The pond had to patiently explain to an acquaintance why Succession had no appeal to the pond.
It's not that the pond is against the drama per se, but the pond is busy enough with reality television.
When told the patriarch carked it in the third ep of the current and last series, the pond countered that a plot twist like that could just as easily turn up in the real world.
Meanwhile, what script could possibly bring together a triple headed hydra featuring Harry, Megan, Rebekah and an ancient scandal that lurks in the wings?
...Rebekah Brooks is one of Murdoch’s favorite executives, regarded almost as a daughter for her loyalty and avidity as a ruthless tabloid professional. In his classic account of the hacking scandal, Hack Attack, the journalist Nick Davies said that Brooks was known as “the beating heart of the Devil.” When Davies worked for The Guardian, Brooks threatened his editor that she would run a story about his having a love child. There was no love child, and the story did not run, but it was part of a Brooks doctrine to “monster” critics of the Murdoch empire wherever they surfaced.
One particularly disingenuous part of her defense in the Old Bailey trial was the idea that although hacking in both tabloids had reached industrial scale she could remain unaware of it. The hacking, backed up by gumshoe snooping by private detectives, was a large part of the papers’ budgets. Murdoch tracked all budgets with a gimlet eye, and Brooks was a trusted manager.
One particularly disingenuous part of her defense in the Old Bailey trial was the idea that although hacking in both tabloids had reached industrial scale she could remain unaware of it. The hacking, backed up by gumshoe snooping by private detectives, was a large part of the papers’ budgets. Murdoch tracked all budgets with a gimlet eye, and Brooks was a trusted manager.
To buy the idea that she missed all of this you would need to believe that she was either negligent or incompetent, and she was neither. Found not guilty at the trial, she and Murdoch had reason to believe that the true scale of the hacking crime as a part of a deliberately corrupted editorial ethic that turned in huge profits while it lasted would never be disclosed. That looks highly unlikely now.
And then there are the sub-plots. There are so many loons that are only one degree of separation from the core drama, and the best of these loons gather regularly to provide plot twists.
Sure, Mike Lindell Makes Bats**t Claim About Fox News' Role In 2020 Election might only be a C-strand, only worth a few moments in an ep, but still ...
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell on Thursday accused Fox News of playing a “big part” in the mass 2020 voter fraud that he claims was Donald Trump’s downfall in the election. (Watch the video below.)
Lindell, a vociferous election denier who has appeared on Fox News and other right-wing outlets to shout his pro-Trump conspiracy theories, now says Fox News was somehow wrapped up in the election “steal” and suppressed the flow of information.
This would be the same Fox News that just paid Dominion Voting Systems gobs of money to settle a lawsuit because the network falsely and repeatedly claimed that balloting machines were rigged against Trump.
Be warned: Following Lindell’s addled argument could prove challenging.
“I believe Fox played a big part in this election crime because back then, they called Arizona early,” he said, referring to the channel’s correct election night projection that Biden would win the swing state, which angered viewers.
“Smartmatic sued Fox News on Feb. 4 of 2021,” Lindell continued in a nod to another voting technology company suing Fox for defamation. “That started lawfare in this whole country. Since that time people like me have not been able to go on any conservative media and talk about our election. ... So Fox News has been suppressing for some reason and they make this deal with Dominion?”
Lindell, a vociferous election denier who has appeared on Fox News and other right-wing outlets to shout his pro-Trump conspiracy theories, now says Fox News was somehow wrapped up in the election “steal” and suppressed the flow of information.
This would be the same Fox News that just paid Dominion Voting Systems gobs of money to settle a lawsuit because the network falsely and repeatedly claimed that balloting machines were rigged against Trump.
Be warned: Following Lindell’s addled argument could prove challenging.
“I believe Fox played a big part in this election crime because back then, they called Arizona early,” he said, referring to the channel’s correct election night projection that Biden would win the swing state, which angered viewers.
“Smartmatic sued Fox News on Feb. 4 of 2021,” Lindell continued in a nod to another voting technology company suing Fox for defamation. “That started lawfare in this whole country. Since that time people like me have not been able to go on any conservative media and talk about our election. ... So Fox News has been suppressing for some reason and they make this deal with Dominion?”
