In which the pond puts together a post by stocking, barbed wire and thumb dipped in tar ...

 

The pond had intended to head into the provinces, but instead ended up in Melbourne, armed with a laptop from somewhere in the middle ages, but toujours gai Archie, and never mind the odd layout.

It was a dark and stormy night when the pond arrived and stepped out into the streets, wide-eyed in terror. 

At any minute the pond might bump into some deadly teal-coloured fiend that had done poor Josh down, or even worse, some crimson-coloured comrade Dan worshipper, a fiendish mix of zombie, and pinko commie prevert. The pond was swept back to the very first moment it had arrived at work in this strange land, only to be asked 'which team do you support?' 

When the pond answered that it didn't follow football, it was akin to announcing to a flock of angry Sydney Anglicans that the pond was a devotee of gay marriage.

The pond searched high and low for a red pill so that it might get back to the reptile vibe but instead had to turn to the reptiles themselves. 

Eek, a teal, and nuking the country. Turned out the pond had missed nothing, because yesterday the reptiles were also nuking the country ...

The pond had been vastly relieved to see it had missed nothing ...just the craven Craven going up against Dame Slap and calling her a Chicken Little, and no sign that SloMo had used his secret powers - already the reptiles were trying to forget - while nuking the country was at the top of the page ... well played Jess ....

Down below it had been a bigger waste of time and space, with the moth-eaten onion muncher dragged out to blather on about the war on China, and Trinca trilling that it was all up to Albo to set a civil tone ...

No, the pond had missed nothing, but it still needed a way of coping with being a stranger in a strange land, and this day the pond noted that the hole in the bucket man had made it to the top of the page, ma ...

Up Camperdown way, they quaff young Henry, but the pond knew it had to chugalug an old Henry ...

Here the pond must apologise for the size of the gobbets, the portable's screen is small and doesn't allow for the pond's usual cut and paste Naked Lunch strategy.

And the pond must confess to some disappointment at our Henry's desperate attempts to avoid what had been great fun these past few days, much celebrated and enjoyed by cartoonists ...

But at least the smallness of the chunks of meaty reptile goodness would allow for plenty of distractions.

As for Rushdie, the pond had already published a few excerpts from The Satanic Verses, featuring alleged heresies, so poor old Henry's outing seemed rather tame ...

Is it only the pond that finds all this blather deeply rich in irony, given the way that the angry Sydney Anglicans have been carrying on?

Radical ratbag conservatives, though the pond thinks there's always a place for a new diocese going by the name of Bigot Central ...

Is there that much difference between the Taliban, the mad mullahs and angry Sydney Anglicans when it comes to a gay old time?

Of course the hole in the bucket man was oblivious to all this, lost as he is back in a potted history which doesn't bear close examination ...

Undoubtedly, the great French liberal historian Jules Simon was undoubtedly stupid, as if anyone might think that fundamentalist bigotry hadn't been seeded in the original text of the bible, in such a way as all might find ways to make their religion so intolerant. 

Just take an angry Sydney Anglican if you will, though if you take them, please take them far away from the pond, because the stench of their intolerance and bigotry is passingly rich to the nostrils ...

And for all this, the pond felt a great yearning to contemplate the deeds of the speaker in tongues, who talked to imaginary friends, and consorted with the Hillsong mob and imagined the rapture was around the corner ... and indeed there was a rapture coming ... though perhaps not the rapture he imagined, more a rapture of immortal Rowes ...

Back to the drivel ...

And so to unwoke Henry explaining how it's unseemly be polite, and how the state has repressed free speech and free thinking ways, though the last the pond checked the angry Sydney Anglicans were running free range rampant in their free-thinking bigotry ...

Oh fucketty fuck, not fucking Bill Leak again. Fuck it,  especially as there have been some really amusing book bannings of late ...

Let's face it, the Song of Solomon is full of vile filth, and the rest of the damned thing is full of droog violence, the odd genocide by a wrathful god, assorted murders, betrayals and treacheries, emanating hate for the other and the different ...

The pond would rather be back reading Alice with the infallible Pope, sadly a little mangled in the formatting...

Instead our Henry prefers the company of that quaint old fabulist Herodutus ...

Ah yes, free speech Athenian style ...

In 399 BC, Socrates went on trial for corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens, and for impiety. Socrates defended himself unsuccessfully. He was found guilty by a majority vote cast by a jury of hundreds of male Athenian citizens and, according to the custom, proposed his own penalty: that he should be given free food and housing by the state, for the services he rendered to the city. In the alternative, he proposed that he be fined one mina of silver (according to him, all he had). The jurors declined his offer and ordered the death penalty. The official charges were: (1) corrupting youth; (2) worshipping false gods; and (3) not worshipping the state religion. (wiki)

The death penalty! There's your frank, free and equal speech, Athenian style, and it's been pretty much the same ever since ...

What a mindless wanker our Henry is, and how easily he forgets ...

Meanwhile, the pond had discovered a national treasure in Tarctutta ....

Perhaps a CU for the detail?

Earlier, the pond had discovered the lair of the beefy boofhead, aka joint minister with the speaker in tongues ...

Travel surely narrows the mind, and sad to say, the pond missed a snap of a magpie sitting on top of this bird ...

As for the pub, it's now lost all its plumage in the name of heritage ...