In which the reptiles turn nationalist and possibly Venezuelan or at least baseload dinosaur ...

The reptiles' devotion to dinkum clean Oz coal, oi, oi, oi, has got themselves into a classic bind in the past few days …

They've lathered themselves up into a frenzy about the way the government must build new coal stations by Xmas, and now they have a genuine militarist cabal in play, an authentic conspiracy with a Venezuelan tinge, and agrarian socialism is again on the move … and poor old nattering "Ned" has been forced to deal with the fall-out ...

How Ben Chifley must be dancing in heaven. Victory at last …and the reptiles have selected the very latest free enterprise model to drive ...

Week after week, the lizards of Oz have made coal the issue … and now poor old "Ned" has to clean up the mess ...

And lurking behind it all? No, it isn't actual climate science, it all has to do with a climate change debate, and the important thing is to forget the science and win the debate ...

The pond has the notion that poor old "Ned" was trying to say this …

Fiddlesticks. There's at least one store in south King that will still process film, and even keeps some in the fridge … who dares to say film cameras are dead?

At which point, it only seems fair to wheel in Dame Groan, nationaliser devotee, agrarian socialist extraordinaire, and antique camera lover ...

And don't forget that the onion muncher must displace Malware … the Monash Forum have worked that out too … so that a new luddite era might begin ...

Who knew that Dame Groan was your classic Chifley enthusiast? What next? Nationalise the banks, the pond says, confident that Dame Groan will heed the call …

But where is all this coming from? Well naturally there was the most agrarian socialist of all in the mix … good old Barners

The pond had wondered how long it would take for Barners to join the onion muncher in destabilising Malware … and the answer was not long at all, especially as the reptiles have been playing a sterling part … 

And so to the denials that it's got nothing to do with giving Malware a hard time … it's just a vigorous debate on the need to forget all the jibber jabber about markets and get on with the nationalising ...

In all their stories, the reptiles have been very keen to put on display two pages of the militaristic Monash agenda … 

The pond is just happy to note the existence of the military conspiracy, shades of that great military hero Captain Francis de Groot slashing the ribbon before the dreadful socialistic Jack Lang could cut it … except now the military conspiracy wants to nationalise the energy industry and in particular coal-fired power stations in a way that would make that dreadful socialistic Jack Lang clap hands with joy… give the banks a hard time, the pond says!

Is it any wonder the pond's brain hurts?

Well the pond has reams more of this tangle of knots and fools, lying to themselves while they also lie to the country, but while much has had to hit the cutting room floor, it would be remiss if at least the pond didn't run with the reptile feature of the day …

Uh huh …a secret plan that's about as secret as the front page of the lizard Oz…or as secret as dangling on a spit over a hot military conspiracy fire ...

Around this point the pond felt in desperate need of a cartoon, and luckily there was a Rowe to hand, with more Rowe always to hand here …

Phew, that felt better, and now before the pond can lurch towards a Pope cartoon, it's time for a little due diligence on this story … provided it all makes commercial sense, and the government is willing to help out, as any decent privatiser of profits and socialiser of losses has the right to expect ...

Indeed, it's all go, if they're able, which is to say if Malware and Josh are able to help out, and if they can, why then everything should be spiffing, and if not, why the onion muncher can replace Malware and Barners can return to his throne, and the country will be made safe one way or another ...

Phew, made it to the Pope cartoon. 

The pond admits to having nodded off a time or two - how hard is it to get the government to nationalise things and socialise the benefits of coal so that the reptiles might enter the future redeemed? What on earth could go wrong with a Venezuelan approach to things? Will Dame Slap scribble another furious story about the Greece of the South Pacific?

Never mind, the real point is the military conspiracy, and what joy it is to see the Pope so concerned about baseload dinosaurs … (and more baseload Pope here in a new grid shape)

In which the pond reluctantly joins Dame Slap in blaming ordinary Australians for everything that's wrong in the country, as we bid fair to become the Greece of the South Pacific ...

Why not start off with a reason why the pond found Armidale hard to handle?

