In which the pond does a big Sunday circus, starting off with a pious preaching by Polonius, a dash of Gemma, a hint of Gracie, and a full serve of the bromancer in full featherless flight ...

 

 

Last week unfortunate timing saw Polonius post his missive before the election results were in, but this week he can set the record straight ... it's all the fault of the ABC ...

 

 

 

 

Ah yes, take The Insiders. How could it possibly be one of Australia's leading current affairs programs? Once they dumped Polonius, it became nothing, just a speck of fly shit on the window of our times ... though the pond suspects that it knows what really stuck in Polonius's craw. Fancy talking about national politics during an election campaign, and even worse, being rewarded for its efforts, as noted by the venerable Meade here ...

 

 

 

 

Damn you cardigan wearers, damn you Antony with your comical bemusement in the face of overwhelming statistics... no wonder Polonius is irritated and must prattle ... the bloody ABC and the Graudian demand his relentless obsessive-compulsive fixated attention ...

 

 

What an astonishing insight that last line offers, and shows that Polonius is on top of his game, though not nearly a match for Joe ...

Before the election, Joe Hildebrand, News Corp columnist and Sky News presenter, was confident the teals, or as he referred to them the “multimillion-dollar vanity project of self-appointed climate crusaders in the wealthiest suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney” would fail at the ballot box.
It “is entirely possible that for all the millions of dollars ploughed into this campaign by billionaire heir Simon Holmes a Court and other wealthy donors, the Teals may not actually win a single seat,” Hildebrand wrote last week.
After the election, to give him his due, he did admit he was wrong. “As it turns out it appears I am far more in touch with the mood of the mainstream Australian electorate than I am with the political whims of eastern suburbs and bayside millionaires. Very happy to take that.”

Memo to self: when a fuckwit, always double down on the fuckwittery, because who cares if you're a mega fuckwit?

Of course Polonius himself is certainly not well-heeled, nor well-educated, and doesn't live in a poncy area.

He's at one with the workers, and thinks of them everytime he takes out his garbage bin ...

And so to Polonius's last astonishing insights, and he brings the gospel, the good news, with him, even if it involves even more listening to the ABC, a never ending task for the obsessive compulsive nit-picker..

 

 

Oh ye doubters, recant: "change is an unpredictable phenomenon." It's up there with "All I've got left is that room upstairs with the telly, I like to watch the ABC on the telly..."

If you could come up with insights like that, you too could be scribbling for the lizard Oz, and be celebrated by the pond on a Sunday ...

And so to more mundane duties, starting off with Gemma ...

 

 

 

Gemma belongs to the reptiles' bubble-headed booby brigade, and it's true that the pond on a Sunday would be rather reading Marina Hyde. 

Her opening salvo was such a ripper that the pond couldn't help but gasp in awe ...

For followers of British politics, this week was probably best understood in terms of quantum physics. For the past six months, the prime minister and his cabinet explained that they couldn’t comment on the Partygate scandal because they were waiting for the Sue Gray report. Then, the very day that report was published, they explained it was in the past now and it was time to move on.I know what you’re thinking: then WHEN?! When was the permitted moment to get some actual accountability?! 

Well, scientists estimate there were four picoseconds of liminal time on Wednesday when lawbreaking by lawmakers was an appropriate subject on which to challenge said lawmakers. It was hoped some challengers would be able to enter this witching moment without getting drawn into a black hole, and somehow extend the moment to try to work out what the hell the answers were.

A version of this device was used on an episode of Stargate once, so would probably only need minor adjustment for Westminster. But in fact, the window of opportunity – the window of “taking responsibility” – closed before it had even opened. Or to put it another way: if you’ve been sitting in your metaphorical cop car staking out Downing Street for six months, you now have jack shit to show for it bar severe doughnut-induced arterial hardening. And I should probably tell you that while you were waiting, like a coiled Krispy Kreme, the government junked its obesity strategy, so … thoughts and prayers. Oh, and while you were reading this, the prime minister changed the ministerial code so ministers accused of breaking it – eg him – don’t have to resign. Shitfinger strikes again! Seriously, everything he touches ...

