* Save this commemorative post, it could well be worth a squillion NFTs by 2050, or whenever the first nuclear sub arrives ...
As for the reptiles?
Yeah nah ...Men in frocks? Queens? How often have the reptiles told the pond that Ron DeSanctus is the future and drag is the way of the devil and we mustn't get mixed up in all this woke malarkey?
And to use it as a pathetic attempt to get subscriptions? Servile and ingratiating, while once purporting to be a republican rag? It was the same this morning, and the pond couldn't bear to do a screen snap to save it for history. Oh if the pond must ...
Now it's a bunch of funny men in frocks? And still the with the pandering, and the pathetic wheedling begging subscription campaign?
And this was the front page of the tree killer edition?
And this was the pathetic cartoon, as if their own grovelling behaviour wasn't a match?
It was too much ... and now on with the celebration, and please understand that this colossal gala commemorative edition hasn't come without its sacrifices ... 
And the HUN was in on the game too ...
Sorry, the pond shouldn't have asked, and now on with the next part of the celebratory edition, and things start to get really rough, because there are eight gobbets of "Ned", which is more than anyone should ask of even the hardiest reader ...
Sorry, the pond desperately needs some distractions if it's to make it through this coronation edition ... "Ned" is such a tedious downer ...
Meanwhile, "Ned" goes on and on and on ...
And now on with "Ned" pretending to give a toss about a republic, while doing his best to white ant it, downplay it, and generally humbug it ... and of all things, hanging its fate on the voice ...
Look at this trio, anyone of whom might have featured on a regular jaundiced pond Sunday ...
Of course it's hardly news that the Angelic one is attracted to Mussolini-style fascism. After all, tykes had a big thing for Generalissimo Franco, and there's nothing that sends fascists into a frenzy more than the notion of virtue-signalling 'leets.
And sure it's a relief to see the Bjorn-again one turn away from climate science denialism, only to discover smoking. If only he'd been reading the Graudian in December 2015, Big tobacco targets the young in poor countries – with deadly consequences.
Always on the move, always on the go is the Bjorn-again one. P
erhaps the loss of Dame Groan is the hardest to suffer, but as she's rabbiting on about restraint (and chains and whips?), sacrifices have to be made. Groan cultists will be bereft, but if they borrow the Angelic one's cilice, they'll get into a proper fascist mindset.
Other stories and cartoons had to be tossed ...
And the pond barely had the time and the space to belatedly acknowledge last week's Weekly Beast... Crown duel: Monarchists accuse ABC of coronation panel ‘blatantly stacked’ with republicans.
Amid all that the venerable Meade found time to mention the lizard Oz in dishonourable despatches ...
A digital version of the special edition will also be available to subscribers only. “I’m sure this collector’s edition of the newspaper will resonate strongly with audiences around Australia,” managing editor John Lehmann said.
It’s quite a change for a newspaper that officially backed Australia becoming a republic in the 1999 referendum and even printed bumper stickers for readers in support of a yes vote.
The oldest rip off in the tree killer newspaper game. The pond still has commemorative newspaper editions cluttering up corners of the house, waiting for the market to finally take notice ...
Oh the build up had been huge, there were promises of things to come, sweet dreams and flying machines and pieces on the ground ...
The pond particularly liked the first story ... with its echoes ...
Of course there was a nausea caveat, with things to be avoided to prevent an upchuck about King Chuck ...
The pond barely had time for a little Marina, though she was on topic ...A day for Charles, our mournful monarch: in his pomp but out of his time.
As for the man at the centre of it all, Charles remains oddly – perhaps ominously – unknown. His belatedly saluted prescience on environmental matters has left the depth of his creed unexamined. A totally fascinating article in the New Statesman this week saw its author, Will Lloyd, travel to Transylvania, the rural region of Romania with which Charles is under-the-radar obsessed. He owns two properties there and has visited every year since 1993, holding it up as an idyllic rebuke to modernity. “It’s the timelessness which is so important,” our king is quoted as saying on a tourist website. “The landscape is almost out of some of those stories you used to read as a child.” To this pre-modern simplicity, Charles is in wild thrall, which is in some ways understandable, given that Transylvanians do things like gratefully show him their breads, and – to my knowledge – have never put a private call in which he expressed a wish to be his now-wife’s tampon on a premium-rate phoneline to titillate local readers.
But Lloyd visits the typical Transylvanian village of Bunesti, where people have no shoes and their animals grub in the dirt. His taxi driver points out the sole anachronism in this otherwise ancient peasant scene: satellite dishes bolted to every shack. He tells him that our world is beamed into their houses, and that these people want it. But evidently Charles does not want them to have it. He apparently prefers them to exist in this “simplicity”, which to other eyes looks merely like grinding poverty. Can a man of many palaces – who famously lamented the departure of the servant who squeezed his toothpaste on to the brush for him better than any other – truly reconcile these aspects of his character with a backbreaking existence he so romanticises in others? Maybe it all makes sense in the sort of mystic feudalism that seems to amount to his philosophy.
