What a relief!
The pond was shuddering at the thought of finishing off a holiday weekend with a burst of the Major from the reptile trenches, and so anxiously surveyed what was on offer in the comments section ...
Done deal. More than enough for the pond, and it could still ignore Pravda down under running a passionate piece by its fearless leader, and Milner of the deep north dumping on Labor and Albo, and the bouffant one urging the liar from the Shire to make the most of illness ...
The Major could be banished to a late arvo slot, and the pond could begin with a dose of Lloydie of the Amazon ...
Indeed, indeed, what a righteous and caring Lloydie ...and never no mind SloMo's deep love of clean, dinkum, pure, innocent coal ...
Phew, it's always worth remembering what a dinkum coal lover he was (is) ...
Now back to Lloydie berating Labor, though the last time Lloydie scribbled about the climate, there didn't seem to be any need to reference the actual science ...
Of course Lloydie wasn't having any of that nonsense, he had his own brand of patented gibberish ...
You might also say that the experience around the world is that not cutting emissions costs money, has intended and unintended consequences, and is constantly running into more difficulties from the likes of Lloydie of the Amazon than hoped ... and that all sides should understand that when the reptiles blather about climate science, what they mean is how to avoid setting targets and how to get hysterical about the costs, and as for the planet? Fuck it ...
And that reminded the pond that on its weekend stroll it came across this form of window art ... the pond left in the reflections to evoke the way Sydney had a sunny day, such an astonishing moment the pond almost fainted with pleasure ...
If you click on it, you might be able to read the small print, but otherwise that line "Coalier than thou" should inspire the reptiles to fresh endeavours ...
Oh it's a funny old neighbourhood, and there are always sights to see on a walk ...
And so to the bromancer, yet again in a state of great agitation. You see the reptiles made much of talk of red lines ...
And that sent the bromancer right off ...
Sad to say, "an inherently fatuous air about it."?!
What could the pond say, or possibly add?
Presumably the same applies to the smoke and mirrors at the top of the digital page ...
How cruel of the reptiles to undercut their digital strategy by feeling the need to put the bromancer below the red line warning, or is that red line warming?, with his talk of bluster and egg on face ...
It was on to the next gobbet as quickly as possible, what with the bromancer saying in a way that the lizard Oz front page and the digital edition had an inherently fatuous air about them...
Truly, the pond has no idea what's happened to the bromancer, what's gone wrong.
"Talk about the Gulargambone Times thundering: We warn the Tsar!"
Talk about the lizard Oz with its thundering headline ...
And so to a final gobbet, with the reptiles slipping in yet another click bait video at the end as a distraction ...
Sadly the pond wasn't distracted by that neutered click bait video and couldn't but help notice the bromancer throwing out the word "pathetic" and ranting at bluster and grand announcements, and offering advice to the liar from the Shire to downscale its rhetoric ...
That put the pond in an exceptionally good frame of mind to cop the usual serve of crass Caterism ...
Uh huh. Might it not be crass to lead off in this way? The pond knows where this is heading, which is to say to draw political lessons and turn them into a form of crass, cheap political point scoring, using a dead man to pump up the lair from the Shire ...
The pond read on, just to see if the Caterist was aware of the crassness ...
It would be crass to politicise the lessons of history?
But the Caterist has just served up pure, undiluted crassness. He strayed beyond the valley of the crass into the valley of the truly pathetic ...
Perhaps he should take a tip from the bromancer, and put his wretched rhetoric into downscale mode, or perhaps remember the advice to speak softly and carry a stick.
Not a big stick ... at the moment probably any size stick would do ...and if no stick, then perhaps a folded brolly ... or perhaps as suggested by a correspondent, sea-going tanks ...
But back to the truly crass Caterist politicising the lessons of history for a last gobbet ...
And so with the crass Caterist done with his politicising, it was time for the pond to take in a Rowe, which was also a tad political, as always with more Rowe here ...
By this time of the morning, those of us who can just peek at the baits dangling from the upper decks of the flagship (electronic form) see that the Major is there, with the classic ‘Katherine Deves is saying what a lot are thinking.’
ReplyDeleteHe is so original. That phrase came into regular use when Pauline Hanson was rising in prominence - before the manual switchboard that was the wiring of her brain had her contradicting herself in successive press gatherings.
