In which the pond tries a little pop psychology on Polonius and Dame Slap, before learning to eat crayons, or at least paper, with the angelic one ...

 

 

The pond has developed a ritual, a coping ritual, whereby, before moving on to the reptiles on a Sunday, it usually heads off to the Graudian ...

This week's Tory race, which inevitably conjures up fond memories of Python's toff Olympics, the quest for the upper-class twit of the year, has been an especially rich source of comedy ...

There was Crace with The Tory leadership debate: desperate as a sales pitch, worse as entertainment:

...The first question was one of trust. “I’ve delivered the impossible,” said Truss, blinking rapidly and sounding like a superannuated 1980s Amstrad computer. As AI goes, Liz makes the Maybot look human. At least Theresa May was vaguely aware there was a reality from which she was detached. Truss is just some free floating atoms in search of a personality and ideas. Virtually nothing she said made any sense. And if it did, it was entirely accidental. She is everyone’s preferred comedy candidate.

And there was Hyde, sounding unusually scattered, uncertain how to handle all the low-lying fruit to hand in While Britain burns, the Tories are … fiddling with themselves again:

...We’ve already said goodbye to historical footnotes such as Jeremy Hunt; footnotes’ footnotes, such as Rehman Chishti; and verrucas on the footnotes, such as Suella Braverman. Making all the running is supposed cleanskin Penny Mordaunt, whose ascent from comparative obscurity to the office of prime minister would be like an arranged marriage, giving the British public and Penny all the time in the world to get to know each other after the event. The scale of the knifing operation against Mordaunt is laid bare by the anonymous briefing that she would make Andrea Leadsom her chancellor of the exchequer. I hear what you’re thinking: Andrea Leadsom? Chancellor? IN THIS ECONOMY?! But yes. Of course, of course. The second I heard it, given the experience of the past few years, I realised that I had long ago subconsciously accepted the inevitability that Andrea Leadsom hadn’t actually finished with us. In fact, I think I’ve … always known it.

 Hyde even managed to include a reference to the y'artz and Orstralyia ...

…there has been much talk about the so-called “dark arts”. I must say I have a slight issue with the term “art” in this context. Just as sledging is supposed to be an “art form” that can be mastered by any Australian cricketer who can call someone a fat prick, so the “dark arts” are something at which Gavin Williamson can be regarded as a virtuoso.

The pond also likes to visit Kudelka, just to see what cartoon it missed out on in the Saturday Paper because the pond figures that readers of the paper should have first dibbs, and so the pond can only follow up on a Sunday ...

 

 

 

 

That produces a certain bitterness because that would have been excellent up against the bromancer and nattering "Ned" in yesterday's pond, but the fair dibs rule must apply.

All the same, doing the tour, which takes in a number of other places, strictly for the laughs, means the pond is up for the task of psychoanalysing the deep weirdness embedded in prattling Polonius ...

The pond long ago worked out the festering bitterness and the co-dependency at the heart of Polonius's marriage to the ABC. 

It's just Who's Afraid of Virginia Polonius in drag ... but the pond has yet to work out why Polonius has had such a long and festering hatred of the kiwis. 

Was he force fed a meal of fush and chups in his childhood? Did some kiwi make a joke about his chance of scoring The Polonius Hour on ABC radio?

Who knows, but the twin demons that haunt the fragmented, some might think demented mind, came together with demonic force this weekend ...

 

Some might marvel that Polonius seemed to be getting agitated about Marles being given a hard time. How could he fit in a line about there being not a singe conservative in the ABC, if some cardigan wearer from hell was givinga Labor party rep a hard time?

But it was only a warm-up, a feint, because what truly outraged Polonius was the kid glove treatment dished out to that hideous wutch from across the dutch ...once again the ABC had done it again ... and there was no end to his wrath and Pooterish indignation ...

 

So many thought crimes by that incorrigible leader of that incorrigible bunch of sheep-molesting rogues, but Polonius was still warming up ...

Yes, dammit, Fergo not asking the hard questions and those wretched 5.084 million sheep herders simply not prepared to take down country with an inadequate 1.402 billion to their name. By golly 2% of NZ's budget would see the Chinese off by Xmas ...

How dare they freeload on Australians, ready for the war by Xmas, and the United States ...

