In which the pond throws many reptiles at the wall, and only draws the line at the kitchen sink ...

 

The pond was so disappointed at yesterday's outing with the reptiles that today the pond thought it might throw everything at the wall and see if anything stuck ...

First up is Col and though Col will take his time, Col will make a first class call for the ongoing use of sweet, innocent, virginal coal ...

Sort of spoils it with Col in the second par urging that we need to keep coal plants open longer, but steady, steady, the first thing to do is to freak out at that snap of a fiendish array of deeply threatening solar panels. (Climate change? Meh).

The reptiles know their renewables FUD porn, and there's a lot more before the final impassioned cry for sweet, virginal innocent Oz coal ...

Or perhaps you could just go off grid altogether, but that's another story ... on with the FUD...

Naturally there's another terrifying snap of an astonishingly alarming sight ...

... then it's on to a rousing final plea for dinkum sweet innocent Oz coal-fuelled plants ...

Done and dusted, with the pond reliving the terrifying blackouts it faced this summer, at least until it realised the bulb had blown in the kitchen...

Then it was on to Killer's news from America ...

Marge has been in top form of late ... time and again she's scored attention ...

Inevitably Killer was entranced ...

But everybody agreed Marge was right ...

Killer tried to repair the damage by closing the Gaetz, but the clown circus had delivered the fun ...

Phew, that's a relief, and so to a serve of prattling Polonius ...

The aged dullard really must stop listening to the ABC. He should know his obsessive compulsive addiction always triggers him, though it rarely triggers him when ABC management is caught out tugging the forelock to Jewish lobby groups ... per Crikey ... (paywall)

Polonius wasn't having any of that from the rebellious cardigan wearers, he was incredibly tolerant and accepting ... and now it's time for the patented Polonial history lesson ...

This is a very convenient way for Polonius to take a sidestep around the ongoing Gaza genocide and the occupation of the West Bank ... per Al Jazeera ...a sampling ...

Grim stuff, but water off a duck's back for Polonius ...

Is it anti-semitism to draw attention to an ongoing genocide? Or is that cry of anti-semitism the first refuge of genocide-loving scoundrels?

Never mind, the dog botherer was also on hand to ravage the ABC, though his particular bête noire, as usual and as always, was climate science ...

The dog botherer was straight out of the gate ...

There were a couple of snaps to go with the outburst about the climate ...

As we're dealing with figures, please allow the pond to note this sample from back in October 2023 ...

Poor old dog botherer, number 6 behind Sharri (disrespect intended) and there's plenty more here from 2023 .

Truth to tell, the loons after dark don't always make the cut when it comes to ratings, such is their irrelevance, and it's easy to see why Fox News is desperate to work out how it might appeal to vulgar youff, given its aging demographic ...

Perhaps that's why people in glass houses like to throw stones...

Is it wrong for the pond to note that the dog botherer's mob are just a passing joke?

Okay, okay, it's not as funny as the dog botherer himself ...

At this point the reptiles interrupted with a snap designed to promote the ABC, so the pond felt the need to rush past it ... who wants to see a smiling, happy chap, when you can see the dog botherer contorted in misery and hate?

What we needed is someone censorious, frowning, deeply unhappy that there are those in the world with the temerity and cheek to disagree with him...

That's more like it, Oscar the Grouch in glare mode ... on with the glaring ...

Is there any reason for the depth of the bitterness? Try these figures from January 2024...

Down to number 8 at 32k ... time to hold a party ... though apparently some must find it hard going, or at least the need to pay to hear this sort of dross ...

Hmm, of all the people to talk about seeing the results in the ratings ...

And so to a bonus, and the pond can hear the shrieking and the cries of enough already, more than enough, but the pond promised it would throw everything at the wall and none of it has stuck in the noggin for more than a nanosecond, and the last offering is guaranteed to do the same.