It was useful - most of us soon learned that when someone at the table, or bar, said ‘Only sayin’ what a lot are thinkin’ ‘ the real message was ‘only sayin’ what I am thinkin’ ‘ - and time to withdraw from that conversation.
But Pauline is a relic of the 1996 election - and one might think a journo. with the Major’s lambent talent, could have created a phrase more appropriate to these times.
Against that - Rowe is just superb.
Very much so. But then, surely Rowe has insulted Gallipoli and ANZACs far worse than Yassmin Abdel-Magied ever did.
DeleteI await the stream of at least 1000 reptile articles attacking him for it.
He is still there - the Cater -
ReplyDelete‘The duty of Australian voters is to elect a government with the resolve to secure our borders and protect the independence of our neighbours.’
Provided, of course, that neighbours do not interpret that ‘independence’ as allowing one sovereign nation to enter into agreements with another sovereign nation that our Prime Minister (Scott Morrison - thank you Shaun Micallef) finds inconvenient when someone else looks in the rear view mirror, because, as he has asserted, he, $loMo, never does that.
Anyway, good to know what our duty is. Those of us who think that the government of almost the entire last decade could have shown a lot more resolve in securing our borders against biosecurity threats need a tad more guidance on just what that there ‘resolve’ consists of - and over what kind of time - so we can do our duty.
THe Caterist tells us that the first place Australians saw action during WWII was The Bismarck Archipelago, "an extensive network of islands stretching from PNG to Samoa."
ReplyDeleteWatch out, he's been studying again. Geography this time. The Bismarck Archipelago, according to its Wiki, consists of the islands of New Britain, New Ireland and the Admiralty Islands. The Bismarck Sea is bounded in the south east by the two large islands in the group. The nearest of the islands of Samoa is over 4000Km away.
Extra, extra - reeed allaboudit - as the lads would yell in the afternoons.
ReplyDeleteMy Source has had access to the Weekend Flagship. Specifically, the REVIEW. (No, I don’t know in what form she had that access, and wise not to ask). Just inside the REVIEW - ‘The First Word’ by Greg Sheridan.
I don’t know if Sheridan gets that first word every week, or if it comes around on rotation. This recent weekend, he started with ‘Tony Abbott has recently both blighted and enriched my life.’ So - progress report on the bromance, but - how did Tones both blight and enrich Sheridan’s life? By telling our correspondent that he, Tones had become devoted (that’s the word) to the series ‘The Last Kingdom’.
‘Wiki’ tells me that this is a show running on Netflix - so the Source did not send me the information as an inducement to watch, because we do not have time for Netflix. According to Sheridan it is essentially Saxons V Danes in 9th century England, but it is suitable viewing because it has a ‘multifaceted treatment of Christianity’.
Sheridan finishes with this question of Tones - ‘what do I do now ‘The Last Kingdom’ is done?’
Mmm - is the flagship going to hang more banners proclaiming other such sentimental attachments? and where might these kinds of declarations fit on the scale of ‘woke’?
I don't know about the Netflix series Chad but the author of the books is very much an athiest
Deletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Cornwell
"He was adopted and brought up in Thundersley, Essex by the Wiggins family; they were members of the Peculiar People, a strict sect of pacifists who banned frivolity of all kinds, and even medicine up to 1930. Reacting to being raised by Christian Fundamentalists, he grew up rejecting all religions and became an atheist".
I guess it's like religion itself, a certain sort of mental gymnastics allows you to find what you are looking for.
Thank you Befuddled. My Source will be reading comments here, and I will follow up on author Cornwell. Being brought up in 'Thundersley, Essex' almost reads like introduction to a fanciful series of novels.
DeleteInspirational stuff Chadders, and the pond felt the need to follow up with the original text, so that historians might study it ...
DeleteBy Greg Sheridan
12:00AM April 22, 2022
Tony Abbott has recently both blighted and enriched my life. He’s a splendid fellow, but he told me how devoted he had become to the series, The Last Kingdom.
This is a less pornographic first cousin of Game of Thrones, set in 9th century Britain, concerning conflict between Christian English Saxons and Viking Danes. It’s compulsive, less spectacular than GOT but better overall, more relatable, more humanly believable.
