In which "Ned" natters, Dame Slap slaps, and the pond indulges in a Latin rite, and all is for the best in the best of rapidly heating worlds ...

 

 

Lately, when it comes to nattering "Ned", it's been happening a lot to the pond. 

A sort of weird, yearning experience ... a condition that might be called "if only" ...

If only the pond had just read H. G. Wells' The History of Mr Polly before reading "Ned" on education. 

If only someone had put it out the week before "Ned" scribbled about the joys of memorisation, rote learning, core knowledge and such like. 

If only ...then the pond could have dragged in Mr Polly, but what the hell Archie, toujours gai, the pond is going to do it on the basis of another principle, better late than never...

...I remember seeing a picture of Education — in some place. I think it was Education, but quite conceivably it represented the Empire teaching her Sons, and I have a strong impression that it was a wall painting upon some public building in Manchester or Birmingham or Glasgow, but very possibly I am mistaken about that. It represented a glorious woman with a wise and fearless face stooping over her children and pointing them to far horizons. The sky displayed the pearly warmth of a summer dawn, and all the painting was marvellously bright as if with the youth and hope of the delicately beautiful children in the foreground. She was telling them, one felt, of the great prospect of life that opened before them, of the spectacle of the world, the splendours of sea and mountain they might travel and see, the joys of skill they might acquire, of effort and the pride of effort and the devotions and nobilities it was theirs to achieve. Perhaps even she whispered of the warm triumphant mystery of love that comes at last to those who have patience and unblemished hearts.... She was reminding them of their great heritage as English children, rulers of more than one-fifth of mankind, of the obligation to do and be the best that such a pride of empire entails, of their essential nobility and knighthood and the restraints and the charities and the disciplined strength that is becoming in knights and rulers....
The education of Mr. Polly did not follow this picture very closely. He went for some time to a National School, which was run on severely economical lines to keep down the rates by a largely untrained staff, he was set sums to do that he did not understand, and that no one made him understand, he was made to read the catechism and Bible with the utmost industry and an entire disregard of punctuation or significance, and caused to imitate writing copies and drawing copies, and given object lessons upon sealing wax and silk-worms and potato bugs and ginger and iron and such like things, and taught various other subjects his mind refused to entertain, and afterwards, when he was about twelve, he was jerked by his parent to “finish off” in a private school of dingy aspect and still dingier pretensions, where there were no object lessons, and the studies of book-keeping and French were pursued (but never effectually overtaken) under the guidance of an elderly gentleman who wore a nondescript gown and took snuff, wrote copperplate, explained nothing, and used a cane with remarkable dexterity and gusto.
Mr. Polly went into the National School at six and he left the private school at fourteen, and by that time his mind was in much the same state that you would be in, dear reader, if you were operated upon for appendicitis by a well-meaning, boldly enterprising, but rather over-worked and under-paid butcher boy, who was superseded towards the climax of the operation by a left-handed clerk of high principles but intemperate habits,—that is to say, it was in a thorough mess. The nice little curiosities and willingnesses of a child were in a jumbled and thwarted condition, hacked and cut about—the operators had left, so to speak, all their sponges and ligatures in the mangled confusion—and Mr. Polly had lost much of his natural confidence, so far as figures and sciences and languages and the possibilities of learning things were concerned. He thought of the present world no longer as a wonderland of experiences, but as geography and history, as the repeating of names that were hard to pronounce, and lists of products and populations and heights and lengths, and as lists and dates—oh! and boredom indescribable. He thought of religion as the recital of more or less incomprehensible words that were hard to remember, and of the Divinity as of a limitless Being having the nature of a schoolmaster and making infinite rules, known and unknown rules, that were always ruthlessly enforced, and with an infinite capacity for punishment and, most horrible of all to think of! limitless powers of espial. (So to the best of his ability he did not think of that unrelenting eye.) He was uncertain about the spelling and pronunciation of most of the words in our beautiful but abundant and perplexing tongue,—that especially was a pity because words attracted him, and under happier conditions he might have used them well—he was always doubtful whether it was eight sevens or nine eights that was sixty-three—(he knew no method for settling the difficulty) and he thought the merit of a drawing consisted in the care with which it was “lined in.” “Lining in” bored him beyond measure.
But the indigestions of mind and body that were to play so large a part in his subsequent career were still only beginning. His liver and his gastric juice, his wonder and imagination kept up a fight against the things that threatened to overwhelm soul and body together. Outside the regions devastated by the school curriculum he was still intensely curious. He had cheerful phases of enterprise, and about thirteen he suddenly discovered reading and its joys. He began to read stories voraciously, and books of travel, provided they were also adventurous. He got these chiefly from the local institute, and he also “took in,” irregularly but thoroughly, one of those inspiring weeklies that dull people used to call “penny dreadfuls,” admirable weeklies crammed with imagination that the cheap boys’ “comics” of to-day have replaced. At fourteen, when he emerged from the valley of the shadow of education, there survived something, indeed it survived still, obscured and thwarted, at five and thirty, that pointed—not with a visible and prevailing finger like the finger of that beautiful woman in the picture, but pointed nevertheless—to the idea that there was interest and happiness in the world. Deep in the being of Mr. Polly, deep in that darkness, like a creature which has been beaten about the head and left for dead but still lives, crawled a persuasion that over and above the things that are jolly and “bits of all right,” there was beauty, there was delight, that somewhere—magically inaccessible perhaps, but still somewhere, were pure and easy and joyous states of body and mind.

