In which the pond recants, revives Dame Slap but still ends up with old men reliving ancient battles ...

 

Not happy comrade Dan, and with that "bonjour tristesse" out of the way, the pond can turn to confessing that it boxed itself into a corner yesterday by announcing bans on a variety of reptiles.

The pond is determined to keep a few bans going - the bromancer frothing and foaming at the voice is too wearisome to contemplate on a Sunday - and the pond even added a few more, such as a gibbering Gemma ...

As soon as someone says "Period", channeling that infamous loser dropkick Sean Spicer nakedly lying  "This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period.”, the pond understands that only a gullible Gemma would think she was on to something ...

And then there was this yarn that was atop the lizard Oz yesterday, apparently unaware that the reptiles have taken a stern view on all that Dark Emu nonsense ...

Sure, the pond was gobsmacked, but felt no need to get back into that debate when bashing the notion of an indigenous voice was the new flavour for this reptile year of living dangerously ...

But if the bromancer, Gemma, and bashing the pesky, difficult, uppity blacks were out of bounds, what to do? With a guilty heart, the pond recanted, turned back to Dame Slap, did a Musk and lifted the ban ...

Now the ban was essentially right and proper, but these are desperate times.

The pond has less than zero interest in the lifestyles of the rich and famous in Sydney's eastern suburbs, but this is the sort of turf that Dame Slap infests in the way that a fish manages to deal with water, and there would be certain lines that would reveal more than the pond needed to know about her psyche ... and so it came to pass ...

Be warned, it's a long one, but that snap featuring the tragic suffering of the rich should give a clue, what with Dame Slap herself a Cranbrook user ... and what do you know, somehow the pond's reptile word of the week, here elevated to "most woke", somehow wormed its way into the yarn ...

The pond has done "woke" and the murder of the English language and will do its best to avoid the random stabbings in the dark that follow ...

The pond will grudgingly concede one point. Not enough is said about the "toxic femininity" incarnated in Dame Slap, and the notion that toxic masculinity might be calmed by seating a boy next to Dame Slap in full inflammatory mode is surely problematic ...

But enough of the trauma of the rich, and boys having to deal with girls, because Dame Slap soon got bored with all that, and turned to the reptiles current straw dog, Lisa Wilkinson ...

Not content with having hounded her from the town square, when you're a professional bitch from hell, you keep on with the never-ending bitching ...

You had to go to Media Bites (YouTube) to get a short summary of all the abuse hurled Wilkinson's way ... (yes, Media Watch is still off the pond's viewing list)

Not that the pond much minds, not having the slightest interest in Wilkinson, and able to say with some fair pride that it has never watched a full episode of The Project the entire time it's been airing ...

It's only useful to know about such things because of what it reveals about the pathology known as Dame Slap ...

For some reason, the pond drifted off into a re-write of Jane Austen ...

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife, or at least some relief from being made to sit next to a girl in school.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.

"My dear Mr. Bennet," said his lady to him one day, "have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?"

Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.

"But it is," returned she; "for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it."

Mr. Bennet made no answer.

"Do you not want to know who has taken it?" cried his wife impatiently.

"YOU want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it."

This was invitation enough.

"Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week."

"What is his name?"

"Bingley."

"Is he married or single?"

"Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!"

"How so? How can it affect them? All he did in school was ineptly aim spit balls at the ceiling with the help of a ruler ...

Back to a final gobbet, celebrating the anguish of the rich, and yearning for schools to be more like tertiary institutions ... but before we get there, let's celebrate young men and women working together in search of knowledge and Catholic Xian compassion ...

Those were the days, and now the pond has made it to the final gobbet ... and a healthy desire for discipline, of the kind loved by Percy Grainger ...

Sorry, no links to the reptiles, and no illustrations, that was just to pre-empt Dame Slap's deep love of a little discipline ...

And on with that talk of discipline ...

Meanwhile, in the real world, far from Dame Slap and her eastern suburbs chums, students will head off to state schools, wondering that they're missing out on, and not realising it's likely to be a young Dame Slap in full whining, bitching and bullying mode ... a fate worse than death for any student, whatever their gender ...

But why did the pond relent and go with Dame Slap? 

Alas and alack, this is a time for meaningless anniversaries, as if 50 or 100 are somehow sacred numbers, and so the right time to head back in time to contemplate navels and do fluff gathering ...

Polonius was at it with his prattle, and inevitably first up there would be a tedious history lesson ...

As soon as Polonius announced it wasn't his intention to rain on Gough's parade, the pond knew that it was going to bucket down, with every chance of a hail storm and ferocious winds, because when he gets going, Polonius is reliably windy ...

