In which the Caterist does a Dame Groan, and the Major does ... a Major of course ...

 

The pond recently had some work done on a site by a Ukrainian coder. Relax, he's not ducking the front line, he's in government work and this was just a sideline.

It all worked out well, and the pond is pleased that it could send a little money in country. If looking for a coder, why not think Ukraine? The pond has used coders of other nationalities - Vietnamese, Chinese (but never Indian, world spammer central) - but there was the added pleasure of knowing Ukraine could still do business as usual while a sociopath hammered the country. When "send in the cannibals" is the war cry of the sociopath, every little bit helps.

Back to herpetology studies and consider the pond an immediate convert. 

The Graudian published a piece by Archie Bland, How the Daily Mail became the Boris and Dorries show – and left middle England behind, and it's a wonderful example of an A+ reptile study.

Not that Bland could be expected to sort out the mysterious ways of those involved in the Daily Snail (not a cousin of the Currish Snail up north in toad territory), though he does a splendid job charting the arcane entrails, the contradictions and absurdities, the power struggles and the knifings (much blood on the floor, let there be snail blood). 

The pond can't begin to contemplate the strength of will required to scribble this line with a straight face: "It’s only a few weeks since the newspaper splashed on Nadine Dorries’ claims that a shadowy confidant of Sunak had murdered his ex-girlfriend’s brother’s rabbit ..."

Following on, there was more ...

...coverage of the Covid inquiry has seemed largely motivated by keeping Boris Johnson out of it. 
For many Mail staffers, the urgent question is not whether the Tory right is remotely serious about the next election, but why the Mail has allowed itself to be the vessel for their furies.

First, implacable support for Johnson throughout Partygate; then the endorsement of Liz Truss, and disgust that her removal “looks like nothing more than a coup by the Tories’ liberal wing”; then fantasies about a Johnson comeback, and a gigantic sulk as Sunak took over – with a warning that some “will find it hard to forgive Mr Sunak for wielding the knife against his former boss”. Johnson and Dorries are now star columnists, and the abandonment of Sunak only ever feels like one liberal prime ministerial gesture away.
“It’s felt pretty deranged for quite a long time,” one reporter said. “You know you’re not writing for the LRB [London Review of Books], and that’s fine, but you do expect to trust the judgment of the people in charge. There are a lot of talented people – but there have been so many calls now where we’re in a totally parallel reality.” Today, instead of a hotline to middle England, Verity’s Mail looks like the house publication of the Conservative party’s untrammelled id.

It all sounded so familiar - if you remember each day the pond must deal with deranged reptiles, and totally parallel realities, while reading the house publication for Captain Spud's untrammelled id ...

Not that the Graudian will notice or care, but the pond humbly suggests Mr Bland's proposed monthly media survey be made a feature in the colonial edition, because, as the Hollywood saying goes, that's entertainment... and an addition to the Weekly Beast as required reading would be great for herpetology students everywhere ...

The pond fears it doesn't have anything half as entertaining to hand this Monday ...but speaking of ids on the loose and in urgent need of a trammelling, there was the Major in his favourite far right perch in the digital edition ...

The pond will run wild with the Major in due course, but first to see if there was a sprinkling of Palestinian voices in the comments section ... as a balanced representative newspaper of record, the pond would expect the reptiles to back the MEAA backing the journos' Hamas pledge ...

The pond was of course using leaden, heavy irony, with a sprinkling of """'s devoted to Benji's cause, and one Ben Jensen offering a truly comical line about a "science deficit", apparently unaware that any day of the week you might find a climate science deficit in the lizard Oz.

Leaving aside the Albo bashing by simplistic Simon - is he still hanging around with Senator Bid? - the pond couldn't help but notice that a migrant was urging migrant bashing ... but the pond refused to indulge in a return bashing of a black sheep pond lavishing his sociological understanding on water in quarries whispering while scoring oodles of federal government cash in the paw...

Still, it was probably as naked as you could get, the urge to demonise the other, generate fear and loathing ... who better to do it than the Caterist?

Of course of course - the filthy rich dropping a motza on a pad in Bondi equals the weevils of migrants.

The pond realised where this was coming from and where it was going to and decided to lead with an immortal Rowe straight away ...

