In which prattling Polonius leads off the pond's megapond Sunday ...

 

Starting off its meditative Sunday with a serve of prattling Polonius is a recent tradition. In the good old days, the Pellists and the angry Sydney Anglicans held sway, but they fell by the wayside, and so the Polonial era began ... and now, such are the days of our lives and the sand through the hourglass, it continues ...

Note the skilled way that Polonius manages to confuse and conflate conservative Republicans with lovers of the mango Mussolini, and the way that he introduces Obama (they never did solve that mystery of the Kenyan Muslim's birth certificate did they?) 

Note too how pundit Bret is introduced as working for the liberal NY Times, as if that somehow anointed him ...

Note too the way that the head of the Sydney Institute loves to celebrate appalling lovers of the mango Mussolini. Why he'd love to have a beer with them ...

And that's why Polonius is now the pond's Sunday headliner ... why contemplate the infinite mysteries of the universe when you can have a beer with Brett ...

And so in his own indirect Polonial way, there is Polonius standing proudly beside a shill artist, a con man, a carnival barker, and a corrupt lying fraud ... because it's the Polonial way, and let's not have any dripping condescension ...

Say what? The Donald worse than monkey pox? Well that cartoonist is on the Polonial hit list ... as our Polonius continues to establish the Sydney Institute's working class roots. 

No doubt Polonus will shortly announce that the institute will be shifting its shabby pad HG from the heart of Sydney's CBD and twee period building to somewhere in the hinterland ...

Perhaps rent a spot in the heartland out Penrith way where the glasswork is super modern ...

Sorry, more about the thugby leaguers anon; meanwhile, the less well-off and less educated need guidance from the best and the brightest Polonial minds ...

Now just remember to donate a few of your corporate dollars to the struggling Sydney Institute, doing its best to pay the bills for the basics of inner CBD 'leet life Be assured they deeply resent attacks on their beliefs, especially when those bloody inner city 'leets vote in a bunch of greenies, a bad enough dose of vile vegies to bring on an attack of the collywobbles ...

And so to a particular pond pleasure. During its holydays, the pond ignored our Gracie, there being bigger reptile fish to fry in the odd posting, but now the pond can truly indulge ...

Whatever, Gracie, but we'll still have prattling Polonius valiantly defending the mango Mussolini's supporters, and where's the harm in that? After all, he only staged a failed coup, down there with the Beer Hall Putsch. 

If only Polonius had been around to write sympathetically of those suffering Germans who turned enthusiastically to blaming the Jews for their woes, and turned to a great leader, who would give the country autobahns and volks wagons for the folks ... 

Come now Gracie, you're surely not going to respond with a shot of a bunch of yakkers assembled in a chamber ...

Ah, the balanced view, it's the fault of both sides, and both siderism gives you not just the odd coup attempt but a right old blurring of the lines ...

And so to a final gobbet of our Gracie trying to hold it together ...

Um, Gracie, "we must never stop working to avoid it"? 

You do realise you're working for an American company which has done much to foment division and produce the intractable political situation in the US so that the Chairman might rake in billions? And now having foisted a coup-loving con artist on the land, might be ready to move on to the next shonk?

Others can find the links, but what's that blather about spending a mill a day just to keep the President alive? So that's why they had to spend so much on the phones fit-out?

So that's what a million a day will get you ... top notch secrecy ... (WaPo paywall)

As for the rest, poor Gracie, please read prattling Polonius and understand that there are very fine people on both sides, especially the very fine people at Fox, and if one bunch is chanting the Jews will not replace us, the pond, and possibly Polonius, have a few appalling conspiracy theories to help you understand them ...

And so to Dame Slap, but only because the pond has returned to megapond mode, and so must offer a bonus ...

