It's not for want of interest on the part of the pond.
UK politics in recent days has provided some splendid sights and high comedy.
Only a curmudgeon could find no delight in Liz Truss's attempt to revive her career ... with the Speccie mob turning up in the Graudian to tell her story ... and inevitably Marina Hyde took a view in Britain, we had a thing with Truss and Johnson but it was toxic and we were right to end it. Just walk away.
Sorry Marina, the pond can't walk away, let alone look away, no more than it could stop watching a train wreck unfold in the front yard. The level of Trussian delusion, and the level of ruination is astonishing to behold.
Unfortunately, the local reptiles have lost interest in the spectacle, and so the pond perforce can't cover it.
Where's the bromancer celebrating Brexit? It wasn't so long ago, but now it feels like a distant dream ...
As for the reptiles this day, the pond decided to go on strike ... and it started with the bromancer wanting to pretend it was all business as usual and everything was back to normal ...
Liar!You think you can just gloss over the real dottiness?
The State of the Union speech, Biden shaking hands with Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the Republican response – it all represents something like a return to normality in American politics. Lots to disagree about, but all conducted within the normal rules and courtesies.
That may be the most encouraging aspect of this perfectly adequate speech by Biden.
Liar! Double dinkums liar!
The pond simply won't stand for it. If Liz Truss can stage a comeback with a generous serve of little England plum pudding, then damned if the pond will be denied its slice of American fruitcakes ...
The pond did allow the reptiles trying to get agitated about spy balloons, as if they'd spotted one out beyond the black stump, or worse over Surry Hills ...
Jimbo Paterson is on the job? Then we're doomed, comprehensively fucked ... but the pond only allowed this because of the sublime nuttiness of some responses in the US, as recorded by Charlie Sykes ...
“The whole response to the balloon thing,” complains Damon Linker, “vividly illustrates how degraded American public life has become. Politicians spouting BS to gain likes and applause online, ordinary people pronouncing on events in utter ignorance and with a total absence of humility. Not good.”
But kind of perfect too.
A more-or-less low-stakes drama with a dollop of slapstick comedy to leaven the frisson of crisis; a spectacular conclusion; and an ironic twist that the writers saved for the end.
There were great visuals, and enough performative outrage to fill several news cycles, including all the takes that aged like tuna left out in the sun. And, of course, the ominous balloon from Beijing blasted into shredded Kleenex by America’s Top Guns.
Something for everyone, really.
Yes, there was something for everyone, except perhaps a maroon down there with the bromancer ...
Then came the examples, and the pond simply had to steal a few, just to show the bromancer that if this is politics normal, then the United States is deeply and comprehensively fucked ...
Remember those Jewish space lasers and how everybody had a good chuckle?
Here's your politics as normal bromancer ...
The Jewish Space Lasers are in the house!
Of course that's perfectly normal for someone as nutty as the bromancer, but damned if he'll stop the pond from celebrating the undiluted essence of nuttiness that's going down in the UK and the US, and with generous thanks to Chairman Rupert for his corporation's role in it ...
As for the rest, the pond really did try to drum up something that might be of interest. This is the day that petulant Peta is out and about in the lizard Oz ...
Yeah nah ... petulant Peta celebrating Lidia as a way of taking down the voice, and Lidia in a barney with Pauline? Sure, it's pure nuttiness, but there's something disturbing when the nuttiness is closer to home ...
And as for the rest of the reptile mob, what a dismal sight ...
The pond wouldn't give tuppence for the lot of them, though at least Cameron had the decency to note that the bromancer's blather had fallen on deaf ears ...
As for the bouffant one having yet another go at the voice. Yeah nah ...
The pond did try to find a reptile to celebrate this day.
With the lizard Oz reptiles in disarray and tedious beyond belief, and the rot now well beyond what was once a graphics department, the pond headed off to the Terror to see what was on offer...
Dear sweet long absent lord, fuck the pond dead, but do it gently because we're a long time dead, now it's AI that's fully woke?
And they wheeled out rocket scientist Joe to have a go at Jimbo?
And there's the Arndt, still a thing apparently in the land of the Terrorists, still carrying on about feminism and hard done by males, and if only she could end up in a jail in Romania with that Tate chappy, what a fine time they'd have ...
And there's the giant maroon Morrow blathering about the traditions of 'old' Australia, sublimely unaware that talk of 'old' Australia was richly ironic in the company of Aboriginal people, whose idea of 'old' in Australia stretched back a few thousand years or so, with the emphasis on the so...
Yeah nah to the bloody lot of them... oh and for good measure, liar!
So the pond headed off to the HUN, just to see if there was anything to see there ...
Andrew Bolt blathering on about apartheid? Yeah nah.
Andrew Bolt demanding proof of ancestry? Yeah nah.
The Panahi panhandler blathering about gender and expert gender specialist Sonny Bill? Yeah nah.
The Bolter on about the ABC? Yeah nah, the pond gets more of enough of that in its diet thanks to prattling Polonius ...
The pond began to worry it might not find an interstitial to provide a bit of breathing space between the immortal Rowe and the infallible Pope ...
It's always in the details ...
Just to ensure there was a little separation between cartoons, the pond tried again with the HUNsters ... and gave their attempt at a little visual humour an airing ...
Still the Bolter trying to lather up the culture wars and the voice? Yeah nah, oh and while the pond's thinking about it, liar!
And there was petulant Peta, still going on about radical agendas ... but if the pond had passed her in the lizard Oz, why should the pond bother with that? Yeah nah, and while the pond's remembering the word, liar!
And so with apologies to the writers of Seinfeld ...
Jerry Seinfeld : Well, as I was saying, I would play myself, and... as a blogger reading the lizard Oz, and I have a friend and a neighbor and an ex-boyfriend, which is all true.