By golly, when we get our six subs by 2080, how the Chinese will tremble and how pleased to see the US pack up and go home, saying "nowt to do here, now plucky Oz has it in hand." And oh grateful those wretched kiwis will be, no thanks to the ABC ...

You won't get the cardigan wearers making these tough points, these sharp-eyed comparisons ... and then there's climate change...

Just look at how those deviant kiwis skewed the figures, the shameless cheats ...

 

 

Damn you kiwis, since then the onion muncher and the martyred Messiah have fixed everything. 

What a cheek you have, what chutzpah, what gall, though mind you, as climate science is a hoax, it's possibly a storm in the old Polonial teacup ...

 

Yes, it's all the fault of the lackadaisical kiwis, and damn you cardigan wearers for making Polonius endure yet another miserable weekend in your company, when he'd much rather be listening to Alan Jones. The sacrifices he makes, week in, week out, and no one to honour him with a vibrant hour of Insiders with Polonius ... the kiwi bashing session on your ABC which is way better than expensive time spent with a shrink ...

And so to the second rate bonuses.

You see, Dame Slap has made the astonishing discovery that some women lie. 

It might seem wrong for someone proudly bearing the name of Dorothy Parker to announce that not only do some women lie, some women are inordinately stupid, but when confronted with Dame Slap, what else is there to say? 

There were many stupid people who donned the MAGA cap, but surely Dame Slap was amongst the silliest and most stupid of them all ...

Not to worry, the theme this week is NDAs, and how secrecy and furtive deals done behind closed doors to hide the truth are jolly good things ...

 

 

 

 

 

Actually it's worth recalling the case of Dame Slap donning that MAGA cap, which even Ramirez now seems to think led to some galactic stupidity ...

 

 

 

 

Never mind, it's back to cherry picking examples, to demolish the MeToo movement, and it's certainly not the pond's place to go over the old turf of pregnant ten year olds ...that was yesterday's angle ...

 

 

So with these rich topics to hand, why is Dame Slap venting on NDAs? Well because it's a very handy distraction and fits with Dame Slap's relentless misogyny ...

The pond uses the word advisedly ... see if you can spot Dame Slap in this list ...

 ...very many women are misogynists too. In fact, some evidence suggests that on Twitter, women use misogynistic language more frequently than men do. Like their male counterparts, female misogynists are driven by either unjustified hate or contempt for women. The female misogynists that are among the most salient in society today can be described as The Puritan, The Self-Critic, The Self-Loather, and The She-Devil. Here is how to spot them.

As an expert pop psychologist, trained on New Idea and the Women's Weekly, the pond hovered between this:

1.     The Misogynistic Self-Loather has adopted a general attitude of contempt toward every one of her own “filthy” kind, including herself.
2.     She regards women, including herself, as promiscuous, manipulative, dishonest, irrational, incompetent or unintelligent.
3.     She tends to be in denial about her own self-loathing but not usually about her contempt for other women.

 

... and this:

The She-Devil sees herself as superior to other women, and at least on a level with, if not above, the top alpha males she encounters. In her view, other women are manipulative, dishonest, irrational, incompetent or unintelligent, but somehow she is exempted. She might possess some stereotypical feminine virtues like beauty and slenderness. But she perceives herself as instantiating the stereotypical masculine virtues of intelligence, the strength of character and rationality, and her behavior is more manly than that of her male coworkers, classmates or friends. Don't be surprised if she can outdrink all of them.
 

On the hand ...

Selena and Aunt Lydia are misogynistic self-loathers. They have no real power. The commanders are ultimately in control. Yet they side with their oppressors and participate in the dehumanization of their own gender. Why? Their self-loathing is no doubt self-punishment. But their misogyny toward other women is not. Perhaps their contempt for their own gender gives them some semblance of control in an incomprehensible and unjust world. Or perhaps they thrill at inflicting pain on women, periodically pausing to self-punish and rid themselves of the built-up shame.

 

... which might explain that MAGA cap and the love of pussy gropers boasting about their groping ...

 

 Don't be surprised if she can outTrump all of them.... and so on to the matter of NDAs, and the deep, shared abiding love of NDAs by the Donald and Dame Slap ...

 

 

 

There is a reason that the mango Mussolini loves NDAs. He's a liar and a crook, and they're a very handy way to hide his corruption, and naturally, as a MAGA cap wearer, Dame Slap would share his love  ... as well as a mutual hatred for disloyal traitors to the Faux Noise cause ...