What a classic Dame Slapism form of logic is in that last line, or more to the point, a cheap rhetorical trick. You might as well ask Dame Slap what she would have said if a bunch of white Xian nationalists had been told they were wearing an atheist-themed jersey, though she could probably empathise and point out the extreme distress that Germans experienced watching Jesse Owens in the Olympics. Or her MAGA hero's agitation at the sight of Colin Kaepernick taking the knee ...

Whatever, in fact, if you lined up in parliament as a newly minted secularist MP, you would be forced to listen to the Lord's Prayer.

Orduh, orrdduuh!

Dear sweet long absent Lord, that "for thine is the kingdom yadda yadda" marks it as the Proddie version and for years the pond was warned of eternal hellfire if you said it that way ...

But as the pond discovered when attending Anglican services with an errant mother, you just go along with whatever's the house rules, knowing you're doomed anyway ... and now at times the pond even manages to feel a little nostalgia for those black cowled nuns patrolling the classroom, ruler in hand, like a flock of deeply unhappy penguins ... how else can you be in a Fellini film?

Here the pond must digress.

You see it was a tough call giving the nod to Dame Slap to do her usual line in bigotry this day, when the Angelic one was mounting a good case for socialism, government bounty or at least government booty, and much largesse to breeders ...

Sadly the pond couldn't spend time with the Angelic one or her heartfelt plea for a rich government meal ... and no thanks to Dame Slap had to cut her short, with just a plea for more government gruel ... please, may Loretta have another ...

No, the pond must instead spend time with Dame Slap explaining how a Seventh Day Adventist or perhaps a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (informally known as the missing gold tablets multiple wives church), are the correct and proper way to view the world, and if that means Dame Slap should return to handmaiden's duties in Gilead, the pond is willing to allow it ...

Indeed, indeed, hellfire and eternal damnation is their lot, though Wilcox did offer a suggestion ...

Not likely in Dame Slap's lunchtime, not when there's abuse to be hurled, resentment and anger to be stoked and Christ's injunction to be ignored ...

And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you, and for Christ's sake, what's a fucking jersey, when you all spend your time sniffing bums, exchanging precious bodily fluids, getting fully cut, so that you can wrestle and mudlark in a spectacular homoerotic fantasy land, oh the sight of men's bodies interlocked, and the sweat and the smell and the sniffing of bums and ...

Sorry,  sorry, the bible seemed to get carried away at that point, and the pond can't vouch for the authenticity of the quote.

Instead it's back to more of Dame Slap dishing it out to the queer team and cheering on the god botherers ...

Oh dear, the pond knows the sort, like the Xian that used to sidle up to the pond at work on a daily harassing basis, and explain that redemption and a church service were just around the corner, and wouldn't take no for an answer, but kept banging on about it, and about the dangers of poofters and queers...

Been there and done that ... and the pond was relieved that there was only a final gobbet to go ... even if it didn't mention the right to be free of Dame Slap ...

Oh fucketty fuck, yesterday it was the dog botherer leading off with virtue signalling, and now it's Dame Slap ending with blather about virtue-signalling zealots, and has the cheek to talk of zealotry, when she still hasn't got around to admitting she donned the MAGA cap and strode out into the night to celebrate the triumph of a bigot with white nationalist Xian devotees ...

Dame Slap against zealots? Can a zealot be against zealotry? It was the greatest mystery and the biggest laugh the pond was likely to experience this meditative Sunday.

Luckily after all that, the pond had saved up an infallible Pope so that this Sunday saga could end on a high note by summing up the week outside reptilelandia and life on planet Janet...

In which the megapond returns with all the favourite dinosaurs doing a Jurassic walk ...

 

The pond couldn't think of a better way to revert to megapond mode than a fiery blast of climate science denialism and a bromancer exuding an uxorious devotion to sweet, dinkum, clean, pure Oz coal and gas.

Let her rip, master bromancer, but please note, the pond will be terribly disappointed if the Bjorn-again one fails to get a mention ...

Save the planet? Piffle, the proud lizard Oz climate scientists have no concern or regard for the planet, not when it comes to supplying reptiles everywhere with endless warm hot rocks ... 