There’s a lot of gore. That’s probably realistic for the period, and seemingly unavoidable in historical epics. The combat scenes are technically brilliant. Like most good TV, it’s an adaptation of a series of novels.
I haven’t read The Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell. But very often a novelist has a much richer, more detailed imagination than TV scriptwriters. GOT collapsed in the last season because the script writers caught up with the novels and, keen to finish the enterprise, did their own plotting. Much internal consistency was lost. GOT was a fantasy universe but good fantasies, like all good fiction, have their own internal rules which make them believable in their context.
Imagine if the film producers of Lord of the Rings only had three quarters of J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece available to them and had to invent the final quarter. The Hobbit is a seriously inferior series of films to LOR partly because the film makers went far beyond the initial short novel which was the Hobbit, whereas with LOR they had a vast, intricately imagined, fantasy universe of great depth and complexity.
Generally, films don’t try to explore the deepest and best themes of great novels, which is why quite second rate novels can also make great films. They, too, can have compelling plots. Tolkien was a profoundly convinced Christian – indeed his Christianity was the very centre and animating force of everything in his life – and naturally the film doesn’t much explore the Christian themes of the novel, though even the novel itself is not a direct allegory.
The Last Kingdom succeeds partly because its central character, Uhtred of Bebbanburg, born a Saxon, raised a Dane, and constantly navigating across the two worlds, is so compelling and so interesting. He has a sense of humour and he’s superbly acted by the German/American, Alexander Dreymon.
However, Uhtred is a dashing young fellow, all handsome action man, flowing locks, rugged good looks etc. Naturally, he was not the character I identified with. I really liked Father Beocca, a smart, tough, sometimes plain speaking, brave, helpful, older guy. Given how much of the audience we baby boomers still make up, every series has to have a character the boomers can go for. Father Beocca, balding, unimpressive of build, at least a generation older than Uhtred, is a pretty formidable guy. No slouch in the courage stakes in his own way either. One of the remarkable features of this series is that it has a fairly balanced, multifaceted treatment of Christianity.
Purists might claim it tends to equate Viking religion and Christianity, but a series which has not one but two heroic priests is almost a collector’s item these days. Not only that, there’s an entirely sympathetic nun, at times much wooed by Uhtred but, while recognising his virtues and offering him friendship, she remains beyond his conquest, the only woman with whom he is romantically unsuccessful.
The Danes all have a signature hair-do, half skull shaved and long at the back. My wife and I now Dane-spot at restaurants. I binged five series in three weeks. My question for Abbott is this: what do I do now The Last Kingdom is done?
As a follow up, say what you will, Cornwell has a good sense of humour, as you can see from his site publishing this forlorn complaint ...
Deletehttps://www.bernardcornwell.net/questions/1907/
Dear sir, I have realized from the many questions and answers here that you are an atheist and have a lot of scorn for religion. However, I have also gathered from the answers given, that you are aware of some of the positive consequences of religion/belief. While I may or may not agree with your views, I am a bit disappointed that you most times portray religious characters so negatively, when you seem to strive to be fair to other characters in your novels (the real ones, at least). In the Saxon novels, for example, while I realize that the story is told from the viewpoint of the pagan Uhtred, almost every Christian person is portrayed as either borderline crazy fanatics, stupid, selfish, cynical, plain evil or a combination. This is grossly unfair to the Christian people, priests, nuns and monks who did do a lot of good and who did care for their neighbours. So my question is this: Why not include a comment about this in the historical note at the end of each book? You did put in such a comment for example concerning Æthelred, who you admit to portraying unfairly in your books. Why not do the same regarding the priests and monks who appear frequently in your writing? Finally, I would like to thank you not only for all the great books, but for taking the time to answer people’s questions here, the vast numbers of which impress me greatly – particularly seeing as you are such a hugely productive writer. This shows that you appreciate your many fans! Have a nice day! -Yngve-
How soon before the devotion of devoted tykes, onion muncher and bromancer, turn up somewhere on the site?
Dorothy - thank you for that full text. As you say, that is always important in maintaining the proper perspective of history. We can also imagine the Bromancer 'being' Father Beocca as he binged in the 'Flix. Happy for him.
DeleteOh - and it seems need to revert to a nonny mouse to comment now - thus not exposing my secret identity as Chadwick.