 

 

 

Hang on a moment, allow the pond to peer into that mind-blowing void ...

 

 

 

 

She gets cash in the paw, he gets to walk away, the company gets to settle the fuss, and no-one's any the wiser, and let's not involve the law, let's just sweep it all under the nearest corporate rug, put a lid on it, and leave it for a century or two, when nobody will mind, or much care ...

It's a funny argument, and a powerful motivation for a "she said, he said" routine, but that's how it goes in the world of misogynists who don't want to handle the truth ...

Col Jessup: I'll answer the question. You want answers?

LTJG Kaffee: I think I'm entitled to them.

Col Jessup: You want answers?!

LTJG Kaffee: I want the truth!

Col Jessup: You can't handle the truth! Son, we live in a world that has NDAs, and those NDAs have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lieutenant Weinberg? I have a greater responsibility than you can possibly fathom. You weep for capitalism, and you curse the desire for furtive secrecy. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what I know because I'm a party to the NDAs -- that the carry-ons in boardrooms and behind closed parliamentary doors, while tragic, probably saved lives thanks to the munificence of NDAs, or at least expensive court action and humongous lawyers' fees; and my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives, or at least keeps down legal costs and possibly embarrassing details. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall -- you need me on that wall guarding the NDAs...

Perhaps the pond should have gone with the short form agreement...

Bart: We want the truth.

Sideshow Bob: You can't handle the truth. No truth-handler, you. I deride your truth-handling abilities. Let's settle this with an NDA.

And so to a final gobbet ...

 

 

Yep, Donald Trump and Dame Slap remain true to each other ... how easily January 6th could be sorted with a few NDAs, and how soon can they get Herschel to sign one so his insights into climate science can be tucked away ....

 

And so to the bonus, and up front the pond must declare it has absolutely zero interest in the subject matter but retains a soft spot for the Angelic one.

The pond has no idea if anyone might find it remotely interesting, but whatever ... at least she's inclined to be short ...

That dismal image at the top of the gobbet reminded the pond of the Weekly Beast ...

Dore defends pet project

In April the Australian launched a paywalled youth website called The Oz, said to be a pet project of the broadsheet’s editor-in-chief Christopher Dore.
The editor of The Oz, Elyse Popplewell, has a tough brief, especially since she was catapulted from the relatively junior position of social media editor to editor of The Oz, a section with around 10 staffers.
The Oz is hoping to attract young readers prepared to pay $8.99 a month for access to the content, a big ask for a generation used to getting free content online.
The Australian has launched a new youth title. But who exactly is it for? And why?
Internally, there are grumbles about the amount of resources the section has when staff are stretched thin across the paper, and claims subscriptions and traffic are dire.
On Instagram and TikTok where The Oz is targeting its audience, many posts are lucky to get a handful of likes.

Forget the defence, just look at the news ... staff are stretched thin across the paper, and claims subscriptions and traffic are dire.

The pond can testify to that, the patience of the pond is stretched thin, and traffic is dire, as nobody seems to have the slightest interest in herpetological studies these days ...

And what are vulgar youff offered as an incentive to dip into the lizard Oz? 

The Angelic one blathering on in her Catholic way about stay at home mothers doing it tough while the 'leets score welfare ... and there's two more gobbets to go ... full of standard FUD, with stay at home mums the only answer in the alternative Catholic universe ...

 

Yes, it's all gloom, and it's true that the pond refers to the child care centre down the road as a gulag, but that's because it's in an old warehouse and the children must play on the fake grass on the roof ...

But there's a good reason ... heck there has to be some way to get children ready to work in Chairman Rupert's gulag in Surry Hills ... where the workers can rant at businesses making money out of kids, because capitalism, while Chairman Rupert makes out like a bandit, because capitalism ...

 

Is it wrong for the pond to suggest that the notion of care immediately carries the notion of education with it, unless your idea of care is for children to sit like passive blobs and learn nothing from the people, the environment and the peers around them?

And once we link care and education, isn't it best that the care make the most of the possibilities of providing learning experiences for the children in care?

If being passive blobs is what the Angelic one thinks care is all about, then then next thing you know you have children sitting in grand places, eating paper, because that's what they learned to do while in care ...

At least he didn't learn to do the wrong thing with chalk ...