The pond has never concealed its main aim - to induce the sort of boredom and sleepiness that a reptile might enjoy when reclining on a hot rock.
Then some might begin to wonder at the wisdom of herpetological studies, or think bewildered thoughts at the notion of actually paying for a dose of reptile wisdom. Some might even think an extra hour in bed a worthwhile alternative ...
Nor has the pond shirked from the easiest tricks in raising such issues.
So today the pond will plunge into a lengthy bout of bromancer hysteria, followed by a climb up the "Ned" Everest of words, and it should never be forgotten that the pointlessness of the exercise is the entire point.
Sure, the bromancer might occasionally provide the occasional good humoured aside, as in the matter of his devotion to Bernard Cornwell. Sure that might provide a Viking distraction, and the pond does appreciate the humour that can arise from a show such as The Northman, blathering about historical accuracy, when the trailer for the show only made the pond wonder how the Vikings had access to steroids and a bloody good gym, with an impressive weights training schedule that would make Charles Atlas blink...
Sorry, sorry, back to the main mission ... because the more the bromancer screeches, the more the pond finds comfort in the numbing warmth of its hot rock ...
All up there are nine samplings involved in the bromancer's screeching, with his angle this time that it's a "postmodern" election. Really? The word has been around for a very long time ...
The term postmodern was first used in 1870. John Watkins Chapman suggested "a Postmodern style of painting" as a way to depart from French Impressionism. J. M. Thompson, in his 1914 article in The Hibbert Journal (a quarterly philosophical review), used it to describe changes in attitudes and beliefs in the critique of religion, writing: "The raison d'être of Post-Modernism is to escape from the double-mindedness of Modernism by being thorough in its criticism by extending it to religion as well as theology, to Catholic feeling as well as to Catholic tradition. (wiki it here).
So we've been having postmodern elections since at least 1914 ...
Never mind, the pond will accept the bromancer's basic point. There is no reality, only bromancer text, and reptile click-bait videos, and so every day the pond feels it is plunging down a rabbit hole with Alice into a postmodern surrealist nightmare ...
It goes without saying that the bromancer's big problem is that of late he's had to adopt a Janus posture, or a pox on both your houses, or better still, a pox on all your houses....
Yes, yes, all that, and that red line blather is worthy of a Rowe, but is there that much difference with the United States, as currently proposed by Fox News, Tuckyo Carlson, and the coup loving GOP?
Ah yes, the pond suspected there would be a few wondering how long it would take for the pond to go the cartoon, and it's true, of late the pond has preferred a cartoon to a tedious argument with the reptiles ...
As soon as you see that the mutton Dutton's our fearless leader, why wouldn't you wave the surrender flag and go a cartoon?
Yes, it doesn't matter if Truth Social is dodgy or that much of the money might quickly wend its way into personal bank accounts, and you can be a mango Mussolini and have no hectoring about human rights and governance on Faux Noise, and it seems that to think such heretical thoughts is apparently profoundly postmodern ... and yet if you took a look at that world from a distance, you might wonder about the sublime hypocrisy of it all ...
Never mind, on with the bromancer ...
Xi has always been an intensely orthodox Chinese communist? The notion is sublimely postmodern. Mao, for example, was an intensely orthodox Chinese Huángdì, with a new line in clothing ...
You can trace Xi's love of power back to the traditions established way back when by emperor Mao and by Qin Shi Huang ...
At this point the pond should note that the reptiles attempted to distract the pond not just with the bromancer's words but with an image ... because that's all we've got in those postmodern days ...
The pond had only just got going with Qin ...
Beginning in 213 BCE, at the instigation of Li Si and to avoid scholars' comparisons of his reign with the past, Qin Shi Huang ordered most existing books to be burned with the exception of those on astrology, agriculture, medicine, divination, and the history of the State of Qin.
And here we are today ...
Okay, okay, the pond is never going to finish if it keeps interrupting ... and there's still "Ned" waiting in the wings, impatient for his chance to strut his hour upon the pond ...
And at this point the pond decided to fling in an image of a "good speech-maker", and at that moment the pond realised we were doomed ...
Was there something gnomic in that expression? What of that hand idly flapping in the breeze? Did it denote or connote a hidden meaning that only Tom Hanks might deconstruct? Or had the image been drained of all meaning, and simply become a semiotic code incapable of deconstruction?
Never mind, the good news is that there's just two gobbets to go, and we're about to re-enter the bromancer's postmodernist analysis ...
A porcupine? Why you just roll them over and give their tummy a tickle, and then you can find all kinds of uses for them ...
The porcupine is often used as a symbol of American Libertarianism due to its natural embodiment of defensiveness and the non-aggression principle.
Can a full-on tyke go full on libertarian? The pond was left wondering ...
And there you have it ... the bromancer turning from wan conceits to denouncing the performative carry-on nonsense of the liar from the Shire, the mutton Dutton and all the rest with their histrionics.
Of course he throws in an "it's astonishing that both sides" as a way of doing a bit of both siderism, and purported balance, but the performative antics only matter if you happen to be the government of the day ...
And that's how a speaker in tongues to imaginary friends and a dinkum lover of clean, Oz coal becomes a postmodernist loon in the bromancer's world.
Why it's almost enough to turn the pond full Viking, especially as it's now nattering "Ned's" turn and there's the usual Everest to climb ...
Good news, with the reptiles realising that "Ned" needs an image or three to help him out. Never mind the neutered click bait video, admire the bounding 'roos.
It's a rare return to the good old days when the cult master strode the pages and there was no talk of "Ned" reading his very own words to an admiring reptile audience.
What's that? There's still no talk, and all we'll cop is neutered click bait videos?
Never mind ... remember it's the ennui, the sheer tedium, the alienating sense of boredom that will make the winter doona seem like the only comfort left in the world ...
In the old days, some wag would have taken that snap of SloMo holding up that white screen and used it as a way of inserting some comic message ... like "I'm the dickhead that's supposed to be in charge ... and all I've got to offer is a graph ..."
Now on with "Ned" in full Chicken Little mode, screeching at the falling sky, because in this postmodern world, all we've got is reptile screeching, fear and loathing ...
One of the features of "Ned's" work is his ability to recycle the thoughts of others - as the pond knows, it certainly saves on the need for any original ideas of one's own, and the environmentally aware "Ned" is now in full recycling mode ...
The pond has no idea why they inserted that shot of a startled RBA gov and the pond decided that it needed an immortal Rowe ...
Huzzah, and more sangers with sauce lifted aloft here ...
Is this the right time for the pond to note that the heretics are out and about and can even be found in the lizard Oz?
Thank the long absent lord the pond never pays attention to the oscillating fan and his talk of furphies ... though the pond should mention that you can now get a Furphy clock, which apparently is the embodiment of hipster style ... at least if your hipster thinks Ikea and Finnish marimekko is still all the go ...
Never mind the Anzacs, go clock ...
Oh Furphy, Furphy, that it should come to this ... and "Ned" to hand in a final gobbet to wring his paws and sigh at the sky ...
An ending with a whimper not a bang, though perhaps a whimper preceding a bang?
The pond will only note that if you happen to be exposed to Sydney and Melbourne real estate prices at the moment, good luck with that ... before wrapping things up with another Rowe celebrating that red line ...