And what of the fun to be found reading TV reviewers trying to desperately work out the latest plot twists and where the drama might be heading as Peter Wehner did in The Atlantic in MAGA Is Ripping Itself Apart (paywall)
...Lack of restraint is the essence of the Trump movement. Shattering guardrails is what they find thrilling. But what MAGA adherents forget is that those guardrails exist to protect not only others, but also ourselves from excess, self-indulgence, and self-harm. There’s a reason temperance—self-mastery, the capacity to moderate inordinate desires, balance that produces internal harmony—is one of the four cardinal virtues.
The extremism, aggression, and lack of restraint in MAGA world are spreading rather than receding. They are becoming more rather than less indiscriminate. Those who are part of that movement, and certainly those who lead it, act as if they’re invincible, as if the rules don’t apply to them, as if they can say anything and get away with anything. That has certainly been true of Trump, and it is often true of those who have patterned themselves after Trump, which is to say, virtually the entire Republican Party.
But it goes even beyond this. MAGA world directs its ridicule at those who exercise temperance, who embrace restraint, and who ask themselves what they should do rather than what they can get away with. Those who reject the ethic of Thrasymachus—the cynical Sophist in Plato’s Republic who believes might makes right and injustice is better than justice—are dismissed as weak and delicate. The denizens of MAGA world not only relish discarding guardrails; they scorn those who abide by them.
The extremism, aggression, and lack of restraint in MAGA world are spreading rather than receding. They are becoming more rather than less indiscriminate. Those who are part of that movement, and certainly those who lead it, act as if they’re invincible, as if the rules don’t apply to them, as if they can say anything and get away with anything. That has certainly been true of Trump, and it is often true of those who have patterned themselves after Trump, which is to say, virtually the entire Republican Party.
But it goes even beyond this. MAGA world directs its ridicule at those who exercise temperance, who embrace restraint, and who ask themselves what they should do rather than what they can get away with. Those who reject the ethic of Thrasymachus—the cynical Sophist in Plato’s Republic who believes might makes right and injustice is better than justice—are dismissed as weak and delicate. The denizens of MAGA world not only relish discarding guardrails; they scorn those who abide by them.
There's no way even a superior show could work in all the exciting angles the real world offers, right down to cynical Sophists ... and the angles are never-ending ...
Okay, the pond had to embark on that extended rant, because sometimes there's clear evidence you'd be better off watching a TV show, and as proof, the pond offers prattling Polonius, joining the reptile horde in preparing for war with China by Xmas ...
Sadly the pond can't spend time with old bromancer, but the only catastrophe he could see was losing ...
Decisive capability? Forget the catastrophe, there's a war to be won by Xmas ...
The pond realises that the ABC is full of faint hearts, sooks, cowardly custards, quislings, lickspittle fellow travellers and white anters ... and that's why we need warrior Polonius ...
Indeed, indeed, France is a long way from the Asia Pacific.
When the pond last checked, New Caledonia, Wallis and Fortuna and French Polynesia were somewhere near Jersey in the English channel, and so nonsense such as France: The Other Pacific Power was just so much 2012 CSIS gibberish.
No doubt New Caledonia will become fully independent at some time, but in the meantime, perhaps the pond should be wary of taking Peak Polonial Geographic Skills too seriously ...
And so to the bonus, and there the pond had to hand out a few more red cards, such as this one ...
Fuck a city that trades as a city of churches and purports to take hard-hitting satire seriously, and fuck blather about hand-wringers, and especially idle talk about a 'provocateur' who in his later days seemed mainly designed to upset drag queen haters in Florida, and fuck Penbo too for being a crow-eating dimwit ...
But the notion of a drag queen in Florida did suggest a bonus for the pond, Ron DeSanctus ...
The pond realises it's outside its usual domestic reptile brief, but there's only so many times the pond can visit the reptiles visiting the voice over and over... and besides there is a chance for a cartoon recovery ...
After all, he's a Trumper who wants to out-Trump the Donald, and for a time he was much beloved by the Chairman and his Faux Noise minions, and the DeSanctus war on the house of mouse has been distilled essence of telly, as noted by E. J. Dickson in Rolling Stone ...
Indeed, indeed ... much as the pond has lost interest in the house of mouse since Carl Barks stopped doing his comics, and actively loathed changes to copyright laws to suite the mouse house, there's no doubt Ron is up against it ...