Serves Barners right - living in a mental fog should be matched by living in a physical one …

As for the day's reptile reading, the pond still hasn't caught up with the Caterists and only reluctantly agreed to look at Dame Slap …

You see, the pond was touched to the heart by a recent petrol head story the reptiles borrowed from comrade in arms The Times …

This must be the first time the pond has paid attention to cars …but what a timely intervention.

How it suits the reptiles, deep this day in their devotion to coal, and - it has to be said - to the rampant socialism needed to overturn markets and quaint notions of capitalism at play, so that government might spend squillions saving dinkum Oz coal, oi, oi, oi …

The agrarian socialists are on the march …no wonder the smell of petrol intoxicates the reptile nostrils ...

Oh how they like grunt, oh how they like a manly car with muscles, and balls of steel, and fiery excitement, and look, big enough to work on a coal field of the mind if push came to shove...

Silly effete Jaguar … and the pond was looking forward to more stories in the lizard Oz about the way there's a return to newsprint, the benefits of vinyl, the new future for the 8-track, the joys of the Philips compact cassette, the importance of reel to reel, and the desire to revive VHS, along with stories about why streaming is just a passing fad and the future is in cable television … the reptiles have no idea why the pond wastes time streaming documentaries about bizarre Indian cultists setting up camp in Oregon when it could just spend a fortune hooking up with Foxtel…

But in lieu of all these exciting stories, the pond had to turn to Dame Slap, with deep reluctance, because she's still banging on about the late great cricket saga, and the pond is so over it …

But at least Dame Slap knows the real cause … the corruption in the heart of the common Australian, and soon enough we'll end up like Greece, and we all know, as we love our cultural stereotypes, what a lazy, shifty bunch they are ...

Ah the long suffering banks, tricked by perfidious and deceptive customers, and with not the first clue about how to check up on them and find out the true state of play.

How they suffer, and how right of Dame Slap to stick up for them ...

Oh, what a tangled web we weave, 
When first we practise to deceive! 
A Palmer too!—no wonder why 
I felt rebuked beneath her eye: 
I might have known there was but one Dame Slap
Whose look could quell the common Australian … (you too can be bored by Walter Scott here).

It did occur to the pond that valiantly standing up for the banks and savaging the ordinary, common, deceitful, lying, cheating, fraudulent Australian sounded strangely unDonald.

Drain the swamp? Nope, blame the bludgers, desperate to get above their station ...

Now whatever you do, please don't expect Dame Slap and the lizard Oz to move beyond their passionate abuse of ordinary Australians to worry about the behaviour of businesses big and small …but do expect a mention of Emma Alberici, the ABC, and, it should go without saying, "Orwellian"…

Oh and the sudden discovery of the concept of "shrinkage" …

Consensus is actually very hard to find on what the term ‘shrinkage’ means and what should be included and excluded when it is being calculated. Some authors regard it as a catch all for a wide range of losses suffered by retailers, including both crime-related events such as staff and customer theft, and errors incurred as part of the process of retailing, such as incorrect pricing, changes in price, damaged products and food items going out of date, while others only seem to use it to refer to variance in the value of expected and actual inventory. The origins of the word ‘shrinkage’ seems to have been traced back to the UK Co-operative Movement in the 1860s and from there it began to be adopted in other countries as a term to describe the difference between expected and actual retail sales, based upon a valuation of delivered inventory compared with actual inventory in the business. Other writers refer to ‘shortages’, ‘inventory shrink’, ‘inventory shortage’, ‘retail inventory loss’, or simply ‘loss’ rather than ‘shrinkage’ although they all seem to be essentially trying to describe the same sort of thing. (here for a pdf with the original footnotes).

Who knew George Orwell was such a phenomenon in retail in the nineteenth century (though come to think of it, the pond heard the word when it was in retail in the 1960s).

Never mind, the pond loves the way that Dame Slap puts all the blame on common folk … she must have tossed out that Make Australia Great Again cap, and put on her banker's cap …

In the old days, banks did checks and employed balances … these days you can start an account in a trice online and get yourself a card and start making out like a bandit, but remember it's nothing to do with the banks and their lax verification systems ...