Who among us could expect a reptile to sacrifice his hot rock? And who could expect a reptile to give up his emissions? Yes, the pond should have warned that this is going to be a long haul, as might be expected in a megapond intent on extinction ...

Ah, yes, the steadying insight of a bromancer, who can recognise complete baloney, everything's in the best possible shape, and what's all the fuss about dinkum, clean, honest coal? 

As for that talk of India, the pond was reminded of that New Yorker story, perhaps paywalled:

Since 1980, the number of heat waves—defined by the World Meteorological Association as periods of at least three consecutive days during which temperatures significantly exceed the historical average—has increased by a factor of fifty around the world. Climate models suggest that India’s current heat wave was made thirty times more likely by global warming, and they predict that another degree of warming could lead to thirty-two times as many extreme heat waves as there were at the end of the twentieth century, each lasting five times as long. India, which is home to one in every six people on earth, has emitted just over three per cent of the planet’s greenhouse gases—and yet it will be among the nations most ravaged by the climate.

It’s tempting for Americans and Europeans to conceive of extreme heat as a scourge for poor, faraway people without reliable electricity or air-conditioning. But climate change has inflicted lethal heat in Western countries, too. This summer, Europe has experienced record heat. Last week, temperatures reached a hundred and eight degrees in Spain and a hundred and seventeen in Portugal; more than seventeen hundred people died of heat-related causes. In the U.K., where the temperature reached a hundred and four for the first time ever, the government issued a “red warning” for extreme heat, urging people to stay indoors so as not to risk “serious illness or danger to life.” In France, triple-digit temperatures contributed to raging wildfires. Meanwhile, heat waves already kill more Americans on average than any other extreme weather event. Last summer, in the Pacific Northwest, temperatures soared thirty degrees above normal, reaching a hundred and eight in Seattle, a hundred and sixteen in Portland, and a hundred and twenty-one in British Columbia. Streetcar cables melted, roads buckled, crops burned, and schools were closed. In just three weeks, the heat wave caused nine billion dollars’ worth of damage, and more than fourteen hundred people died.

Just three per cent?

Sorry. As per recent reptile climate outbursts, the pond will ignore the temptation to introduce actual climate scientists, or stories with divergent tales that run against reptile reporting. Why ruin a reptile climate scientist's tale of expertise with actual experts, or stories from the front line? 

Some might be tempted to head off elsewhere for their complete baloney ...

...but the pond wants undiluted reptile bunkum, of the Barnum if not Bailey kind ...

Yes, if you've done much to fuck the planet, the more you fuck the planet, the better off you'll be when the planet is fucked. It's only logical, reasonable and rational, and that's a good thing ... now let's get giving that dinkum clean coal some reptile lovin' ...

Of course the pond had to carefully neuter that click bait video, but kept it in for the record and for a reminder that we're in a free fall disaster. 

Not from global warming mind you, but from those foolish baloney pedlars righteously smoted and smited by the bromancer for their failure to love coal ... oh and gas of course, reminder that your bloated reptile emissions must celebrate gas, because however they come, fossil fuels are the go ... always have been, always will be, because how many times must we be told that some days the sun don't shine, and some days the wind don't blow, but you can guarantee reptile emissions are endlessly repeatable ...

And at this point the bromancer could enter the house of climate science denialists fully justified and righteous, because he turns to the reptiles' chosen one, the Bjorn-again one, and lo, he has risen yet again in the lizard Oz ...

Carry on reptiles, let's continue the fucking of the planet so that we might enjoy the fruits now, because frankly who cares about vulgar youff? Why the chairman has already gone over ninety and must be ready to dodder off, but in the meantime, it's consume now and worry about it later ...

A final question. Would it be a dinkum reptile piece without mention of "the climate hysteria of the moment"? Of course not, and how could you possibly doubt that an hysterical bromancer wouldn't go there?