What's more the pond can certify that this offering from Dame Slap is completely, totally, uniquely "Lehrmann matter" free, usually a barrier to enjoying the Dame and resulting in many red cards. 

It's also free of sense and intelligence, what you might call the Neighbours of lizard Oz column writing ... (the pond is proud to boast it has never seen an episode of Neighbours, nor any of Home and Away, but does confess to having been gulled in to watching a couple of episodes of Number 96).

This is Dame Slap trying to be humorous, starting with that talk of vulgar youff, but the pond can still hear the cry, why, for the love of the long absent lord?

Easy. Think of this as another step in the weirdness of being a reptile. Think the bromancer, but instead of Billy Joel, think the Spice Girls; instead of Elton John, think the Beckhams; and so on. The pond will cheerfully offer a full refund to anyone pretending not to be entertained by the entertainment references.

To begin, that opening snap features a one time Oz pop and soap opera starlet, a woman now well past her starlet prime, with her May 1983 birthday putting her in 4 0 - that's four oooh - territory ...

Whenever the pond is confronted by a novelty item, it always reaches for its TV Tropes ...

Auto-Tune: Used to vocoder her voice in most of State Of Mind.

Celebrity Endorsement: In addition to film and television roles, Valance has also appeared in ads for Schwarzkopf hair care products and 1800 Reverse. In 2011 Valance appeared in an advert for Foster's Gold bottled beer

Cover Version: "Kiss Kiss" Was a cover of a cover of the Turkish singer Tarkan's "Kiss Kiss".

Intercourse with You: Most of State Of Mind.

Lens Flare Censor: Strategically placed lens flare preserve her modesty in the "Kiss Kiss" video.

Ms. Fanservice: Spends a lot of "Kiss Kiss" naked covered only by Lens Flare Censor and a lot of her roles take advantage of her sex appeal.

New Sound Album: State Of Mind was rather forward-thinking electric pop.

Obsession Song: "Desire" "Tongue Tied" "Double Take", "Everything I Hate"

Spiritual Successor: Kind of filled in the space between Kylie Minogue albums in 2002 and 2003.

Refuge in Audacity: In her time she was particularly seen as out there.

The Rival: To Delta Goodrem, to Kylie Minogue, To Vanessa Amorosi, to Britney Spears in various ways in her time.

Throw in a legal dispute, obligatory for the field...

In 2003, Valance fired her then-manager Scott Michaelson (who owns Biscayne Partners Pty Ltd) by phone, 15 months before his contract was due to expire. Biscayne Partners Pty. Ltd. sued Valance Corp., won their case and were awarded damages by the Supreme Court of New South Wales.

During the trial, Valance's mother claimed that Michaelson was negligent in his duties as a manager, which forced her to take over from his role as manager. Former Neighbours co-star Kym Valentine also gave evidence that Valance "said she was feeling bad, a bit stressed out, because she was leaving Scott" and that "she said the solicitors for her record company would get her out of the contract and would be faxing him the paper work (from the UK) to do so." Valance denied that she told Valentine this conversation in court, even though she had signed an affidavit where she stated she had no recollection of the conversation.

Justice Clifford Einstein said, "I have given close consideration to the question of whether or not the circumstances presently before the Court which do, it seems to me, show a calculated disregard of the rights of Biscayne as well as a cynical pursuit of benefit". The court subsequently ordered Valance Corp. pay $350,000 to Biscayne Partners Pty. Ltd. Of this amount, $47,264.56 was "from shares Ms Valance and Mr Michaelson had bought together on the London Stock Exchange", though the court did not award in favour of Biscayne getting a percentage of sales of her album, State of Mind.

As for Dame Slap's attempts at whimsy and comedy ...

The pond restrained itself for as long as it could, but finally snapped ...

At this point the reptiles slipped in a snap of Gwneth ...

.

.. but if the pond wanted humour in that area, it would turn to Colbert's Covetton House and its celebration of overpriced Goop or the Goop Lab ... or many other riffs on that theme.