Never mind, no doubt Greece will at last come to Dame Slap's mind, and the Dame will rant about personal morality, and the behaviour of Barners, and the extraordinary behaviour of the Donald in relation to sex out of wedlock with a porn star, and all the other cheating that goes on in the world ...

Oh fucketty fuck, all that from a little ball tampering, the nation in ruin, and a South Pacific Greece, and how soon before Dame Slap signs up as either a born-again primitive Methodist or perhaps joins the Greens?

But no mention of Barners, a proud believer in breaking marriage vows he deems irrelevant?

Not to worry, since the Donald has been mentioned, and at one time Dame Slap was wildly infatuated with that example of moral, fiscal and business rectitude - what an exemplary example multiple bankruptcies are to the common Australian - it's time for a few Donald-related cartoons … how about a vehicle with some grunt for starters?

In which the pond does a late special edition on the plight of Malware ...

Dammit, the pond insists on running its holiday snaps …this time looking down from the hills of gold, Hanging Rock, on to the village of Nundle below …

One way or another, mineral wealth will come into play this day, and so the Caterists have been brushed aside, and the pond must focus on Malware, the onion muncher, dinkum Oz coal, oi, oi, oi, and the restless lizards of Oz …

The pond should first note the onion muncher and reptile ploy to undermine Malware even more, given front page play in the tree killer edition (how they love to kill the natural world) ...

But first the pond must backtrack to the sage of advice of the dog killer, because this is an epic read for hardcore pond devotees,  featuring the best of the recent lizard Oz, or the worst, depending on your mood ...

Only a person as innately stupid and dumb as the dog botherer - Iraq war anyone? - could imagine that the onion muncher and the corgi Cory are there for the wooing and the winning.

That's not the way the game is played by testosterone-clogged middle-aged men desperate to snipe, undermine, wreck and humiliate …

But lo, it's time for a serve of inordinate dog botherer stupidity ...

What's pleasing about this? 

Well if Malware follows the dog botherer's assorted suggestions, he'd be out on his ear, and quick-stix too …and the onion muncher might well achieve his new dream, of becoming the leader of the opposition … and then all this talk of polarised debate would reach a new level of frenzy …

Meanwhile, surely the most stupid man scribbling for the lizard Oz scribbled on ...

Why is this so funny?

Well the pond happened to catch other baying hounds in the Terror stable the other day. Petulant Peta was doing the hate fest in style ...

Such fear, loathing and pure distilled essence of malice, and the dog botherer wants them all to become loveable luvees doing softy, touchy feely huggies?

Then there was the oscillating fan, quivering and wobbling, and also offering Malware advice on what he should do when the dreaded 30th arrives ...

Hmm, perhaps the pond got it wrong. Perhaps there's a hot contender for the dog botherer crown of 'stupidest reptile scribbling for the lizard Oz' … because bunging on a leadership spill would be as epic a solution as the one adopted by John Gorton … but please, do go on...

Essence of comedy … no bloody showdown?

When he's sixty four, they'll no longer need him and they'll no longer feed him?

What a silly concept, and not just because the pond also caught Akker Dakker, baying for blood in the usual way in last Sunday's Terror ...

And that brings the pond to today's ploy, which is preparation for the 30th, and encouraged by the reptiles, and, as noted, given front page attention … and with the illustration showing the onion muncher lurking in the shadows, out of focus, but only so that fierce hatred might seem a little more mellow and soft ...

It was only by chance that the pond drove along the Putty road and into the heart of darkness and the mountains of the moon that dominate the Upper Hunter and the land around Werris Creek.

The poor little hamlet of Bulga is already showing the final signs of extinction … the pub was up for lease, and the mine will soon encroach on the hamlet, in the same way that Vesuvius made short work of Pompeii ...