The pond would really like to get the name of the bromancer's supplier of bennies, but in lieu of that, will now turn to the dog botherer for some speedy stimulation ...

Of course, of course, the pesky, difficult uppity blacks are in need of some whitesplaining, though not before being given a parable about "the virtue signallers."

Before going on, the pond trusts that everyone has supped at The Weekly Beast, but for those infidels that didn't, please allow the pond to share this titbit (if you want a tidbit, you must follow the link) ...

ABC exposé underwhelms

With the word “exposed” in its title you would think Chris Kenny’s doco Your ABC Exposed would have uncovered something.

But the attack on the public broadcaster was a laundry list of Kenny’s grievances which have been raised before in countless pieces in the Australian, where he is an associate editor and columnist, and on Sky News.

But so excited was the former Liberal party adviser he hired a mobile billboard and had it drive around the ABC’s Ultimo headquarters. The bizarre display was in addition to all the promotional pieces on Sky News and in the News Corp papers.

Despite his attempts to drum up interest for the exposé, a total of 85,000 people tuned in on Tuesday night at 8pm. Over on the ABC at the same time Miriam Margolyes had five times as many viewers for Australia Unmasked.

To be fair, it was a relatively good audience for Sky and for Kenny, whose earlier regular show The Kenny Report had just 32,000 viewers.

Ouch, double ouch, venerable Meade, must you say "just 32,000 viewers"? Just, as in just 32,000 out of some 25.69 million?

What Your ABC Exposed did deliver was up a lineup of rightwingers and others disillusioned with the ABC who were in furious agreement with Kenny, including a bizarre interview with Jonathan Shier, whose 19-month tenure as ABC managing director came to an abrupt end when he lost the support of the board. Shier welled up with tears while discussing how ABC staff campaigned against him. He told Kenny he was crying because he cared deeply about public broadcasting.

Excellent stuff and there are a couple of tweets in the original, and it put the pond in good heart to continue with the whitesplaining ... the dog botherer's just the reptile to whip those pesky, difficult, uppity blacks into line ...

Shocking. Fancy anyone calling Pauline a racist. Sure she's been a racist from the day of her very first speech in parliament ... with blather about being swamped by Asians and pesky blacks getting special benefits, but must we mention that? Should we mention that Pauline got kicked out of the Liberal party, being deemed as too racist hot to handle? Of course not ... why should anyone have to plough through her maiden 1996 speech when the dog botherer just loves to death his rude Pauline ...

Now back to the whitesplaining ...

Indeed, indeed, and yet it was remiss of the pond not to mention a few of Pauline's maiden points ... so that you might see if you find some echoes here ... as she rebutted that dreadful Hasluck chappie ...

...remember, when he gave his speech he was talking about the privileges that white Australians were seen to be enjoying over Aboriginals. Today, 41 years later, I talk about the exact opposite – the privileges Aboriginals enjoy over other Australians. I have done research on benefits available only to Aboriginals and challenge anyone to tell me how Aboriginals are disadvantaged when they can obtain three and five per cent housing loans denied to non-Aboriginals.

This nation is being divided into black and white, and the present system encourages this. I am fed up with being told, 'This is our land.' Well, where the hell do I go? I was born here, and so were my parents and children. I will work beside anyone and they will be my equal but I draw the line when told I must pay and continue paying for something that happened over 200 years ago. Like most Australians, I worked for my land; no-one gave it to me.

Apart from the $40 million spent so far since Mabo on native title claims, the government has made available $1 billion for Aboriginals and Torres Strait Islanders as compensation for land they cannot claim under native title. Bear in mind that the $40 million spent so far in native title has gone into the pockets of grateful lawyers and consultants. Not one native title has been granted as I speak.

The majority of Aboriginals do not want handouts because they realise that welfare is killing them. This quote says it all: 'If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day. If you teach him how to fish you feed him for a lifetime.'

