In which the pond hears cocks crowing thrice and offers a plague on sundry houses ...

 

If it had been a Labor politician, what's the chance that the reptiles would have been restrained? 

As it was Barners of Armidale (no longer Tamworth's shame) barely made it into the top of the lizard Oz edition ...

There was the dog botherer growling away in the preferred top extreme far right position, while Barners just stumbled his way into the bottom splashes ...

Was it because originally others first had the footage, with Nine setting the pace and the yarn featuring in the Nine papers?

That last line is the sting in the tail, and the pond thought it worth contrasting the style of  coverage.

Yes, the reptiles had the same snap at the start of the piece, though cropped to reduce the infamy...

But what followed was a peculiar defence and a celebration of love ...

As if to erase the image, the reptiles then ran a snap of the family man ... when at the bottom of the barrel, or deep in cups, always drag in the family ...

Then came more family ...

Blowing off steam? That's the euphemism for fall down drunk?

The Nine papers ran with the defence ...

Former deputy prime minister Michael McCormack, who was rolled for the Nationals leadership by Joyce in June 2021, told this masthead that “people will make up their own minds on what they think of the video”.
“But it does go to show modern society, where somebody chooses to video another person on the ground rather than going to help. Whatever happened to the good Samaritan?” McCormack said.
“He’s obviously on the ground and unwell. The person [taking the video] has realised it was Barnaby, because they wouldn’t just start filming anybody lying on the ground, and they’ve walked past, walked back and then walked back again past him and videoed.
“Why not keep the phone in the pocket and go say, ‘Hey mate are you all right?’”
Queensland Nationals MP Keith Pitt said Joyce had responded to the publication of the video, saying he was embarrassed. “I won’t be providing additional comments from the cheap seats,” Pitt said.
“It’s a poor reflection on society that passers-by reach for their phones first and a help hand second, or, in this case, it appears not at all.”

But they also noted that his colleagues had little to be proud of ...

This is not the first time Joyce’s behaviour has attracted attention. The breakdown of his relationship with his first wife prompted then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to institute a “bonk ban” barring ministers from relationships with their staff.

In December 2021, The Saturday Paper reported that Joyce, then-deputy prime minister, urged his colleagues to be very careful about their conduct in public during the festive season as their photos could be taken anywhere.

According to the report, he urged colleagues to look after each other if they were drunk and send them home in cabs.

Well yes, it's clear enough that Barners has a bit of a problem, and so the defence grows a little thin ...

Not all responses were so glowing about Joyce’s behaviour. One Nationals MP, who had seen the footage but declined to be named, said that when parliamentarians entered public life they forfeited certain rights.
“One of those is getting pissed and lying in the main street of our nation’s capital. This is complete buffoonery and if the Nationals leader doesn’t use this to consign him to the backbench for eternity then I don’t know what will,” the MP said. “I’m embarrassed for the Nationals, I’m embarrassed for the Coalition and I’m embarrassed for Australia.”
Nationals leader David Littleproud has declined to comment.
Campion told news.com.au that she was on the phone with Joyce at the time.
“I’ve been with Barnaby when we have found a man in the same state on the street and rather than take a video and sell it to the media, he picked the guy up and took him home. We later found out there had been problems with his medication and if he hadn’t helped him back he could have been in a very bad situation,” Campion said.
Nationals deputy leader Perin Davey said she shared Campion’s and her colleagues’ concerns “that someone would film Barnaby rather than checking to see he is OK. I am glad that Barnaby is OK and it wasn’t anything more serious than overbalancing.”

Actually addiction is more serious than overbalancing, and the first of the 12 steps is to admit the problem. And the second first step is for his colleagues and those getting drunk with Barners not to have looked to blame the passerby armed with a phone, but instead to have looked out for their mate ...at a minimum, tuck him in a cab and send him to his living quarters, or perhaps suggest ways he might begin to deal with his problem ...

Now just to lighten the tone a little, there was this in Crikey ...(paywall)

Crikey has yet to reach the heights of the venerable Meade, leading this week with a story about how the reptiles set up Steven Miles - namely Sky News's Adam Walters - and then in the usual way of the hive mind, how the entire mob piled on, including but not limited to the Bolter and the dog botherer ...

There was another report by the venerable Meade of the lizard Oz's sports department being reduced to just two reporters, which helped explain why there'd been a small boost to reptile profits ... and the venerable Meade ended with the Bolter affair, with the Bolter demanding the release of bodycam footage, because he's incapable of admitting error.

Whatever, the point surely is that the more who provide source material for herpetology students are doing invaluable work ...there's room for the venerable Meade and Crikey and Media Watch and a whole lot more because herpetology studies can be a chortle while being a bore ... 