  

And that's what all this talk of dinkum Oz coal, oi, oi, oi is in relation to Malware … stupid people acting on the stupid belief that climate science is actually a Chinese hoax or the work of the UN attempting to establish world government by Xmas … and the reptiles actively encouraging the dream ...

Climate denialists are on the march, and Malware might recite a poem, this knight so bold, and heaven help the Liverpool plains if they manage to do to that food bowl what they've done for the Hunter Valley …

Take it away mountains of the moon and valley of the shadow ...

What's also remarkable is to see how many people in the bush, at least around Tamworth way, where the light is good and strong, have installed solar and taken themselves off the grid …

The pond has no idea of how these cockies reconcile themselves to the enormous stupidity of the likes of gorgeous George ...

And there you have it… as they go about the business of slaying the Malware dragon with mindless talk of clean dinkum Oz coal, oi, oi, oi, and the world moves on to an uncertain future, the pond was reminded of just how many luddites make up the National and Liberal party ranks, and fill the lizard Oz full to overflowing …

No wonder they fucked the NBN.

The pond was left doing reflexive snaps of the dragon dance in the hamlet of Nundle, with Chinese suddenly all the rage (Chinese Australian meals served on request, but try finding an actual marked Chinese grave in the local cemetery) ...and the village's quest for Eldorado now so long ago ...

Will they one day be taking snaps of the coal dreaming on view in the Hunter Coal Festival?

In which the Major Mitchell makes a guest appearance ...

Dammit, any passing mug will just have to look at the pond's holiday snaps, and like it or lump it …

Weep at the sight of the Peel valley in the distance, dry as a bone, possibly god's punishment for the good folk going with Barners. She's not inclined to be happy at Ba'al or Barners worship …

But enough of the Moonee look-out (no, you don't have to drop your pants, no mooning is required), because the pond is delighted to report that the reptiles, for some strange reason, have let the righteous ranting Major Mitchell out of the cage, and naturally the pond had to pay attention …

Yes, the pond is totally over the cricket fuss, and so everything that follows is totally boring and tedious.

And yet the pond insists it will go over the same ground yet again.

The way it works goes like this … the pond reverts to some classic study of the Major Mitchell and the Order of Lenin saga, say this one by David Marr in the Graudian here …

There's more at the link, but the pond usually likes to select a gobbet, like this …

Of course the pond could have reverted to Media Watch here …

Or the pond could have headed off to the AFR here (may be paywall affected) for a delight in relation to another matter …

The pond could go on and on citing major Major Mitchell moments, but it's now time for the wily old bird to let fly with his usual aggregation of hypocritical thunderings about the sins of others ...

The pond has nothing to say about the cricket, but there's much to admire in the "Order of Lenin" man's talk of smug moralising and ratcheted-up outrage …

Uncritical? What, they ran eight pages on the flimsiest basis?

And that's why, whenever the Major has a go at rank hypocrisy, the rank hypocrisy of it gives the pond an immodest amount of surreal pleasure ...

Of course along with the deeply based moral hypocrisy, it's always accompanied by a pumping up of the product.

The Major is an adept shill, and if the pond ever wanted anyone to sell its snake oil, the Major would be its first choice …

As for talk of confidential sources? This is a man whose ideological obsessions led him to rely on the word of Les Murray, not known for his observational skills in relation to Order of Lenin medals, and a bit of hearsay for an eight page spread which he never bothered to admit was wrong …

Out of the mouth of babe, or an ideological tone-deaf obsessive …

But that's why the pond loves every word that the Major scribbles, even if it's about a subject as dull as cricket … soon enough there'll come talk of moral codes and misleading the public and the pond will roll Jaffas down the aisle in sheer delight ...

No doubt there are young journalists at the lizard Oz who can learn from the Major. They might learn that women play cricket too …

But the pond has supped to the full, and rather like an Easter chocolate overload, it must now turn to the Pope for a refreshing, cleansing sorbet … and by a curious coincidence it involves Ruskis and spies and such like, with more refreshing Pope here …

In which the pond insists on doing a Polonial catch-up, and if you don't like it, canine droppings to you ...