Those are ancient in TV terms, and yet suddenly Dame Slap has discovered the Goop? And other aged pop icons pretending to represent vulgar youff, though certainly not this decade's vulgar youff ...

Oh smart enough, smart enough, full blown, ripe rocket science...

And the reptiles matched the pond with their own snap ...

What does it all mean? When it comes to the crunch, Dame Slap really prefers addle-headed pop stars and no doubt is a big Kid Rock fan and occasionally takes her Uzi out to the firing range to shoot up some cans of Bud Light ...

Or perhaps she's just a ditzy blonde doing what ditzy blondes must do ...

Roll on Brexit, and hasn't that gone splendidly... the Graudian even has a tag to keep track of the latest follies... you know, Britain is becoming a toxic chemical dumping ground - yet another benefit of Brexit, or contra, Britain doesn't need 'reform'. It just needs to rejoin the EU.

Attempting frivolity and whimsy means that Dame Slap can avoid her own MAGA-cap-donning part in the follies ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, it's easy enough to see why the pond left this tosh to last ... and took a view on the illustrative snaps ...

If the pond wanted frivolity, it'd taken a turn with the dancing bug and tease the house of Mouse John Oliver style ...

Not to worry, we're finally at the last gobbet in this bumper book of reptile follies ... and here the pond must mount a pre-emptive strike...

Readers will note that in the opening line of the next, and thankfully, last gobbet, Dame Slap seems to think that The Globe and Mail is part of left-wing media.

That's a measure of how far planet Janet has drifted into the barking mad far right wilderness above the faraway tree. 

As any fuel woud kno, the G and M has always trended right ... (wiki the rag here for the footnotes).

In the 1990s, the Globe and Mail was the main media vehicle for Canada's right-wing. In 2011, Canadian sociologist Elke Winter said that the Globe and Mail was considered politically moderately conservative to centrist and is less socially liberal than its competitor, the Toronto Star.  Winter writes that "While the Globe has probably lost parts of its more conservative and corporate readership to the National Post, it continues to cater to the Canadian political and intellectual elite." According to one 2006 publication, the newspaper was considered an "upmarket" newspaper, in contrast to downmarket newspapers such as the Toronto Sun.

In federal general elections, The Globe and Mail has generally endorsed right-wing parties. The paper endorsed Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives in 1984 and 1988. In 1993, the paper endorsed a Liberal minority government ("We do not trust the Liberals to govern unguarded"). Practically, the newspaper endorsed Preston Manning's right-wing Reform Party in Ontario and West to avoid vote splitting. In 1998, the newspaper endorsed the Progressive Conservatives and it endorsed the Liberals in 2000 and 2004. The newspaper endorsed Stephen Harper's Conservative Party in the 2006, 2008, and 2011 elections; in the 2015 election, the paper again endorsed the Conservatives but called for the party's leader, Prime Minister Stephen Harper, to step down. In the 2019 federal election it did not make an endorsement.

And writer Stephen Marche isn't a scribbler for a left-wing rag, he's a Dame Slap clone ...

As there might be a paywall, why not a couple more examples...

Yep, it's pretty much what you'd expect in the lizard Oz most days of the week ...

Why this Marche against Time even knows how to channel the dog botherer ...

And that's why, when it came to the pond reading that Trudeau was copping it from the left-wing media, the pond had a good horse laugh ... and it gets better when the MAGA-cap-wearer gets to talking about right-wing populists of the mango Mussolini kind, as if she'd never stepped out into the New York night to celebrate - wearing her MAGA cap, and gloating at a populist winning ...

Anybody who thinks that someone in the area of forty or other tired media types of the Beckham kind represent the wisdom of vulgar youff is beyond the valley of the fools, and must live on planet Janet, far above the faraway tree ...

Lest all the above not feel like a total bust, please allow the pond to finish up with a TT ... thereby giving Uncle Elon a chance to join in the cavalcade of clowns ...