And so it was back to the grind for the pond ...

The pond knew its duty - dog botherer time - and for once the pond could safely pass on a shrieking bromancer, having a go at jolly Joe, because perhaps dimly, the bro recognises that if the tangerine tyrant wins in November, Vlad the impaler will be given an enormous boost, and the bro might even have to confront the prospect of a real war with China, if dictator Xi seizes the chance to do over Taiwan...

The immortal Rowe summed up the dilemma of having two candidates in their dotage...

It's always in the detail ...

Just to be certain there was no escaping the dog botherer the pond checked below the fold ...

There was the dog botherer again, and such are the reduced circumstances of the commentary team that there were two outing by the bouffant one ...

It's not just the sports team... the graphics department is just a ghost in the shell, and the comments section with two bouffant hair dos?

Hacks gotta hack, but the oscillating fan finding hope in the Teals?

It was just too weird. Didn't the man read the rag in which he appeared? Was he sublimely unaware that the reptiles had spent years demonising the Teals, such that the pond had to banish the colour from its wardrobe?

Never mind, it was finally time to boogie with the man ...

The pond could immediately see where the dog botherer was going with all this, including that line about trash TV. 

While the bouffant one's hackery was sublimely unaware of a big problem, tidily summed up by the immortal Rowe ...

... the dog botherer knew that the only way forward was to go full Shakespearean ...

Romeo: Courage, man, the hurt cannot be much.

Mercutio:  No, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as

a church door, but ’tis enough. ’Twill serve. Ask for

me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man. I

am peppered, I warrant, for this world. A plague o’

both your houses! Zounds, a dog, a rat, a mouse, a

cat, to scratch a man to death! A braggart, a rogue, a

villain that fights by the book of arithmetic! Why the

devil came you between us? I was hurt under your

arm.

And so, zounds, a pox on both their houses it was ...

That's how deep in the trough of despond the dog botherer was ... it was almost biblical ...

First the set-up ...

Peter answered and said unto him, Though all men shall be offended because of thee, yet will I never be offended. Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, That this night, before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. Peter said unto him, Though I should die with thee, yet will I not deny thee. Likewise also said all the disciples.

Then the pay-off ...

And a maid saw him again, and began to say to them that stood by, This is one of them. And he denied it again. And a little after, they that stood by said again to Peter, Surely thou art one of them: for thou art a Galilaean, and thy speech agreeth thereto. But he began to curse and to swear, saying, I know not this man of whom ye speak. And the second time the cock crew. And Peter called to mind the word that Jesus said unto him, Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny me thrice. And when he thought thereon, he wept.

Anybody who heard them at the time knew they were a bald-faced lie, destined to be broken as glibly as they were made ...

TONY ABBOTT: No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS. - SBS News, 6 September, 2013 (Media Watch)

And now the dog botherer had to defend the potato man's back flip.

How else to do it than to hang the onion muncher out to dry?

Zounds, what sorry tale is this ... so many bad memories came flooding back ...

It's always in the detail ...

Please, somebody, anybody, save the dog botherer, call in Juliar ...

Sad, desperate to the point of pitiful. Plato, Aristotle, trash TV? This isn't hole in the bucket man day, and yet, after all the bus throwing, still the dog botherer tries to insist that none have been so bad as Albo's ...

So many to throw under the 'pox on both houses' bus ...

... and yet where is the reptile's warrior? The man who made defiance and negativity an art form. The man who defeated the Voice so that nothing good might happen ...

How to take as your standard this noble warrior ...

Well the dog botherer did his best ... and was left to mutter imprecations about hubris, and warn against euphoria ...

Sheesh, it was an even worse week for the reptiles than the pond realised, and only the dog botherer's feeble attempt to drag in a reality TV show helped the pond comprehend how dire ...

If you're going to go the cock crowing thrice and call a plague o' both houses, at least go with the classics ...

What else? Well a shadow passed over the pond's world when it stumbled on the lizard Oz editorialist's attempt to deal with the week ...

Fight for the values? Offer a better alternative?

But then the pond noted something much more ominous. 

Dear sweet long absent lord, they'd hidden "Ned's" natter out of sight, and so the pond's Sunday mission, should the pond choose to accept it, was already clear. 

Cope with nattering "Ned" and Polonius railing at the ABC, all in the one outing.

Worse really, than Hercules being confronted by the Augean stables or Sisyphus by that bloody rock ...

What next? What further pain? What further suffering? What else would the long absent lord send to torture the reptiles?

Luckily that can be left for another day ...