And if you give a woman a seat in parliament, the bile and the good times will flow, but back to the mansplaining whitesplaining ...

Um, after all of the above, those sentiments seem to have arrived a little late on the scene ... let us remember Pauline and her love of the two Wongs man ...

Arthur Calwell was a great Australian and Labor leader, and it is a pity that there are not men of his stature sitting on the opposition benches today. Arthur Calwell said:

"Japan, India, Burma, Ceylon and every new African nation are fiercely anti-white and anti one another. Do we want or need any of these people here? I am one red-blooded Australian who says no and who speaks for 90 per cent of Australians."

I have no hesitation in echoing the words of Arthur Calwell.

Why did we ever leave the 1950s? It remains a mystery to the pond and the reptiles, and so to the final gobbet of whitesplaining ...

And there you have it... allegedly the dog botherer with the best of intentions, and without a mention that it's all the ABC's fault, and for all his protestations, helping fuck everything so that it might be still born, killed off by saucy reptile doubts and vinegarish reptile fears...

At this point, the pond had to summon exceptional strength because for days the pond had lived in bliss, without the advice of nattering "Ned", but now Everest must be conquered, the "Ned" peak must be reached, and without the benefit of oxygen ...

Some might wonder why the pond started with that splash, but it's the short "Ned" version and might save some precious time, so that they can enjoy their lives. The short version: everything's fucked, there goes the first term, what a waste of time that was ... yes, the year not even out, and there goes the first term, and so no need to read on ...

For those who want the long version, it's only six gobbets, close to the length prescribed in the bible for Noah's Ark, and it begins with a splendid visual reference to Master and Commander ...

Ah the good old days of literalism in the lizard Oz graphics department returns, because what better way to get a superior outlook than with a spyglass ... though the pond will never be satisfied until the reptiles bring back the cult master ...

As for the most elemental aspects, the pond did enjoy this Kudelka ...

But that's the last visual treat for awhile ... because we must do "Ned" in a hard yards way, with only a meaningless snap of parliament as a way to break up the verbiage ...

The reputation of Labor as a governing entity is at stake?

Didn't the reptiles read their splash? There goes the first term, and here goes "Ned", rabbiting on endlessly ... sighing at the sky, and reminding the pond that Chicken Little never had anything on our "Ned" ...

By this point, the pond had remembered far too vividly why it had most enjoyed not having to plough through "Ned". 

Even reading about the behaviour of that ratbag Putin and his band of terrorists provided more hope to the pond ... hope that the Ukrainians might give the invaders a sound thrashing and send the fuckers home ... and so as a snap of Vlad the impaler hovered into view at the bottom of this gobbet, the pond felt a sudden desire to be reading news from the front ... but it seems that the days of turning kitchen pots into munitions has long gone in reptile la la land ...

And now, with Vlad given his snap, it's time for the usual "Ned" ritual, a feature of all the features he's scribbled in his dotage. 

"Ned" must turn to quoting an expert, who will "tell the Inquirer", which if the pond is not mistaken, means he's speaking to "Ned", which means that "Ned" must fancy himself as "the Inquirer" ... and luckily the pond knows how to deal with Inquirers ...

…when Shan himself became a master, he used to say to an inquirer, 'Whether you say "yes", you get thirty blows; whether you say "no", you get thirty blows just the same.' A monk asked him, 'Who is the Buddha?' 'He is an old monk of the Western country.' 'What is enlightenment?' Shan gave the questioner a blow, saying, 'You get out of here; do not scatter dirt around us!' Another monk wished to know something about Zen, but Shan roared, 'I have nothing to give, begone!' (pdf)

Yes, at this point the pond has nothing to give, better call Saul ...

The good news? Well the first term is a complete loss, and there likely won't be a second term, and soon enough beefy boofhead Angus will be given the keys to the Treasury, and what could go wrong with that, but best of all the pond has filibustered its way to the last gobbet ... better call Saul and Richo for last drinks ...