Meanwhile, ancient hits are still hanging around, offering little plot tweaks and character notes ...
Much like the cloud of red smoke that envelops Agrabah when Jafar takes over in Aladdin, however, the noxious political climate has slowly been infiltrating the Magic Kingdom. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, much debate raged among Disney fans over park mask and vaccine mandates, and the Disney attraction the Hall of Presidents, featuring animatronic versions of past POTUSes, has been host to a number of protests due to its inclusion of former president Donald Trump. And though Disney has long been the target of criticism from conservatives for various reasons, such backlash has ramped up over the past year due to the corporation’s opposition to Don’t Say Gay, with conservative pundits like Candace Owens urging followers to boycott the company.
This hyper-charged political climate, combined with DeSantis’s aggressive attacks on the company, appear to have had something of a radicalizing effect on some members of the fandom. Though subreddits like r/waltdisneyworld have tried to curb the tone of political discussions — “As always with the posts around RCID/ Drama please refrain from personal attacks and keep it magical,” one post from a mod reads — the battle between DeSantis and Disney appears to have hit too close to home.
One meme posted on Reddit features the puffy-looking Florida governor in a fleece vest, depicted among a pantheon of classic Disney bad guys like Ursula from The Little Mermaid and Jafar from Aladdin. Another, showing Mickey superimposed next to DeSantis, is more explicit: “Suck my mouse dick you fascist fuck,” the caption reads.
Well yes ...
The history, while frequently regurgitated, is rich ...
As Charlie Sykes said in his podcast, all Disney has to suggest is that they might be moving jobs and operations to another state, or let Nikki Haley and Ron go to war ...
Each story somehow gets topped up with the sort of image that fills the pond with terror, but which induces a warm fuzzy glow in Americans always ready to go on vacation with Chevvy Chase and Bev...
And here's another angle for the storyline. Who is Casey DeSantis, the powerful first lady of Florida?
...she always had grander ambitions, according to former co-workers. “I remember I once said [to a colleague], ‘Casey wants to be a senator’s wife.’ And he said, ‘No, she fully intends on being a president’s wife,’” a former WJXT staffer told Vanity Fair in 2022.
And whenever Ron swears on the bible, she also always had her paw on it too ...
Calling all Freudians. Suddenly we're in Dallas territory, which is what Florida would like to be, and that had a long run, and so it was right for the next gobbet to start off with the right sort of snap of the controlling figure and the stolid, humourless puppet ...
But if you're into post-apocalyptic scenarios, you could see something coming, because some are predicting a compelling third act ...
All to troll a sort of half-woke mouse ...
Forget the lobbyists... the cartoonists keep filing notices of appearance ...
Okay, it might be Oklahoma, but let's never forget that Ron DeSanctus got that ball rolling, and produced a cartoon-led recovery, and that's why the pond is sad there's only a gobbet to go ...
Even if the house of mouse loses, avid reality TV followers are winners, and those devoted to Succession don't know what they're missing ...
Take your eyes off the flat screen, and see the many plot points still to explore, so many things are going down.
Why instead of drawing the series to a close it could run forever, and reality TV might even remind you of old movies, so your screen life wasn't a complete waste of time ...
The Polonial one complaining about a talking head being tired, in the way and over exposed is just double Dutch joy this Sunday morning.
ReplyDeleteAnd over in Fl, it appears from this deeply weird video launch that Meatball Ron sees himself being played in a movie by Tom Hanks in the near future. https://twitter.com/davidfrum/status/1652055324373708807
:)³, and as Sleepy on The Insiders, the pond relied on him for extra nap time ...
DeleteAs for the meatball and tired sleepy heads ... Ron DeTedious: DeSantis underwhelms Britain’s business chiefs
https://www.politico.eu/article/ron-detedious-how-desantis-underwhelmed-britains-business-chiefs/
There's so much I could comment on from today's feast, however, with the mention of Carl Barks I was off remembering stories like "Lost in the Andes" and the search for square eggs. Uncle Scrooge, the real Donald, Gladstone and the Beagle Boys. The subversive sub-text, the half-page panels, the innocence, the optimism of the '50s ( ignoring the dark side of that decade of course ) . Who knew what lay in store for us? Now I have to endure Gerard.