Yet so many of Charles III’s chosen works echo with melancholy, a sense that he has arrived past the point in history at which he would have liked. Perhaps the new king feels like that other uneasy head of a family, Tony Soprano. “It’s good to be in something from the ground floor,” reflects the mobster soon after we first meet him. “I came too late for that – I know. But lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.”
So what did the pond's gala commemorative coronation edition finally come down to?
Alas and alack, just the usual serve of prim, anal retentive Polonius and pompous, portentous bore and drone "Ned" ...
Take it away Polonius ...
Ah memories and as for Cromwell ...
But that happy snap of real royals - not the talking tampon that is the topic of the day - reminded the pond of Polonius's favourite pollie, Ming the Merciless. Why didn't Polonius go there?
“There is a lady sweet and kind,
Was never a face so pleased my mind;
I did but see her passing by. And yet I'll love her till I die. Her gesture, motion, and her smiles,
Her wit, her voice my heart beguiles,
Beguiles my heart, I know not why,
And yet I'll love her till I die. Cupid is winged and he doth range,
Her country, so, my love doth change. But change she earth, or change she sky,
Yet, I will love her till I die.”
Clearly the reptiles felt he should have, because they slipped in a huuuge snap in the next gobbet ...
Ah, the talking mystical Protestant tampon, always a reliable disappointment, and Polonius almost brings himself to do a dog botherer, what with his desire to have the Pope rule the world ...
Time for a Polonial stand to be taken ...
An avowed republican doing the dance with egomaniacal ratbag Piers and canoodling with gangster-loving Kyle. Who else might this loon be associated with?
Or highlighting its bizarre silliness, down there with Waco and gold tablets ... but the pond doesn't mean to distract from the glorious history ....
In a sense he's already restored the monarchy, what with the cuckolding and the adultery and the talking tampon and the car crash and the canoodling and all the gossip and carry on ...
Most people think of Charles II as the ‘merry monarch’, with his perky Cockney mistress, Nell Gwyn (perhaps the Barbara Windsor* of her day), at the centre of a court remarkable for its gaiety, extravagance, and amorous entanglements. The poet John Dryden, always agreeable to the ruling classes, described it as a “laughing, quaffing and unthinking time”, but it is clear that there was widespread disapproval of this ‘brave new world’, as is suggested by the title of poet Samuel Butler’s Satire upon the Licentious Age of Charles the Second. Samuel Pepys recorded the king dancing to a popular tune of the time, ‘Cuckolds All A-Row’, which well suggests the cheery, heartless, amoral world of the royal court.
Restoration comedies provoked uneasy laughter about adultery and cuckoldry [an act of adultery committed by a married woman against her husband]. Performances such as these reflected a preoccupation of the upper classes, where young people were married off at unsuitably early ages, in pursuit of money and estates. A wealthy young heiress was considered valuable property, to be secured by any means. On several occasions, men carried off young ladies in coaches, either to marry them or extort money from their relatives.
In Charles’s day, steely-eyed mothers and prospective mothers-in-law were constantly on the hunt for a bride. While Charles was a young man in France, his own mother, Queen Henrietta Maria, worked hard to find him a suitable wife: aristocratic – preferably royal – with money to support him and his indigent entourage, and to finance Charles’s soldiers in England.
Various German princesses were wheeled out for examination – in person or through portraiture – dismissed with Charles’s favourite oath, “Ods’s fish! They are all dull and foggy”. Just before Charles’s restoration to the throne in 1660, Cardinal Mazarin’s niece, Hortense Mancini, seemed a strong contender for the role of Charles’s wife, but the Cardinal ultimately decided Charles was not a good investment (though some years later Hortense became one of Charles’s mistresses). (*Camilla?)
Sadly, at 74 he's probably past his best cuckolding, adulterating days ... and so back to tedious "Ned" ...and yet another snap of Liz, and why, given that it's all supposed to be about the talking tampon, do the reptiles keep on showing snaps of Liz?
Talk about dull and foggy, ods fish "Ned" is a blitherer and a ditherer when he gets going, and there's a lot more to come, full of cosmic mysteries ...
Um, not really. These days the only question is whether he can manage the single thing he needs to grasp, though he's routinely failed to grasp it in the past ...
Well yes, but there's a lot to be said for the ludicrous as a way of getting through the day ...
Huzzah. A chance to repeat that infallible Pope, showing like minds having a cup of tea and possibly a cucumber sandwich ...
Dear sweet long absent lord, he even managed to drag in climate science? What a tedious old fart he is, how wretched this truly unique gala commemorative coronation edition has turned out to be ...
Around this point the pond began to wonder if "Ned" was actually doing a Meghan ...
