In which the pond takes it easy, with just a serve of prattling Polonius and a stupid boy ...

 

It would have been too obvious to have led with this infallible Pope yesterday while contemplating the reptiles attempt to cultivate a culture war in the run up to Oz day ...

.

.. and besides the pond wants to keep the culture war fomenting away, especially when it can result in great impressions of great Karens (why did the pond think he was just a Queensland plod?)...

In much the same way the pond didn't bother juxtaposing this with the outpourings of sudden, new, wildly enthusiastic Angelic one  repuglican ...

The reptiles cry out for a referendum but how they like to discover their queens, and not, the pond hastens to add, the sort of queen you could once find in Les Girls in the X .. (and that's not that X).

The angelic one's head says republic, but the reptile hearts say long live the dinkum Queen ...

Okay, okay, the pond is still in holyday bludging mode, and what better way to have a bludging meditative Sunday than to turn to prattling Polonius ... about the only old school reptile, along with the hole in the bucket man, to stay the reptile holyday course ...

Of course it's the bloody ABC, once more in the thickets of Polonial heresy, and rightly subject to Polonial inquisition ...

Is this the right moment to mention to Polonius's own tome was published by MUP and that the University of Melbourne isn't adverse to tickling the government till for a little cash in the paw?

Not to worry, evidently the print run hasn't been exhausted because the Polonial site was still offering copies at fifty bucks the pop (the pond preferred to get its copy from the street library and a mug punter who'd actually forked over hard cash, then realised they'd been dudded) ...

No doubt Polonius will some day regale us with tales of the sinister links between MUP, government funding and the Sydney Institute, but in the meantime, the pond must move on  ...

An excellent point, and the pond is glad Polonius raised it, because the man wasn't just sozzled at the Melbourne Cup ...

...he was also sozzled in Tamworth, once centre of the known universe, until Barners ruined it, as this story recalls ...

No doubt Whitlam had an axe to grind, though it's a mighty witty and pretty axe - our Henry would be blown away by that Caligula joke - but the pond will seize any chance to show off mighty Tamworth, especially the front page of the mighty Northern Daily Bleeder ...

After that flurry of excitement, Polonius tailed away ... and never mind that over the years, such was the guilt of the head prefect at what he'd done that he changed his ways and became a full agrarian socialist, with all sorts of dire left-leaning attitudes ...

As for the MUP, it's either your university fees or your government taxes at work, but you can still cough up fifty bucks for a first edition from 2015 ...

And so to the bonus, and early on Sunday morning, things looked grim ...

Frankly the pond has rarely had any interest in the oscillating fan, nor interest in jolly Joe off on yet another colonial excursion.

The United States can never resist sending in a gun boat or two (how long before the mutton Dutton has the bright idea to send a gun boat north to Papua New Guinea? What's that, we no longer have gun boats equipped with Gatlings, and must fire off the odd missile, which would be frightfully expensive and pointless?)

It all feels as if it's from another time ...

Gad sir, those were the Persian days ...

Never mind, yesterday the pond encouraged the young things embarking on the culture wars for cheap crap from China Oz day to maintain the rage.

And today the pond was offered a choice between Stevo brooding being being an old reptile and Fergo boasting about being a young reptile.

The pond had half-expected the Fergo piece to steal into the night, but there it was again, and so today the pond thought it might indulge another aspiring reptile, looking for a place in the sun while the heavyweights are on holydays and the silly season is in full swing ... 

Who better to fill the bill than young Fergo?

Hmm, perhaps not the most exciting track record, and the pond confesses it was bitterly disappointed with Fergo's effort ...

It seemed largely an attempt to use up as many stock photos as possible while brooding about vulgar youff in a fluff-gathering, navel-gazing way. Admittedly, that's the patented reptile inhouse style, but still...

After that opening snap salvo, this was about as long a gobbet of text as Fergo could muster ...

The pond got a sinking feeling that this had been designed to make the pond feel good about the old farts when they returned from the holydays.

Then began the cascade of snaps ...