Sure, it's way too long, and the "if only" moment has long passed, and anyway, the pond needn't have relied on the street library, because Mr Polly is at Project Gutenberg here ...

And what a circuitous way to get to the latest "Ned", but at last the pond has arrived, only to discover "Ned" in a high state of flapping Chicken Little agitation ...

 

 

 

Yes, it's "Ned's" and the reptiles' worst nightmare, that dread beast slouching towards Canberra. It's bad enough to have to put up with comrade Dan, and besides everything is going swimmingly with Scotty from marketing, and yet that dire sense of dread still besieges "Ned" and no doubt he wakes up in a sweat at night to pound out his fears ...

Here the pond must pause to note a genuine comedy item. The reptiles are still trying to plug the notion that listening to "Ned" read his columns is better than a sleeping pill ... and so in desperation these days they insert a player, in case less than ten forgot to download the podcast ...

 

Of course the pond had to shrink it down so nobody would mistake it for a thing, when it's just a harmless screen cap ... and now, on we go, without having to endure the sound of "Ned's" voice ... though the pond can still hear it echoing down Pompous Lane, just off Portentous Way ...

 

At this point, the pond wondered what happened to the little clips the reptiles inserted into "Ned" to relieve the tedium. Did they get "Ned" to read a transcript, just so that the entire presentation could be preserved?

 

Why does the pond bother? Well the sight of "Ned" in a state of terminal anxiety is always a pleasing one ...

 

Best of all, perhaps the fatigue induced by the effort of reading his text into a microphone so that the nation might slumber in peace has seen "Ned" reduce the size and scale of his tomes ...

 

Indeed, indeed, the tragedy of Labor is that it might yet get the "Ned" stamp of approval. Just a little more remoulding, and why, we might yet get "Ned" cheering on Tweedledumb ...

And so to the real treat of the day, held back only because the pond wanted to remember Mr Polly - the pond had absolutely no interest in what "Ned" had to say this day, and already any memory has been erased, and the contents sent to the cloud ...

If the pond had been playing fair with those genuinely interested in reptile loons, it would have followed the reptiles and elevated Dame Slap to the top of the digital page ... but better late than never ...

 

Last weekend saw Dame Slap's people take to the streets. What a fine Sky News after dark mob it was, but it left the reptiles in something of a dilemma.

How not to hurt their feelings, how to celebrate their intent on staging a superspreader event? 

Easy peasy for Dame Slap, bring on BLM and old enemies, like that News Corp turncoat Karvelas ...

 

Karvelas routinely ruins the pond's attempts to listen to the ABC, but can look after herself, as Dame Slap delivers a classic Slapian snipe  ...