Talk about role models, state of the art migrant basher artistes, and the Caterist was right into it ... showing Dame Groan how it should be done ...

Migrants are certainly ruining everything ... just look at the Caterist ...

Well he did suggest migrant-bashing should be the new national sport ... along with Albo bashing, but the pond decided to shrink that snap ...

Of course when bashing, you need a set of figures, and so the Caterist was on to proving - in a scientific way, Ben Jensen - that migrants were the source of all misery and despair ...

Might this suggest - if the figures are true - and the pond would trust a Caterist stat as far as it could kick it in the shins - that instead of landing jobs promoting bigotry, hate and fear in the lizard Oz, some migrants have to do garbage collecting and fruit picking jobs of a kind snooty sociology students turn up at their noses at?

Never mind, there was more bigotry to follow, dressed up without much subtlety, as a Dame Groan rehash ...

Indeed, indeed, don't let a fear of spreading fear and loathing stop you ... and to help, the reptiles published a snap of two furtive-looking, skulking rats glaring into the ether. The pond usually shrinks or congregates the reptile snaps these days, but this one was a standalone beauty ...as good a study of ferals about to devour a passer-by as the pond has seen in recent times ...

What a pair of rogues and what a lead in to the final Caterest gobbet ...

Say what? Was that last sentence an admission that the Caterist was a visiting, interfering Pom who'd managed to land in the far right money train down under?

Never mind, his solution was to the point, with these the models ...

And only one discernible problem ...

It was such a good joke the pond did it twice. 

Is it wrong to mock the follicle challenged? Not on a desperate Monday where Palestinian bashing is all the go ... and so to the Major indulging in the sport ...

Ah memories ... the pond is now such an ancient institution that it can remember the days that the reptiles raged at bloggers, and even set up their own blog, the late and unlamented Punch in competition, such was the deep fear and anxiety, and every reptile worth his salt had a blog. Even Dame Slap was into blogs for a while ...

Still time never stands still, and the Major has never been short of finding something new to demonise, generally wherever you might find vulgar youff lurking ... and great minds think alike ...

Meanwhile on another planet ...

Enough already, on with the Major ... no need for a ban with him ...

The Federalist society? Isn't that the mob that fucked the Supreme Court?

Meanwhile on another planet there were some names being named in that lizard Oz story about journalists wanting to be journalists and look at all sides of a story ...

What was remarkable in that story - yes Jenna Clarke you wrote the story - was that there wasn't a single mention of the lizard Oz's response, nor that of the position of News Corp, nor any of any of its other allegedly independent in editorial policy local News Corp tabloid outlets, or the Sky News rabbit hole ...

Strictly speaking, it wasn't necessary. The bubble-wrapped hive mind was as one, and no one would try to paddle against the inexorable Benji-loving tide ...

Never mind, time for a big speech by the Major, deep in the hive mind...

Dear sweet long absent lord, the Major's now seeking to erase Palestine and Palestinians from the map, or better still denounce them as biblical invaders ...

Ah the British mandate, celebrated in L'Age way back on 20th October 1920 in Trove ...

John Oliver had the decency to be apologetic for what followed, but for some reason, the pond was reminded of that excellent link by a correspondent regarding the attempt to set up the promised land down under ... How this part of Australia almost became Israel ...

In 1939, Steinberg travelled to Australia to pursue his plan to resettle European Jews in Miriwoong country in eastern Kimberley — Western Australia's northernmost region.

Steinberg was an exiled Russian revolutionary who had served in Vladimir Lenin's government.

"His associates in the Freeland League had their eyes on land in Africa, South America and Palestine. But Steinberg had an almost religious fervour that the Kimberley was destined to be the Jewish homeland," Safran says in the documentary.

That would have produced some marvellous biblical distortions from the Major, but no doubt there's a biblical justification ... the pond understands that somewhere near Tamworth they dug up twelve gold plates providing firm evidence that Christ had visited Australia, and Tamworthians were the chosen tribe ...

Meanwhile, back with the Major there was a snap ...

... and then it was on to a final bout of ABC and Palestinian bashing, aided by another branch of the reptile hive mind ...

Funny how words can take on different meanings in different contexts, and how talk of "civilisation" can sound odd, and how blather about "defence of barbarism" might occasionally ring a little hollow ...