ReplyDeleteThe square eggs saga is the pond's favourite, but the pond was also entranced by In Ancient Persia. Mad scientist, King Nevvawaza, Prince Cad Ali Cad, Princess Needa Bara Soapa ... it's possibly why the pond could set down and watch The Mummy with equanimity ...
Deletehttps://scrooge-mcduck.fandom.com/wiki/In_Ancient_Persia
The pond looks forward to Polonius's definitive proof that it's not just the ABC that's ruining his war in China, somehow Carl Barks' taste for zany surrealism ruined a generation's minds and turned them into Manchurian candidates ...
Truly one of the geniuses of comics and the creator of, among others, Uncle Scrooge, the Beagle Boys, Gyro Gearloose and Gladstone Gander. Due to the company’s prohibition of creators signing their work Barks toiled anonymously until after his retirement - although everyone reading his work thought of him as “The good Duck artist”. Luckily he had a long retirement, living to 99, during which he was widely lauded.
DeleteFunnily enough, Barks considered himself a crusty old conservative, but I doubt if he would have been acceptable to Polonius. That’s the problem with having absolutely no sense of humour.
And who created the Junior Woodchucks of the World ?
DeleteThat was another Barks creation, GB.
DeleteMy local pretend 'NBN' has had another weekend of 'maintenance', so catching up on entertainment this night. Dorothy, special thanks for the play between de Santis Clause and the Disney army. It takes a rare level of genius for an elected politician to pick a fight with Disney. But the cartoons were a welcome alternative to the numbingly tedious Polonius.
DeleteOh, and for Anonymous, below, wondering if our Polony indulges in good times - some years back I lived for a time in Kirribilli, and used to take a grandchild to swimming lessons on Saturday mornings. Gerard apparently did something similar. He was at the pool, sitting in the stand, and the only activity was kids' swimming lessons. Difference - where ever other parent/grandparent watched, and spoke with, their kid(s), Gerard arrived with stack of newspapers, set them down on one side, and scanned through them all, marking some parts with great flourish, but not otherwise paying the slightest attention to whatever child he was supposedly attached to. So - what could have been quality time with grandchild did not seem to be 'good' time to Gerard.
Yes, the story of the 'square' eggs was one of my favourites from when it first appeared, along with the steamshovel Christmas present, which became part of the seasonal readings for my family, along with the earlier works of Dickens, as we approached Christmas.
As a family who had farmed chooks, and kept some when we moved into town, I kinda throught it improbable that any kind of chooks could produce cubic eggs. Then I learned that wombats produce cubic turds, so - opportunity for a DNA manipulating Dr Moreau, perhaps?
Thought it might be, Anony, but I'm not nearly afficionado enough to actually know. But that, and Grandma's car (modelled on the Baker Electric Coupe apparently) were my favourite parts of the 'Duck Saga').
Deletehttps://www.louwmanmuseum.nl/en/car/baker-electric-coupe/
Chad, re Gerard, could any time that isn't focussed exclusively on his interests ever be considered 'quality time' by him ? Or by any of the reptiles, come to think of it.
DeleteOh well Anony, them and Scrooge diving down to swim in his coins and notes, of course (doesn't everyone ?). But in this day and age, when only about 5% of us, apparently, don't pay for everything with plastic cards, who'd believe anybody could have that many notes and coins - other than those squirrelling away $100 notes in case the Chinese zero out their bank accounts, of course.
DeleteI do wonder what plastic card people do to check their account every month with mabe a hundred or so small transactions (one for every time they buy a takeaway coffee, for instance). Do they just remember how much they've spent on every purchase over the month ?
May Day greetings to you, and ready agreement with your assessment of Gerard. Do you recall, from the '60s, the 'McLandress Dimension'? It appeared in 'Esquire', and later as a book, by one Mark Epernay. For a time my acquaintances had fun estimating 'Mack-el-sees' for various people, but it was formulated in a way that applies remarkably well to our Gerard - and many others. Trump probably has one of the lowest 'Mack-el-sees' ever, requiring timing technology not readily available in the '60s.