One thing we mustn't expect is any reflection on the way that Polonius himself for a time travelled with the DLP and B. A. Santamaria and the like, a mob of ratbags who gravely distorted the ALP for a considerable period of time ...

All standard stuff, and Polonius is in his element, refighting battles from the ancient past, understandable perhaps given the dross currently doing the rounds in his team ...

It's when he gets on to the Vietnam that the pond perked up again, because Polonius was mightily conflicted by that battle, and for years, he went around claiming it was a victory of sorts, as here ... (warning Sydney Institute link, the usual ABC bashing)

Actually Cambodia's still fucked, no thanks to being bombed, and Malaysia is rife with deeply embedded corruption and Thailand suffers army coups as regularly as the Sydney Institute goes searching for sponsors, but back to the put down ...

Migrants! We all have memories there ...

When Polonius gets on this sort of hobby horse, some get irritated, as in this ancient letter to the editor ...

Indeed, indeed, and how good it would be to see Polonius spend a column urging Australia to help out the Afghan people who helped Australian forces when in country in that Taliban-ruined land ... or giving help to Ukrainian refugees suffering from the effects of Vlad the sociopath ...

But no, Polonius is just interested in the ancient business of old warriors fighting old wars, and never mind the new ones at the doorstep ...

Sadly after outing there was even worse news to follow ... nattering "Ned" on the same themes and at even greater, more tedious, and unimaginably, more portentous and pompous length... 

Count them, eight bloody interminable gobbets, it's not so much a column as a life sentence

Did "Ned" just refer to Ming? Now there's a revealing slip, up there with that Ming vase ...

There's an explanation of the nickname here ... not that younglings will care ...

The second nickname, ‘Ming’, derives from the Scottish pronunciation of Menzies; ‘Ming-is’. The Clan Menzies is a prominent Scottish family, and Menzies preferred (in vain) that pronunciation of his name. Shortened to Ming, the name also echoed a popular science-fiction villain, ‘Ming the Merciless’, from the Flash Gordon comic books and later films serials.

Some might prefer "Mingies" as a way of evoking the Scottish pronunciation, but the likeness is immediately apparent...

Sorry, it's going to be a long slog, and the only upside the pond can offer is that at the end there's a conclusion likely to terrify Polonius ...

His temperament was explosive and egocentric? Perhaps that's why the reptiles ghosted that report, which was invisible on the lizard Oz this weekend ...

You might find The Bell report on Morrison’s multi-ministries provides a bad character reference ... and that noted,  the reports which are actually mentioned in the lizard Oz are decidedly strange ..

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Sheesh, time for Polonius to write an angry letter to the UK government?

Ancient Troy is a temptation and a possible distraction, but the pond is stuck with "Ned" ...

Why bring that up? Did "Ned" want to remember the free-wheeling times and Little Patti?

The pond suspects a deeper ailment, a fit of nostalgia for lost times and lost souls, but it will only come at the end ... meanwhile, enjoy "Ned" talking about the "vibe" ...

Ah yes, the stick they got for that ... and yet ...at least it was out in the open, unlike some ...

Sheesh, the pond will have to stop interrupting, there are miles to go, and a reveal to keep ...

And there we have it, peak "Ned" analysis ...

Perhaps if you want to dress it up you might throw in  a reference to  Manichaeism.... but the pond must pick up speed and head to that reveal ...

And so on and so on and so far removed from the surly Polonial overview that the pond began to wonder what was happening ... what had possessed "Ned", as surely as Linda Blair had been?

And so to the reveal in the very last par of the very last gobbet, and here the pond must do a little spade work and prepare the ground ...

Yes, way back when, the lizard Oz was a real newspaper, with a real editor, intent on doing good things, and abruptly sacked for his pains by the Chairman, though his work helped him score a place in the Hall of Fame ...

Not many remember when an ageing, once idealistic politician tried in Fame is the Spur to get a sword from Peterloo Massacre days down from the wall and pull it from its scabbard, only to find it rusted tight...

But perhaps there's something of that in "Ned's" final gobbet ...

"Ned" knew Gough, and "for those who knew him, the memory of good Gough glows far brighter", but that sword has long been rusted hard in its scabbard and the old pompous blowhard hasn't the strength to tear it free and wave it about ...

And now he ekes out his years, his dreaming of Deamer long gone, a useless husk locked into nostalgia and memory, every so often producing a imitation of a desiccated coconut, while co-joined at the hip to the worst of the worst ...