 

And so to the killer putdown, with the Dame's brain hurting ...

 

At this point, the pond confesses that its brain hurts too ...

You see, Dame Slap spends much energy putting down Karvelas and Hanson-Young and BLM, and yet nada, zip, zilch, zero when it comes to last weekend's protests, or the cavalcade of News Corp style clowns that staged it.

Why is that?

Please excuse the pond because this is the pre-emptive moment when the pond must explain why its brain hurts ...

 

 

Why does the pond keep dragging up this reminder of Dame Slap's valiant efforts over the years? 

Well after all that nonsense about double think from Karvelas and the like, Dame Slap followed up with ...

 

Actually the pond recently listened to a BBC world service interview in which the blowtorch was applied to Norway's environment minister about the dependence on oil and gas, and he sounded extremely feeble and defensive ... but it's more than passing rich for a country rampantly trading in coal and gas to drag Norway in as a distraction.

But that's Dame Slap for you.

When it comes to her climate science denialism, Dame Slap can be relied up on to achieve a frightful level of hypocrisy, up there with her hero, "Lord" Monckton ... though these days she seems to trip a little lightly around the "Lord" and his splendid insights into world government by Xmas ...

 

Indeed, indeed, and let's not forget that Dame Slap has been peddling denialism, via "debate", for a long, long time, as befits the IPA Chairman and chief stooge for Gina's mob (strangely never noted in the lizard Oz CV).

The pond drifted back in time, as it occasionally does, to May 18, 2009 ... and memories of Dame Slap and the now gone Ian Plimer ...

You don’t need a long list of degrees in science to feel that something is awry with the current climate – the climate of debate, that is. Few of us want to endanger the planet if sensible measures can be taken to avoid that. But equally, many – especially those in towns and communities where the climate change rubber will hit the road - feel disenfranchised by the current one-sided debate, derided by city folk who have made up their mind on the issue and will readily put the jobs and futures of those in the country on the line to assuage their inner city conscience. Hence, in a local pub you will find a genuine spirit of enquiry about Plimer’s work often lacking in the cities.
It is a natural part of our rich human nature to imagine the importance of man and to prefer neat answers. But much of the inner city debate is infused with a disconcerting arrogance that we understand everything, that the science of climate change is settled, that man is to blame and that man can and must fix it, regardless of the cost.

Saucy doubts and fears, that's what you need ... with the Riddster these days stepping in to do a Plimer and help us understand that everything is for the best in the best of all possible warming worlds ...

 

Well, talk of climate ideology is a handsome twist, so much more to the point than the usual reptile angle of talk of the religion or theology of climate change.  So much better when science can be boiled down to a hint of Marxism ...

 

Reality?

The woman who lives in a land above the faraway tree, or perhaps on planet Janet - the pond has yet to settle the matter definitively - talks of reality?

Here, settle back for a smooth drink after that little effort ...

 

And so to the bonus, and the pond is only running it because it hasn't thought of Christopher Pearson for years ...

 

 

 

Way back when, the pond used to run tales of Christopher Pearson yearning for the Latin mass ... it was weird shit..

The welcome I got, especially from people in the Latin mass community, was a warm one. Mostly Irish and working class, its gatherings often involve shucking oysters or shelling prawns, washing them down with Guinness and singing folk noir ballads, as black in their way as Nick Cave's, about convicts, moonshine and infanticide. The same men and a bunch of their home-schooled children thought nothing of driving 100km each way to sing anthems by William Byrd in an Anglican church at my mother's funeral last year...
When I converted, as an adherent of the Latin mass I became a member of a minority, as marginalised and persecuted as the first generation of out-and-proud gays. In fact, it was a lot like reliving the 70s. I also got the distinct impression that a number of acquaintances in the hierarchy had been more cordially disposed towards me in my unregenerate middle age. Perhaps they wondered whether it was really necessary for me to make what pastoral care jargon calls "lifestyle sacrifices". All I can do is quote another of Muggeridge's paradoxes: "One of old age's pleasures is giving things up."

 

... but it used to fill in the pond's day, and distract from more pressing matters, and right now the pond is in need of more distraction ...

