIRO scientist blowing the whistle on a climate gag ... it was the little national capital rag that could ...

 

The pond did the reptiles the courtesy of checking out the reptiles' comments section ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nope, no raging at the fading of the light, no celebration, contemplation or acknowledgment. 

 

No farewell or final last words from the Senator ... just Simon saying, apparently unaware that fellow traveling with a Senator might seem to undermine his objectivity ... you know, the wondrous objectivity talked up by the adorable Dore ... and there was Killer Creighton, still ranting about Covid and masks and all that jazz...

The pond felt a vast ennui, because only in the triptych of terror did the reptiles take note of the parting Senator's words ...

 

Yep, not a thought for the truth of the words, just written down and written off as a gift to Labor ...

All the same, the pond was prepared to give it a go, but struck a snag ...

 

The reptiles had devised a new paywall, and the pond had been locked out!

 

First up, the pond felt a tremendous surge of relief. An early mark!

 

Being a paranoid, the pond knew the reason, and it was personal ... having mocked the adorable Dore and the larrikin dinkum Lachy, the order had gone out to kill the pond ...

On the upside, this meant that the pond could print all to hand of petulant Peta without upsetting the pond readership ...

 

What's not to like about just two lines from petulant Peta?

 

And what about Killer?

 

 

 

Eek, the Killer really did start by banging on about masks, and in the first few lines too, but thanks to the revised reptile desire to live in splendid isolation, the pond had no way of doing a deeper Freudian inspection ... some sort of consoling therapy - perhaps try on a mask for a minute, and then build up over the weeks and the years to an hour of cops and robbers ... though the pond did pause to note the massive incongruity of the reptile illustration involving Hope, because the pond has no hope for Killer ...

So that was it, and did the pond feel good or what ...

 

Those who wanted a serve of the Senator could always turn to Crikey, paywall affected and dead to the pond unless it comes in handy ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

That'll do, Davey boy, that'll do, that'll fill the reptile gap nicely ...

 

And so to a Rowe for the day ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

And as the pond had no need for cartoons as interstitials to break up the reptiles and make them more digestible, it's straight on to an infallible Pope ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then the pond decided to do what it did recently when the reptiles got the sulks and bunged on a do, and imitated Greta Garbo and shouted out the world "I want to be a loam" ... check out how things were going in Gundagai ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hmm, not much progress ...

 

 

 

 

How about Goulburn? Has it got the slowest growing tree or what?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those who missed it, that humble growth was planted on 24th May 1969, by Lady Cutler of all people, to commemorate the centenary of the opening of the railway to the town ...

 

Now here's a snap to make the reptiles proud and stand to attention ... 

 

 

 

 

Say what you will about the squatters and their merino sheep, they knew how to lock up the crims in style ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally as railways have been mentioned, a note about Albury for train spotters ... 

 

The station's legendary days involving different rail sizes are long gone, but the station is still there ... and Tim's ghost haunts the corridors ...

 

 

 

 

As for the pond, who knows what the morrow will bring. 

 

If the pond can't get past the reptile paywall, it might go into recess, or it might keep blathering away brightly on other matters. 

 

No matter,with the adorable Dore and the larrikin Lachy, so dinkum true blue it hurts, the pond for a moment spent time with the gods in Mount Olympus, and that's more than enough ...