... followed by another short burst ... which remarkably began with a use of the third person, always the sign of a first class wanker.

You know, like this: this writer rarely feels accomplished. Scribbling about the reptiles is kindergarten stuff. One is chief of staff at a boring, banal blog, at an age beyond counting, after all ..

Now see how the pond wasn't kidding, he really did go into the Royal one box ... with that "after all" the real Bertie Wooster kicker ...

After all (if all is said and done and scribbled), if this is the future of the lizard Oz, if Fergo is a bright young thing, and at such a tender age, one hesitates to say it, but the future for this useless climate science-denying, genocide-loving far right propaganda sheet, supplied by an interfering foreign corporation, looks bleak. 

One doesn't know how to quite put it, but one feels this scribbler is over-accomplished at doing an impression of a mediocre vulgar youff ... one certainly is put off by the simpering pandering of "a great newspaper." Is preening and crawling up the bum of those in charge the way one gets ahead these days? Grate newspaper perhaps ...

Oh and then came another snap ...

Egad sir, the pond began to yearn for the good old days when drunks attended the Tamworth show, and furriners knew their place ...

Now the bloody post office is in ruins, Rish! rules the roost, and all the Brexited mob can do is hang around with the US for another Middle East adventure ...

Meanwhile, Fergo's gobbets seemed to be getting shorter and shorter, though he managed three pars if you count a sentence as a par...

Really?  Allowed entry into the lizard Oz Valhalla, the commentary section, where giants of the bromancer and "Ned" kind lurk, and that's the best he can do?

Not another bloody snap ...

At least Fergo managed to blurt out three slightly longer pars in a row in the next gobbet, though littered with a stunning mindlessness and a grasp of meandering mediocrity that was startling to behold ...

And then came another snap ...

The pond almost regretted it hadn't paid attention to the latest middle east adventure ... reminiscent of days of yore, where oldies ran the world in style and knew how to stomp on scorpions ... (you can hear Dame Slap off in the distance, cheering on the caricatures, as a way of stomping DEI to death)...

Luckily the pond was down to the penultimate gobbet, with four full generous paragraphs...

Yep, it had been a definite mistake, and Fergo was off the pond's list for the foreseeable future. The pond never thought it would miss the bromancer, but then came another mindless snap ...

And then came the final gormless gobbet, in a style which made Molesworth seem like a champion of Latin ...

If only Fergo had read The Atlantic before he started on this exercise in mindless nonsense ...

It might have made a useful emetic and Fergo could have purged himself before he began ...

It might have helped prompt a little analysis that was deeper than a soggy serve of avocado on toast ... you know, hidden depths, still waters running deep, there's more to a generational book than its wretched cover ...

The New Yorker did it too? The least the pond can do is link to Louis Menand back on 11th October 2021, It’s Time to Stop Talking About “Generations”, From boomers to zoomers, the concept gets social history all wrong, though the pond can never tell if its outside the paywall ...

Do vulgar youths ever stray outside the hive mind, do they ever venture beyond the bubble, or do they stay permanent bubble boys?

And so on and on, but no, Fergo's addicted to it, the way some are addicted to astrology and some to phrenology, others to casting runes, or inspecting entrails, or just indulging in a hunt for ectoplasm ...

Stupid boy, as Captain Mainwaring might once have said...

Mr Cheeseman: Captain Fergo, man of action! Feared young scribbler. I'm right behind you, boy. The power of the press, remember. The power of the press!

Sorry, Fergo, one has to think that you're a lightweight. One associates your analysis with everything that is wrong with Gen X, or is that Gen Y, or is it Gen Z, or is it Gen Alpha and Omega? Whatever, Gen something or other, all under the heading vulgar youff... 

Continue your reptile studies and when you manage to graduate and move past self-congratulation, one might take another look, but not before one has returned to the bosom of veteran proponents of the hive mind... after all.... which is to say, after all, when in search of lunacy, one suspects that few will match the likes of the bromancer and the dog botherer.

And as the pond has been celebrating the empire, why not a Graudian cartoon for a closer ...