Shitfinger strikes again, and meanwhile, the pond is reduced fingering Gemma's Xian shit in what feels like picoseconds of liminal time ...

 

 

Don't worry Gemma, the new Messiah is here, and he knows how to change ...

 

 

 

Too soon for a Kudelka? Not when the pond is struggling to make it to the last gobbet ... certain in the knowledge that the mutton Dutton Messiah would get a mention ...

 

Yes, it was so much better when we had News Corp's elevated level of discourse ...

 

 

... or more recently ...

 

There's nothing funnier than a pun on a funny wog name, unless it happens to be the funny wog with his funny tongue sticking out ... you know, Gemma, personal attacks and all that jazz and "looks and sounds like the same old ..."

To the pond's relief, next up was our Gracie, still with a Victorian chip on her shoulder ...

 

 

 

By golly, our Gracie is in full heretical flight this day  ... come on Gracie, it can't be that bad ...

 

 

Oh dear, maybe cartoons aren't the answer ...

 

 

 

The party must go forward? Hmmn, that rings an old bell in the pond's noggin ...

 

Former treasurer Peter Costello has also mocked Ms Gillard's slogan, mimicking her intonation while speaking at the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce in Melbourne.
"No amount of moronic repetition of 'moving forward' will overcome the fact that there is a record there and that record needs to be carefully assessed," he said.
But Ms Gillard defended her choices of words during an interview with Kerry O'Brien on the ABC's 7.30 Report.
"I've been using those words because they mean something to me and I think they mean something to the nation," she said.
"I've used the term 'moving forward' because I believe it captures a spirit about Australia. We are a confident, optimistic, forward-looking people.
"I want to be talking to the Australian people in this campaign about how our nation can seize the opportunities of the future."

 

And who better to go forward than the vastly changed mutton Dutton ... shackle him to the leg and let us move forward ...

 

 

And so to the final going forward and that Victorian chip on the shoulder ...

 

 

 Not the naughty corner! But he's a good, changed, transformed good boy! Who's a good transformed boy up for change?

 

 

 

 

And so to the truly onerous duty of the day ... because the bromancer went a little mad and scribbled at furious length, and the pond rarely misses a bromancer outing, such is its loyalty, no matter how much the bromancer tries to test the pond ...

It started badly with a beaming Albo, an image designed to send Polonius into a frenzy ...

 

 

 

 

 

... and then it just poured out, like Jack Kerouac on the road and pounding it all out on a never-ending roll of toilet paper ... full of snaps and neutered click bait videos ...

 

 

The pond should have known it was going to be all about the bromancer's fixation on China, especially now that a war by Xmas seems less likely and there's less need for his brilliant Generalfeldmarschall skills, but that won't stop him from getting out the maps and devising strategies ... at endless length ...

 

By golly, the bromancer is sounding like he's almost as much of a heretic and treacherous turncoat as our Gracie ... but at least the pond can be assured it won't last ...

 

 

Sacre bleu, the perfidious French back inside the tent?

 

And so back to the interminable heresy ...

Oh that's the last straw. The doggie botherer will be rolling in his climate science denialism grave to read we should never mind the science, we should think of the diplomatic benefits ... 

Apparently there are some lost, wayward loons out there who think that climate science is real and so we must pander to them ...

Well it wouldn't be a bromancer column without mentioning drones, missiles and asymmetrical capabilities, though the pond was disappointed that there was no mention of those useless hulking sardine cans once known as tanks ...

So we could still have a war by Xmas ... and yet after all that, even a warrior as fierce and as noble as the bromancer must reach his final gobbet ...

Joint naval and military installations? What a brill idea. 

Why we can send one of our nuke subs over to the Solomons by Xmas ... and slot it into its new submarine base so that we can stalk the Pacific and strike terror into the hearts of all that behold her ...

Hold on a second, wouldn't we be doing what we criticise Beijing for doing, militarising the South Pacific and starting an arms race?

Oh it's all too hard for the pond, and there's barely enough time to celebrate the reptiles dancing on hot rocks the entire week.

What a week it's been, and what a capper the lizard Oz team have provided this weekend...