The pond can only deal with the material the reptiles serve up.
Thursday is savvy Savva day for the reptiles, and so it's savvy Savva day at the pond.
It's not that the pond wants to read the savvy Savva or inflict the savviness on the world, it's just the way it is …
The pond could have cut it short by simply running the infallible Pope of the day …
Or perhaps yesterday's Rowe …
But where's the fun in that?
And there are other dangers and temptations. Sometimes the pond drifts off, thinking how it might better spend its time, perhaps reflecting on the meaning of it all …
But then the pond casts aside temptations, abandons the infallible Pope, holds another immortal Rowe in reserve, snaps back, and gets on with its duty ...
Oh dear, she's got her usual bee in the bonnet about SloMo and the man with an unfortunate rhyming name … as if somehow it's got something to do with them …
But surely when it rains, everyone gets wet ...
Experienced medical help in a pandemic? By golly those uppity, demanding, difficult Victorians are always being unreasonable. What they need to do is read Killer Creighton and understand it's no biggie, that there's been an over-rection to an unremarkable case of the flu ...
Yes, there you go, and a lot more of the same, and so the pond wonders what the fuss is all about. Isn't death the natural order of things? Why, the risk of dying while reading Killer Creighton is about as great as understanding the universe by reading a cereal box ...
Indeed, indeed, but Killer Creighton is the pond's great comfort …
Oh dear, another metaphysical question. What the pond needs is someone who can introduce metaphysical notions into foreign policy considerations ….
And so to the other bee in the reptile bonnet this day, and wouldn't you know, it's China, and all the 'leets crawled out from assorted places to examine the state of play ...
Special reporters were assigned to hunt out EXCLUSIVES spotting lickspittle fellow travellers, or to reveal top secret defence plans, so secret that any fool reptile reader could be in on the joke ...
Yes, put vital supplies in Darwin, because heck, why trouble the Chinese by putting them at a distance, why try to keep them out of harm's way? Why not just make them missile friendly and plunk them right next to the Chinese-leased port? Think of what a handy nearby missile might do to a decent stash of oil supplies ...
But enough of the experts, because whenever the pond wants real analysis, it always turns to the bromancer, and what a good week it's been for him, and so for the pond ...
We've got closer to the US? Why was the pond suddenly nervous?
Never mind, it's on with the good news, and the way we're doing a tango with one of the most incompetent presidents of all time, one barking mad enough to channel the alien mumbo jumbo, and obscure ramblings of a cultist, until even Twitter felt the need to say enough already …
Sorry, the pond has it on good authority that sex with aliens is the cause of all the STDs doing the rounds …
Sorry, this is a day of distractions, please, oh please bromancer, lead the pond in a recitation of the Agnus Dei ...
Does the bromancer ever disappoint? Who else could translate foreign relations into Papist-speak, what with a gathering of Cardinals, talk of theological language and doctrinal precedent, and for a capper "hermeneutics" …
And the Papist didn't stop with it there … because there's even more longstanding, though nuanced theology to come …
You know, the sort of nuanced theology currently going down in the States …
Never mind, Agnus die, qui tolls peccata mundi, miserere nobis, as they say … and now, instead of talk of a miserable condition in a miserable world, it's time for the bromancer to make crystal clear how brave we've been, and how brave we will be, tackling the unknown unknowns, never saying never, but hardly ever doing ever ...
Another bromancer score! A veritable hit!
Who else could diagnose a condition that was both non-inflammatory and acutely annoying. Speaking personally, if the pond is acutely annoyed, it's usually related to some inflammatory condition … you know, if there's an ingrown toe-nail, it's inclined to be annoying, and it can get pretty inflammatory, and if the bromancer can use theology, why the pond feels free to go medical metaphor ...
Yes, you can be half-pregnant, you can be intimate and socially distant, you can do a dance at arm's length and consider it a romance, you can keep trading with China while poking out the tongue at a safe distance, and meanwhile, in another country, our great ally, everything is going spiffingly well, with the sign posts easy to follow ...
As a bonus, the pond decided to turn to the lizard editorialist to study another reptile phenomenon ...
What had happened? Where did it all go wrong? Can anyone remember when the onion muncher, with a shit-eating grin, was standing amongst the pack celebrating a momentous triumph?
Or at least huge if you could get a lobbying gig … but back to that curious reptile habit, which sees the lizard editorialist beg, steal and borrow thoughts from its scribblers and stick them together in an elaborate nest of conceits like a bower bird.
Thus we began with Cameron Stewart and end with the bromancer, and the pond irresistibly finds the effect akin to an echo chamber, or a vision of Surry Hills as a cult with everyone saturated to the gills on the same kool aid - well when we drink, the innards surely get wet.
Do they ever get out and about, does the lizard Oz editorialist do anything other than read the lizard Oz?
Ah yes, it's all Obama's fault. Four years into the new regime, and yet still it's all his fault. Is there nothing he can't be blamed for? One of his many colossal failures.
As opposed to the colossal triumphs of the Donald and his mob.
But, stay, hole a moment what's this defeatist talk in that penultimate sentence, "Whoever wins in the US in November…?"
And who, apart from the delusional reptile, imagines that be it Mr Trump (respect) or sleep Joe (no honorific for him), that anyone will follow the reptile order "must be resolute", especially when everyone knows the reptiles will crumble and do some lavish boot-licking the moment that precious, dear sweet clean dinkum Oz coal looks like it might be under threat … because we still have a planet to destroy ...
After reading the reptiles, the pond began to experience a mixed-message overload - but surely the country and the world is in the safest hands, and this is no time for defeatism … surely there must be another chance for Dame Slap to don the MAGA cap and celebrate on the streets of New York …surely Mr Trump will march to another triumph, and then we'll see how fucked things can really get.
And as for that alternative view of reality the pond was hoping for, why not an immortal Rowe sending a postcard, with more postcards from the seer here ...

















