Ah Tamworth, majestic former centre of the known universe, now abandoned by the scurrilous pedlar of traditional family values …while back in the heartland, as people come and go, there's whispering about the nature of a man who would drop his new partner and his (possibly, who knows?) unborn child in the bucket …

The office remains in Peel street, but the pond didn't have the heart to film it. Why remind the good folk of Barad-dûr, the Dark Tower, in their time of trial and suffering?

But enough of holiday pleasantries. The pond trusts that everyone had a good time, and that they have acted on the wise words of the Terror editorialist yesterday …

When in doubt, switch the Murdochians off? Has there ever been wiser words?

The pond knows it should switch off the Murdochians, and the day is coming when it will have to scale back or abandon its addiction to the pleasures of the herpetarium …

Simply switch it off. How simple it sounds, how easy it should be. But the pond continues in its addiction, and not just to rich dark chocolate.

While the pond was away the reptiles were tortured and up in arms about many matters. There was that damned greenie Pope, always yabbering on about climate change and not even knowing the nature of hell, when as everyone knows that was sorted out back in the 1950s …

And there was much advice offered up to Malware, and the reptiles let the major Mitchell out from behind the paywall, and the pond could spend the next week dining on the feast of festive Easter fare, and why not?

And speaking of that, why should the pond give up on its addiction to prattling Polonius? 

Just because his wise words were published days ago, and Polonius loyalists have already read the latest thoughts and moved on is not a good and sufficient reason for the Polonial blog of record to abandon him …

These insights are timeless, and for the ages. What's a few days late when Polonius is on the march and full of prattle? Sure, it means others must wait in line, but that's the way it is when the royal courtier is on parade, forelock tugging and devising his apologetics ...

Now the pond hesitates to intrude just as Polonius is about to go into full history teacher mode, with stern admonitions and much ostentatious display of rich historical learning.

But there was something about that header that had a remarkable appeal.

Nick McKim would be in jail if Australia were a fascist state …

Is there a hint of yearning in that line? Is Polonius really saying Nick McKim should think himself lucky, because if either I, Polonius, or the Mutton Dutton had the right sort of powers, we'd throw this insolent devil into the clink?

Should the header have read Just think yourself lucky, Nick McKim, and all you greenie devils, that the time has not yet come, but it will, soon enough, and oh what a reckoning there will be … just like the good old days of the 1930s …

Hmm, the sub might have had a word or two about the length, and so to the Polonial bird in full featherless flight …

Now will there be any mention of Australia's very own gulags? Ah yes, whenever there's a servile apologist required, Polonius is your humble servant ...

Be still, beating heart.

Did Polonius just argue that abuse and rage were in appropriate and what was needed was considered advocacy, and arguing of case with conviction supported by evidence, and then end the piece by talking of dog shit?

DOG SHIT, my good sir, did you just say DOG SHIT?

Oh sure, Polonius dressed it up with his usual wit and inimitable sense of style by talking of "canine droppings", but the pond comes from up Tamworth way, and there a spade is a spade and a shovel is a shovel, and they're used to shift canine droppings …which is to say, and not to beat about the bush, dog shit.

And unless there's some other explanation of 'canine droppings' - perhaps someone unwisely fed the pooch chocolate at Easter, which as everyone knows is not good for canines - then it rather seems that Polonius has shot his own argument in the foot and anyone might launch an argument by calling someone a bird brained dog shit fascist.

Perhaps not, perhaps the Polonial lesson seems clear enough. McKim should just have called the mutton Dutton an autocratic authoritarian totalitarian and all would have been well in Polonius's universe … you know, as a way of evoking the totalitarian legislative and gulag droppings that drip regularly from the mutton Dutton's racist mouth …

And since the pond is still stuck back in Easter la la land, why not a suitable blessing from the Pope, with more blessings here in a new and improved format?

And while the pond is clearing the decks of surplus fun, here's the latest NY cover as a shout-out to all the gluten intolerant in Uralla …by golly, how those buns crumble in the hand ...