Looking out over the vast and mysterious ocean makes the pond wonder, should "Ned" have been on a plane and even now capering about in the streets of London, at one with the zeitgeist, admiring Larry the cat with the bromancer?
Who knows, because there's only one humbug to go, and then the packet will be empty ...
In reality the current proposed model is as dull as ditchwater and nowhere near a mango Mussolini, though the pond does admit that sometimes "Ned" is capable of a low cunning. Per the wiki ...
The ARM announced their proposed model for a republic on 13 January 2022, the Australian Choice Model. The model would entail a process where the State and Territory Parliaments each nominate one candidate to be the Head of State, and the Federal Parliament nominates up to three candidates. The list of these candidates would then be put to a vote where the public would elect their preferred candidate and would serve for a five-year term. A majority of ARM members voted to support the policy, however the policy announcement raised concerns and criticisms from the Australian Monarchist League, as well as other republicans, including former Prime Minister Paul Keating and former New South Wales Premier Bob Carr. Critics such as Carr claim that a head of state who is elected by the public could cause conflict with a Prime Minister and Parliament. Past ARM Chair Peter FitzSimons dismissed these criticisms, claiming that a head of state's powers would be limited and would be unable to dismiss a Prime Minister.
The pond would have made it simpler, just five names voted on by fed pollies in joint sitting, but the notion that there's not already a presidential style of politics around the PM is risible. Just ask the liar from the shire ...
As for getting it wrong, you can't blame mug punters for that cur of a Kerr or other epic duds of the Peter Hollingworth kind ...or the very first dud, featured in the "Hopetoun Blunder" ...
You have to do a bit of reading to get to the end of that saga ...
Publicly humiliated by the parliamentary rebuke, still in relatively ill health, and now under financial duress; on 5 May Hopetoun announced to the Colonial Office his desire to be recalled from the position. The Colonial Office expressed displeasure at the actions of the Barton government and complied with the request.
Though newspapers and politicians were divided on who was to blame for the sudden resignation, and many tried to dissuade Hopetoun from his decision, ultimately it became clear that Hopetoun's perceptions that the governor-general would be a position analogous to the Viceroy of India or similar elaborate position were out of touch with public perceptions of the role. Hopetoun's attempts to serve Australia as a glamorous figure of the British Empire had brought him into conflict with domestic politics and ultimately were cause for the abrupt end to his term
Put it another inglorious way ...
And so to end on a few other topics not discussed this day, speaking as we are of idle worship of false gods and foolish talking tampons ...
'And to use it as a pathetic attempt to get subscriptions?'
ReplyDeleteWhat was it again the Chairman said about Crikey?
Ah, yes: "Murdoch “remains confident that the court would ultimately find in his favour, however, he does not wish to further enable Crikey’s use of the court to litigate a case from another jurisdiction that has already been settled and facilitate a marketing campaign designed to attract subscribers and boost their profits”."
Et tu, Rupe?
While I would not presume to speak for all Dame Groan cultists - looking at her recent writings, I wonder if it is not time for her to remove her words from the rigging of the Flagship. That way, in time, she could become like other cult figures - we could take up the diversion of too many 'contributors', set out what Rupert has signalled as the issue of the day, and make up our own words for 'what would Dame Groan have said about this?' There is ample scope for speculation - she is agin' immigration, until she seeks a frothy coffee on a Sunday morning; budgets must be balanced, or, ideally, in surplus (gummints storing money in Srooge McDuck-style tanks, for Mins. of Finance to swim around in - but never, never, spend on benefits for taxpayers), and, otherwise, the standard response to almost everything - anything a gummint sets out to do will fail, incurring several multiples of its cost estimate, because. Just - because.
ReplyDeleteYeah that's really something, isn't it? What would happen to all that money that the government running a budgetary surplus every year would accumulate ? A few $billion every year, and pretty soon we're talking real money here - of course, then the government, surely back to being Libs, could keep on spending $28billion per annum on 'contractors and consultants' couldn't it. We might even accumulate enough to pay for Snowy Mk 2. Oops, no, that might benefit the taxpayers which is forbidden under the ter,ms of accumulating right-wing surpluses.
DeleteFor months, almost every article on Chuck’s Big Do has contained some version of “you’d have to be extremely old to have more than the vaguest memory of the last Coronation”.
ReplyDeleteNaturally, today’s Polonius offering kicks off with “I well remember the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in June 1953”….
At least he included the “II”, making clear he wasn’t referring to the ascension of Elizabeth Tudor.
After that it’s the usual guff, padded out with cribbing and quotations, but I was intrigued by Polonius’ reference to “Don’t ask for credit” signs hanging in “what were called milk bars”. I was under the impression that such signs were supposedly once widespread in all types of small retail establishments. Is Polonius implying that he once hung out in milk bars? Was he indeed some 1950s hipster - a Bodgie perhaps - standing by the juke box, combing back his Brylcreemed hair as he read the latest publication of the National Civic Council? The mind boggles.