DeleteJust gotta type it in every time now, Chad.
DeleteSheridan is having one of those moments of lucidity where all the dots line up and the conclusions become obvious. Best enjoy it while we can as normal programming will probably resume shortly.
ReplyDeleteIf you are trying to get persuade someone, is this how you go about it?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/16/fiji-pm-frank-bainimarama-insulting-scott-morrison-rift-pacific-countries
"Vanuatu’s foreign minister, Ralph Regenvanu, told the Guardian that Australia had several “red lines” during negotiations that it refused to budge on, meaning Pacific leaders had to remove all references to coal, references to limiting warming to less than 1.5C and to setting out a plan for net zero emissions by 2050 from the forum communique and climate change statement that came out of the meeting."
Since coal got a mention
Deletehttps://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/21/australias-coal-export-boom-forecast-to-end-abruptly-amid-big-drop-in-demand-from-china?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Bainimarama: "I thought Morrison was a good friend of mine; apparently not." $loMo has never been "a good friend" of anybody, has he ? Not even of his Hillsong "mates".
DeleteTry this on for size GB and BF ...
Deletehttps://junkee.com/scott-morrison-rugby-afl-teams/309077
...During this digging, Twitter user @mattburke managed to find an old tweet where the Prime Minister claimed he was a Western Bulldogs supporter through and through because “loyalty counts”.
But after a little more digging, it’s abundantly clear that “loyalty” is nowhere to be seen when it comes to ScoMo and the footy teams he backs. So let’s dissect the last 20 or so years.
While working as the director of the New Zealand Office of Tourism and Sport from 1998 to 2000, Morrison spoke about his adopted hometown of Wellington.
Determined to please the All Blacks-loving kiwis around him, ScoMo called New Zealand a “bit of a nirvana” because “in Sydney, rugby usually takes second place to the league“.
2006: Rugby Union Teams Added To Personal Interest Section On CV, Moves To Sutherland Shire And Stops Supporting Easts Rugby Union Club
After getting sacked as managing director of Tourism Australia in 2006 after just 18 months on the job, ScoMo prepped his CV before winning his controversial seat for Cook in 2007.
In his CV’s personal interests section, Morrison added “Church (Hillsong Church, Waterloo), family, politics, reading (biography, travel, history, Australian fiction), kayaking, rugby (Randwick, Waratahs) and AFL (Western Bulldogs).”
No NSW rugby league teams were listed in his interests at the time. Instead ScoMo’s love for the Cronulla Sharks conveniently only came after he won preselection for Cook — an electoral division that, of course, includes Cronulla — and moved to the Shire. And despite spending his entire life being an avid supporter of the Easts Rugby Club, his move to the Shire spelled the end for his relationship with Easts and the start of his love for the Sharks...
And so on and on, until ending this way ...
...Apparently, all that “loyalty” that “counted” back in 2009 was starting to fade away — so much so that the Prime Minister even decided to back “Perth” to win the 2018 AFL grand final over Collingwood.
Perth, famously, isn’t a team in the AFL. But in 2018, Western Australia was more important than Victoria in the next federal election so it made sense to side with Western Australia, according to Junkee’s own Rob Stott.
After telling Tim Wilson that he “didn’t have a team” in 2018, ScoMo drummed that point home again during a radio interview with Melbourne’s 3AW the following year.
After 3AW host Tony Jones shared that he got the sense that the Prime Minister might be jumping on the Collingwood train, Morrison again shared that he has no team. “I don’t have a team. My team is the Cronulla Sharks up in Sydney,” the Prime Minister said despite publicly backing the Western Bulldogs for at least four years.
“I like AFL but I am not a phony. I am not going to go around pretending I am something I am not,” he continued. “I grew up in New South Wales, a suburban boy. I have been following that code ever since I was a kid…I am who I am. I like going [to the AFL], I really enjoy it. But you know when I back something, I’m all in,” he ended his comments.
“I am never going to be something I am not. I am not going to be inauthentic, what you see is what you get.”
So there you have it: A full history of Scott Morrison’s inability to be loyal to anything — including insignificant things like sporting teams. Who would’ve thought Scott Morrison would conveniently backflip on his own interests for political gain? Probably everyone.
"The answer my not-friend is blowing in the wind". So, just a vain vane then ?
Delete