Indeed, indeed, let the rich have it all. It's the reptile way. Never fight over the pie, just accept your lot with a smile and a tug of the forelock, and think yourself lucky that you don't have to get up at 4am and poke out an eye in preparation for a serve of "Ned" ...

And so to the closing, which inevitably involves the immortal Rowe ...

In which the pond gets up early for our Henry, only to be left with a Killer moment and a wretched Groaning ...

 

When driving the Hume, the pond always recommends a stop off in Holbrook to see the sub ... but not enough people know there's another sub, a small one, a classy model...

And not enough know that the town's name was a sign that progressivism was doing its deadly work long ago ...

The town was originally called Ten Mile Creek and the first buildings were erected in 1836. A German immigrant, John Christopher Pabst, became the publican of the Woolpack Hotel on 29 July 1840 and the area became known as "the Germans". By 1858 the name had evolved into the official name of Germanton, though the postal area retained the name Ten Mile Creek. In 1876 the name Germanton was gazetted and the old name Ten Mile Creek consigned to history.

Ten Mile Creek Post Office opened on 1 January 1857, and was renamed Germanton in 1875.

On 17 August 1878, Germanton hosted the earliest known game of Soccer (Association Football) in New South Wales between Germanton and Yarra Yarra football teams.

During World War I, the town name was deemed unpatriotic so on 24 August 1915 the town was renamed Holbrook in honour of Lt. Norman Douglas Holbrook, a decorated wartime submarine captain and winner of the Victoria Cross. Lt. Holbrook commanded the submarine HMS B11. (wiki)

The plucky Germanton soccer team no more, and all because of political correctness and nary a reptile in sight to be outraged ...

Of course the same thing happened in the pond's German side of the family way back when, with any hint of the Germanic deeply unfashionable ... with names changed, and the language abandoned ...

No point brooding, and instead the pond couldn't resist mentioning this wondrous ad thrown up by its logarithms ...

The IPA paying to seek attention, and most comical of all doing spiritual counselling about lack of purpose, and paying YouTube for the pleasure, and with just 1.4k views, and jostling for attention with Kurt Vonnegut and the first crusade ...

It was too rich for the pond, which dined out on the chuckles for hours ... and didn't reward the pathetic effort with a click, though there was probably a lot more comedy to be mined. So it goes ...

And so to today, and the pond will confess to breaking early, simply so our Henry's offering would be above the ruck and maul of ordinary weekend reptiles ... and guess what ...

No bloody Henry. He'd done a bunk, took a powder, abandoned the field, was in some sort of funk, and the last offering in the lizard Oz remained that outing where a cruel flag looked like it was covering up the sun, or at least the white nationalist heritage ...

Well the pond was up and about, and though feeling very short-changed, had to do something, and so it settled on another old favourite, Killer, suddenly feeling very bold and brave, and up to taking on the mango Mussolini ...

Long gone, it seems, are the nights when Dame Slap donned the MAGA cap and slipped out onto the streets of New York to celebrate and rejoice. Now all sorts of reptiles are chanting the death of the Donald ...

It is, the pond must remind itself, strictly transactional. It won't be long before the reptiles swing behind abject imitations of the Donald, of the DeSantis kind ... or the even wackier tribe of Trumpists who will keep the rabid legacy alive ... and it'll take a long and careful weaning before Faux Noise, Laura, Hannity and the Cucker can be seen to be marching to a different beat ...

Even showing the Don and his family at a Mafia style funeral, with those obvious Coppola references, won't hide that shift ...

Mehmet Oz? Is he the one running for a senate seat in New Joisey? Even Stevie Van Zandt is trolling him ...

As for the downfall of the Don, cartoonists are in two minds ... not quick enough, or already done ...

Back to Killer, suddenly discovering the bleeding obvious, except he has to confuse and conflate the WSJ and the NY Post with Faux Noise, which has for the most part, in its evening commentary division, remained devout ...