 

 

 

 

 

No, no, infallible Pope, not that sort of distraction, this sort of distraction, a yearning for lost days, past lives ...

 

 

 

The pond wandered back down memory lane again to the days of Pearson...

Latin, until recently a universal language, was prized as such, the sign of a universal church. It wasn't a serious barrier to popular understanding because parallel texts were, and still are, freely available. Had Vatican II simply authorised the Bible readings in the language of the people and left the fixed unvarying parts of the mass in their familiar, ancient forms, as was originally intended, a great deal of anguish and bitterness could so easily have been avoided.

Until recently a universal language!

Rather cruelly at the time, the pond referenced ...

Latin killed the Romans and now it's killing me.

The mass was in Latin until I was about twenty. All my childhood in country NSW the mass was said in a mumble we could not hear or understand. We knelt and quietly read our St Joseph’s missals, and the old ladies said the rosary. We had jokes about the Latin, ‘Me a cowboy, me a cowboy, me a Mexican cowboy, ‘and ‘Will you play dominos with me? Yes I will play dominos with you’, for instance. There were many priests who said mass badly. Almost none of them, even those who said mass well, spoke or read Latin and few of them pronounced it well, even church Latin. There were notable exceptions of course. I did not experience the Latin mass done consistently well until I entered a monastery where we had good musicians and singers and priests who could say mass well all the time. Even there we had the occasional priest who was scrupulous and could not get through the words of consecration. One came to consecrating the wine, went ‘Hanc, hanc, hanc, hanc’ and could go no further.
To read people like Christopher Pearson you would think we all heard Palestrina, Haydn, Mozart, Monteverdi and the like Sunday after Sunday when in fact we heard wheezy melodeon or harmonium style organs played slowly and badly and the music that was played was no better than now.

Yes, the pond had been there, and heard all that, but now it all seems so many child molestations and Pellist scandals and corrupt church of Rome finances ago.

Even so, it amused the pond, and even now there's a lingering nostalgia for lost times ..

 

Indeed, indeed ...

In 1996, around 864,000 people attended Sunday Masses in Australia – 18 per cent of the Australian Catholic population.
But by 2016, Sunday Mass attendance rates across the country had dropped to just 11.8 per cent of all Catholics.
The number of Mass-going Catholics reduced by a third between 1996 and 2016, at the rate of around 12,000 people a year. (here)

And so on and so declining numbers forth ...

 

Well it took the pond away to another distant land for at least a nanosecond, and how cruel of the immortal Rowe to drag the pond screaming and kicking back to this world, with more cruel Rowe here ...

In which the pond produces an easter egg and saves its Killer best for last ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

What's missing from these graphs, kindly referenced by a reader?

 

Why, Dame Groan of course, and the pond thought it might start the day quietly with a bit of classic Groaning, and what's even better, the reptiles refused the slightest hint of an illustration to give the Groaner a kick start ...

 

 

 

The pond knows that Dame Groan's groaning has a select pond audience, and this is probably as savage an assault on SloMo's mob as the Groaner will ever muster, albeit heavily disguised by dragging in an immigrant Dutch idea ... and we all know what the Groaner thinks of furriners ...

 

Indeed, indeed, how swiftly and quickly Dame Groan's application of her rule skips over the Ruby Princess and lands on that prime object of hatred, the doings of comrade Dan ... because it wouldn't do to do too much groaning about gold standard Gladys ...

 

 

What a surprisingly tame conclusion. No reptile raging at the dying of the light, just a kindly suggestion that perhaps it would be helpful if politicians weren't politicians ...

The infallible Pope chipped in with an excellent reminder of the best political thinking currently doing the rounds ...

 

 

 

 

Buoyed by all this, the pond had no hesitation plunging into another excellent reptile offering ... 

 

Yet another splendid, vivid, evocative reptile illustration. The downsized lizard Oz graphics department routinely manages to astonish the pond.

As for having a Tuesday shot of the hole in the bucket man, the pond makes no apology. Whenever the pond is ailing and in urgent need of medical advice, the pond always seeks out our Henry ...