As for Ned, it’s a pity that he no longer produces those podcast readings of his articles. This one would surely be a certain cure for insomnia, causing even the worst sufferer’s eyelids to start dropping after a couple of minutes. That was certainly its effect on me.
As for Dame Groan, the gist of her article seems clear from the introduction- strike a balance between expenditure and restraint. How much do they pay her for such stunning insights?
You have the thanks of a grateful nation for ploughing through all this rubbish on what’s supposed to be a day of rest, DP. I trust that the Crown will recognise your efforts with some suitable gong in the next Honours List.
Given he was born in 1945 - therefore just barely making it as a member of the pre-Boomer 'Silent generation' - Polonius would have been all of 8 years old at the time (the same age as Doggy Bov was when he was a 'Scout'; oh those reptiles are precocious). I was 10 years old at the time and don't remember at all such a minor event in the life of a kid as "coronation" (whatever the hell that was) in far away and long ago Britain.
DeletePolonius: "Fr Goodwin's essential point was that the abbey was stolen from our lot by the Protestants." What did I tell you ? This 'Catholic' Trinity can't even defend a major abbey against the Protestants, so what hope have they in proselytising the heathen. No wonder that after 2000 years there's still only about 1 in 7 of the world population that believe in them.
ReplyDeleteAnd then: "It's a bit much even for the Archbishop of Cantebury to petition the Almighty that King Charles be immortal. It's a big ask." But no it isn't: Charles, like every possessor of a God made and installed immortal soul is thereby immortal and will spend eternity (there being no "rest of" for something that never ends) praising God. What he was asking is merely that Charles remain in mortal flesh and not have to go through that "dying then being restored to bodily existence" that everybody else has to. A very small ask indeed, actually.
What was that bit about how "one needs some intelligence in order to be irrational" ? I'm beginning to wonder.
PS: do you think any of 'em have even heard about Cartaphilus or Lazarus of Bethany ? Do you think any of 'em can remember for 5 minutes what it is they claim to believe ?
DeleteI’m a mite disappointed at the absence of Our Henry from today’s Cut-Out And Keep Oz Extravaganza. Surely the well hasn’t run dry after his Friday outpouring? He barely went back to the Middle Ages on that occasion.
ReplyDeleteIf the king had no clothes he would just be naked and completely vulnerable just like the rest of us - the eight billion.
ReplyDeleteFor a falling-off-your-chair-laugh picture all of those who attended the coronation with no clothes on!
Especially all of those who wore some kind of official fancy dress whether the king and queen, the various "royals", the religious and the military.
Oh, and Dorothy - on this day, thank you for the 'Special, Truly Unique Gala' reminder of the Hopetoun display of entitlement in meddling in what a bunch of colonials were foolish enough to think of as their version of federation.
ReplyDeleteThere are 8 billion unique languages on the 3rd planet, and this has been several of them.
DeleteNoodlenut Neddles: "And it is a binding legal compact as the new monarch [pssst: "sovereign"] swears to his duties. The oath is central to the foundations of the common law." And may even be the reason why there is still such a formally established British Royalty - who else has a "common law".?
ReplyDeleteThen we have: "The coronation of King Charles [Sovereign Charles if you please] 70 years later [after Lilibet 1st] comes in a society beset by division, confusion and the anarchical assault on tradition." But what about 'Wokism' Ned ? You didn't mention Wokism ! But I just love that "anarchical assault", don't you ?
"Dear sweet long absent lord, he even managed to drag in climate science?" Yep, and not only that but also the tireless reptile favourite: "identity politics"! Even more terrible than "wokism", just fancy anybody ever having an "identity" that they want to express - no reptile would ever do that, would they.
Just a little something for our dedicated - and seriously irrational, though evidence for intelligence is still being sought - reptile denialists:
ReplyDeleteClimate scientists first laughed at a ‘bizarre’ campaign against the BoM – then came the harassment
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/may/07/climate-scientists-first-laughed-at-a-bizarre-campaign-against-the-bom-then-came-the-harassment
Oh and look: just a couple of item heds over at Graudian:
Delete‘First proper day of winter’: snow and hail blanket parts of NSW and ACT as cold front settles across south-east
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/07/first-proper-day-of-winter-snow-and-hail-blanket-parts-of-nsw-and-act-as-cold-front-settles-across-south-east
Vietnam records highest ever temperature of 44.1C
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/may/07/vietnam-records-highest-ever-temperature-of-441c
See, the world is both cooling and heating at the very same time, and people can live in Australia and holiday in Vietnam, and vice versa, to share the benefits every year.
You could almost say they cancel each other out, GB. Net result: a pleasant clime.
Delete