But the reptiles can let go? Only if they have a rough equivalent, some other form of demonic ratbaggery to support ...

And so to a last Killer gobbet ...

The pond has long trained in cynicism, and whenever the likes of Michelle Obama's name is trotted out, the pond is inclined to think that the reptiles are doing a deep trolling ...

But at least Killer's presence meant that the pond hadn't felt the need to do a catch-up with petulant Peta ... out and about yesterday with the expected ...

And there was the Milner doing his usual thing, but the pond had run out of spittle ...

As for petulant Peta blathering on in her usual groupthink fundamentalist Xian way about the joys of Xian bigotry, the pond had to remember what a bunch of dropkick losers this mob was ...

You could make a career out of tracking the wretched ratings ... but the pond will leave that to TV Blackbox ...

Of course petulant Peta wasn't the only one doing it ... this very day the bubble-headed booby was also out and about blathering about the weevils of progressivism, with Margaret Court and the SDA more her style ...

Once upon a time, the pond might have remarked on what it learned on its trip to Samoa ...

Faʻafafine are people who identify themselves as having a third gender or non-binary role in Samoa, American Samoa and the Samoan diaspora. A recognized gender identity/gender role in traditional Samoan society, and an integral part of Samoan culture, faʻafafine are assigned male at birth, and explicitly embody both masculine and feminine gender traits in a way unique to Polynesia[citation needed]. Their behaviour typically ranges from extravagantly feminine to conventionally masculine. (wiki)

Or perhaps dropped in on Jioji Ravulo scribbling for the Nine rags ... Don’t blame Pacific Island cultures for queer fear. Blame colonisation

Actually the pond blames the Xian missionaries, and even worse, they were of the fundamentalist Seventh Day Adventist deeply bigoted kind, with a natural appeal to the likes of bubble-headed Claire, while all Ravulo can do is reminisce about the good old days before the Claires went out on their crusading colonisation ...

The players say they can’t wear a gay pride jersey for cultural and religious reasons. I’m assuming, similar to what we saw with Israel Folau, that such staunch views against diverse sexualities is based on conservative family values and a deep commitment to the Christian faith.

From a wider community perspective, we may view Pasifika cultures as being homophobic — full of fear for the queer. But this was taught to us by white, Western attitudes brought with colonisation.

Before the missionaries visited our beautiful island homes in the period of colonisation during the 1800s, sexuality among many Pacific communities was fluid. Men would have sex with men without fear and shame. Sexuality was seen as an expression of connecting socially and relationally with others.

From various written accounts by missionaries, they were appalled with how comfortable we were with our nakedness. They saw our nudity as lewd and forced us to cover up. They saw men expressing affection for other men as morally corrupt and dangerous.

Indeed, indeed, and that's why the pond didn't bite on either petulant Peta or bubble-headed booby Claire, but settled for a cartoon ...

And after that, looking for a bonus, the pond turned to Dame Groaning for a Friday groaning, and what a short, wretched groaning it turned out to be ...

Is it unseemly for a reptile to gloat at a fucked economy? Not when they can point the finger at others, but all the pond could see was a chance to catch up with the latest Rowe and infallible Pope ...

The reptiles were also desperately short of ideas on how to pad the Dame Groan into a decent full length Groaning, so they inserted a huuuge shot of the monster himself ... as well as a click bait video, carefully neutered by the pond ...

The pond had a back catalogue of cartoons ...

And so to the final feeble gobbet of Groaning ...

The pond hopes that the Groaner will do better than the usual "free lunch" routine - the pond can still remember the free milk going sour in the noonday sun at Tamworth primary - but the early indications aren't promising ...

And so to catch up on a little more with a few Wilcoxes, and the earnest hope that our Henry will be on hand when it matters ...

The pond did like that lump of coal being tossed with a Groaning malice ... and will return tomorrow to toss a few lumps at the reptiles ...