George Costanza : Yeah, but nothing happens on the blog. You see, it's just like life. You know, you eat, you go shopping, you read, you eat, you read, you go shopping.
Russell Dalrymple : You read? You read on the blog? You read the reptiles?
Jerry Seinfeld : Well, I don't know about the reading. We didn't discuss the reading. Who bothers to read the lizard Oz?
Russell Dalrymple : All right, tell me about the stories. What kind of stories?
George Costanza : Oh, no. No stories. Absolutely no reptiles telling stories about everything being normal.
Russell Dalrymple : No stories? No reptiles. So what is it?
George Costanza : What did you do today?
Russell Dalrymple : I got up and went to blog ...
George Costanza : There's a blog. That's a blog.
Russell Dalrymple : How is that a blog?
Jerry Seinfeld : Well, maybe something happens to you on the way to the blogging.
George Costanza : No, no, no! Nothing happens!
Jerry Seinfeld : [Pointedly] Well, something happens.
Russell Dalrymple : Well, why am I reading it?
George Costanza : Because it's on the full to overflowing intertubes.
Russell Dalrymple : Not yet.
George Costanza : [Clears throat] O.K... uh... look. If you wanna just keep doing the same old thing, then maybe this idea is not for you. I, for one, am not going to compromise my artistic integrity, and I'll tell you something else. This is the blog, and we're not gonna change it.
[Snaps fingers at Jerry]
George Costanza : Right?
[Exits]
Jerry Seinfeld : How about this? I write a blog post about Brexit and Liz Truss which skates right past it all... and then I end the agony by posting an infallible Pope ...
Fears that Chinese-manufactured CCTV cameras in Commonwealth buildings may actually be Commie spy cams? If so, my heart goes out to those poor CCP drones tasked with trolling through endless hours of footage showing low and middle-ranking public servants slumped at their desks, tapping away at computers, or leafing through a file while sipping on a tea or coffee, sitting around a meeting room table swapping corporate-speak, or signing the birthday card for Di from Finance.
ReplyDeleteOk, so Marina says: "...we had a thing with Truss and Johnson but it was toxic..." Yeah, right on, so toxic that Boris was elected in a landslide result and there's plenty of pommies who are truly aching to elect him again. Liz Truss just has the wrong kind of hair.
ReplyDeleteBut that's justthe wonder of parliamentary democracy: more than half of the British population have lower than the mean IQ, but they still get to vote, and their vote counts for just the same as the votes of somebody with at least some basic sense. Though sadly there's not an awful lot of them.
But we had our own version: 9+ years of Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison; every bit as bad as Boris and Liz.
Even sadder, GB, is that as Pomgolia doesn’t have compulsory voting, all those who have voted for the Tories actually went to the effort of getting to a polling booth (on a weekday!) to support them - they definitely _wanted_ to support the likes of Boris, even though for many they were voting against their own interests. But then he was such a smart fellow - he’d been to Eaton and could quote Latin and all that stuff, and was clearly a Better Class of Person…..
DeleteFor the umpteenth time, I’m grateful to the ancestors who left various bits of those benighted isles, for whatever reason.
Ah well, talking about ancestors with names, there's the old story about 'noble' sons:
Deletethe first son inherits the mansion and grounds and most of the money (primogeniture, you know)
the second son joins the army and rapidly acquires the rank of colonel and later general and perhaps field marshall if there's an actual war he can fight
the third son joins the church and becomes at least a bishop
and the fourth son, if there is one, migrates to Australia.
‘The Book Every Australian Needs to Read’ is the title of item that went up on the ‘Quad Rant’ yesterday. None of that ‘a book you may feel like reading, entirely up to you’ - no - you NEED to read this one.
ReplyDeleteWell, it is titled ‘Beyond Belief’, and is edited by Peter Kurti and Warren Mundine. No mention of Nyunggai there, perhaps that is a ceremonial title.
The review cites Senator Jacinta Price (we do seem to have set traditional names/titles to one side here. In this case, saves confusion about how to pronounce Yangapi Nampijinpa, or even how many syllables to include. Presenters on Sky offer several versions for pronunciation) Anyway, the Senator is quoted as writing about ‘The globally unprecedented Voice proposal . . ‘ so that puts it in new territory for reptile writers, many of whom are listed as contributors, to emphasise just how much we need to read this book. We have Abbott, Albrechtsen, Merritt, di Russo and Stoker, and some others, but there are enough names there for you to make up your own mind on spending $29.95 with - you have probably guessed the publisher - Connor Court.
Marketing, Chad, marketing. “The Book Every Australian Needs to Read” is probably a more effective, if less accurate, promotional tag than “The Book Every Reactionary Wing Nut Needs to Reinforce Their Existing Prejudices”.
DeleteAnd shorter, Anonymous. I neglected to do the quick scan of 'Marketing for Dummies' before I named the publisher, but I am sure 'shorter' wins over 'longer' for blurbs these days. No doubt the reviewer auditioned some three word slogans for the title, but they would have come up as too cryptic.
DeleteAm I the only one who gets a giggle out of a 200 million dollar aircraft firing a 400 thousand dollar missile to down a balloon? Don't suppose the had any way to get a dressmakers pin to 20,000 meters.
ReplyDeleteIt does appear that this has been happening for a while
https://www.space.com/chinese-spy-balloons-classified-ufos-us-military
My own suspicion is that it's just a weather balloon or we would have more than the vague waffle from the D.O.D. at the end of that piece. Whatever the case, it serves as another piece in the war on China.
Nev Shute got it part right:
ReplyDeleteAustralia and New Zealand best placed to survive nuclear apocalypse, study finds
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/09/australia-and-new-zealand-best-placed-to-survive-nuclear-apocalypse-study-finds
Phew!
Delete