 

Ah, risk assessment! 

The pond offers no assessment of the risk to the noggin of reading our Henry, and offers no guarantees. In short, the pond shall have no responsibility, obligation, or liability whatsoever with respect to the terms, interpretation, or implementation of the said column; the administration of the effects of the said column; the management, investment, or distribution of any proceedings arising from the effect of the said column, or any other funds paid or received in connection with actions arising with the said column; the payment or withholding of taxes that may be due or owing by stray readers or any other recipient of funds arising from actions in relation to the said column; and hereinafter, and until the twelfth of never, a very long time, stray readers, interested parties, and all other individuals, persons or entities fully, finally, and forever release, relinquish, and discharge the pond from any and all such responsibility, obligation, and liability as can be devised by agile minds bemused and battered by exposure to our Henry's risk assessment. 

Now carry on, and besides, it's only a very short exposure ...

 

Dear sweet long ad astra lord, he is a marvel and a wonder, and yet, yet again, the reptiles have left off any reference to his co-author. 

The pond thought it should remedy that deficiency that with a pinch of Pincus...

 

The pond is always standing by to help.

And so to the bonus, and here the pond has been exceptionally cunning.

An unsubtle blogger, in a quest for hits and readers, would have led off with Killer Creighton.

After all, Killer's people, with a deep fear of masks and social distancing, were out and about on the weekend, punching horses and carrying on, as only Killer's tribe can do.

But the pond likes the sort of easter eggs you used to get in the golden age of discs.

Think of the delight a stray reader might discover, thinking bloody Dame Groan, and our Henry and a pinch of Pincus, is that all there is, my friends, is that all there is?

Well no, there's Killer ... and suddenly that kind reader drawing the pond's attention to xkcd came more sharply into focus ...

Excellent, there's Killer with a snap of his people, and as befits their Freudian angst, not a mask in sight. How pleasing for the Killer, what a relief ...

And then Killer starts off his piece with a most excellent distraction ...

 

 

Say what? Did Killer just open up with talk of the need to act on climate change? What a most excellent feint, and bluff ...

Killer treasures climate science denialists as much as he treasures liberty and freedom from masks ... and blather about the killing fields, and how many might die so that he doesn't have to endure a facial covering ...

Please, just a few samples, in short form, just the headlines ...

 

Most excellent and worthy stuff.

Sadly the pond could only do a quick sampling of Killer's excellent work on climate science, but perhaps the moment the pond loved the best came with a twittering, wittering reference to the great climate science myth ...

 

 

Deleted accounts, suspended accounts?

Guess that's what happens when you're a font of misinformation, and travel with a pack of ratbags and speak of a religious obsession rather than attempt to deal with the science.

And speaking of a prime ratbag and boofhead obsessive, and faux blather about the need to act on climate change as the fundamental moral imperative of our age, back to the next Killer gobbet ...

 

Of course Killer would have a kind word for bunging on a superspreader event - or at least we might yet hope it's a superspreader event.

His noble willingness to head off to an ICU and expose himself to the risk of catching Covid in order to save a few twits from themselves will warm the hearts of his fellow health workers ... and the pond looks forward to Killer reports from the front line in due course.

But perhaps not all the reptiles were onside with the message because at this point the reptiles felt the need to insert some click bait in the form of a petulant Peta video ...

 

 

Relax, the pond has rendered it harmless by turning it into a screen cap ... but please note the way the reptiles have provided a summary, to avoid the need to watch, and note well how petulant Peta manages to insert the boot into the BLM protest, even though those wretched folk wore masks and talked of maintaining distance ...

Petulant Peta cleverly managed to fuel the outrage at those uppity, pesky, difficult blacks, while purporting to be outraged by the activities of horse-punching far right loons.

So she manages to be both for Killer's mob and against Killer's mob ... how cunning is that? Almost up there with Jim Chalmers doing a tax policy revision ...

And now, oh say it isn't so, a last gobbet of Killer insights ... and the dear sweet lad returned for a moment to climate science, as you might expect of a Killer mind not particularly interested in a way to a survivable planet ...