DeleteIf it is unfamiliar to you - a little explanation
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1963/12/4/prof-mclandress-ptake-an-ibm-machine/
- which also hints at the true identity of Mark Epernay
Ok, I yield: is it JKG or is it the "Harvard professor of Comparative Literature who has a community-wide reputation for absent-mindedness and a penchant for sloppy dressing" ?
DeleteAnd what is Gerard's measure of Mack-el-see ?
It was, in fact, John Kenneth Galbraith, partly releasing some pets of his imagination, partly showing that he could write truly entertaining articles, while pricking others in his line of trade.
DeleteI kinda guessed it was, but in these late days I always go for confirmation :-(
DeleteAlthough Hendo works in a few token references to The Monthly and the Saturday Paper, his sad obsession with the ABC continues. I wonder - what does he read, watch and listen to for entertainment and relaxation? Old musicals? Crime fiction? Does he support a sporting team of any code? Go bushwalking? I suppose it’s more likely that he enjoys browsing bound back issues of “Quadrant” or “The Lives of the Saints”, but then it struck me - does he combine business with pleasure? Is it possible that his addiction to ABC nit-picking is actually Polonius’ idea of a good time?
ReplyDeleteI'd always imagined him down on hands and knees maintaining the leather finish on the handful of couches that support the nabobs of the Sydney Institute. Good exercise, and should keep his mind off the ABC for a brief time.
DeleteThe Geraldo Hendo daydream song:
Deletehttps://youtu.be/My_LO0HRwxM
Now come on, DP, the French don't really consider New Caledonia (much less Wallis and Futuna) as genuinely 'French'. NC was where they sent all the expatriates expelled from Algeria that they considered too uncivilised to allow 'back' into France.
ReplyDeleteBut at least our Polonial Geraldo has produced a listicle of all the deadly things China could do to Australia without actively invading. So:
"it could fire ballistic missiles at us without nuclear warheads, from mainland China."
Indeed it could, and how exactly could we defend against that: not by shooting the missiles down, especially if they are hypersonic, but only by retaliating and firing (hypersonic) missiles into China from mainland Australia (we are developing hypersonic missiles, aren't we ?). And what would China do in response to that - and compared with the very few missiles targetting Australia that would need to be successful (raze large parts of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and it's all done), how many of our missiles would need to be successful (ie evade counter missiles and hit major targets) to actually 'punish' China.
"it could hit our bases in northern Australia with its DF-26 medium range missiles"
Well, all that newspaper scanning by Gerard as reported by Chad must have born fruit: he can even identify the missiles China would use. And yes, I guess it could, so again we'd better have missiles on the ready - and not only sited in our vulnerable northern bases - to retaliate. And what Chinese 'bases' would we target ?
"it can also conduct long-range precision strikes from weapons based on ships, submarines and planes..."
Yes, indeed it could, and we simply don't have the ships, submarines and planes to return the complement, nor even to attack the Chines attackers. Ok, so more missiles yet from somewhere on the Australian continent.
But short of a real 'shooting war' China could:
"close the South China Sea to our trade."
What exactly does this mean: attacking and sinking every ship that's conducting Australian trade ? Or just sinking every non-Chinese ship that enters the South China Sea without written Chinese permission ? And what could we do about that: stop selling them our iron ore and coal perhaps ? Not to mention not selling them our lobsters and wine.
"Or possibly cripple our civilian infrastructure through intense cyber attack."
And not just our "infrastructure" - what happens when everybody's bank balances are zeroed ? Only those well off enough to have considerable overseas accounts would be safe(ish). And considering the lamentable state of Australia's ICT defenses, this attack would be entirely possible, and even easy.
"If it gets bases in the South Pacific, it might confront us any day in our own waters."
And in this day and age, with quite fast ships and a relatively short distance to travel, it could even confront us in our own waters without bases. After all, the Japanese did back 80-ish years ago, and the Americans had to come in force and see them off.
https://historylists.org/events/list-of-10-greatest-battles-of-the-pacific-war.html
So there we have it: what China can do short of invading us. And I guess we'd better just go for missiles, missiles and even more missiles to try to stop it. So give up on those hyper-expensive AUKUS subs, forget about fighter/bomber jet planes, don't worry about naval surface ships (all beloved by that other expert, the Bromancer) and just go for (hypersonic) long-range missiles in their tens, or hundreds of thousands (China is a big place with lots and lots of people, unlike Australia).