 

Indeed, indeed, just what the pond was saying about the bubonic plague only the other day ... how silly of those medieval folk to change their way of life.

But please, you've now heard from David Hume and the Romans, is it wrong for the pond to offer up G. K. Chesterton, him being a ferocious tyke and all?

There is an apostolic injunction to suffer fools gladly. We always lay the stress on the word "suffer", and interpret the passage as one urging resignation. It might be better, perhaps, to lay the stress upon the word “gladly”, and make our familiarity with fools a delight, and almost a dissipation. Nor is it necessary that our pleasure in fools (or at least in great and godlike fools) should be merely satiric or cruel. The great fool is he in whom we cannot tell which is the conscious and which the unconscious humour; we laugh with him and laugh at him at the same time.

And so to taking pleasure in the company of the Killer, and a painting celebrating Killer's insights and profound understanding of history ...

 

And now to end with a celebration of Jim Chalmers and Olympic backflipping by the immortal Rowe.

Hearing our Jim - oh Jim! - interviewed by Patricia Karvelas was either a visit to the dentist for root canal therapy, or perhaps one of Dante's innermost rings of hell, but there's more soothing Rowe unguent to apply here ... and perhaps gold standard Gladys and Slo 'it's not a race' Mo, will be in the next heat ...

In which the pond riots with the Major and the Caterist, before heiling the return of the Oreo ...

 

 

The pond couldn't help but notice that the Sky News after dark mob were out and about on the weekend, yelling for freedumb. 

They seemed to share Killer Creighton's deep Freudian fear of masks,  and they were at one with the dog botherer's idea of being an Australian.

There's nothing like a little rioting and protesting to project the larrikin identity, and why not turn out in the hope of generating a superspreader event, and perhaps, who knows, hope against hope, manage to put others, and hospital staff, at risk.

Then you can do a Hillsong and wash your paws of the death of one of your flock, or be a conservative shock jock who, once admitted to hospital, entirely forget about previous vaccine and Covid denialism ...

But the Sky News mob went a little too far by punching a horsie. It''s one thing to spread the virus, and hope against hope, infect or perhaps even kill the odd human bean, but punching a horsie was a "they shoot horsies, don't they" step too far ...

Inevitably it was left to the Major this day to clean up the mess, and explain how a mob rioting against masks and in favour of the dog botherer's notion of being an Australian had nothing to do with his mob ...

 

 

 

 

Funny old Major. Wasn't he roused by the dog botherer's Churchillian call to arms on the weekend? Didn't he feel the need to take to the streets and punch a horsie or three?

 

 

 

 

Yes, a riot will get off those few extra kilos and show a healthy disrespect for authority ... and horsies too ...

 

The vaccine that saved Britain? Britain's saved? Who knew ...

 

 

 

 

Sorry that's from another paper, where there's talk of feeble, gutless wonders cowering from the virus, or perhaps cowering politicians, offering an apology for their evocation of the cowering ... and a strange new world of talking about a pingdemic has also emerged ...

Please, carry on regardless Major, there must be plenty of people to blame, anyone but Scotty from marketing and his useless mob of inept bunglers and blame shifters ...

Of course, of course, why didn't the pond think of public servants, rather than the Sky News after dark mob?

 

The pond has to admit the Major is always ahead of the game. They shoot public servants, don't they?

 

No one is held seriously responsible for how our nation is led? It's all the fault of public servants and the media?

Um, is there an actual PM in the land? One actually and seriously responsible for how our nation is led? Just asking the Major for a friend ...

And so Scotty from marketing, with a leap and a bound, escapes the Major's wrath yet again ... a miraculous performance, and a tribute to the wondrous magical thinking of that mysterious bird, the Major Mitchell ...

And so to someone more in tune with the proper reptile zeitgeist ...

Ah that's better, that's  the way to start off a Caterist piece. 

A shot of the fascist overlords trying to herd valiant larrikins, a healthy corrective to that dreadful meme that did the rounds on the weekend ...

 

And even worse, the bloody nag was called Tobruk. Perhaps the only worse name imaginable would have been Gallipoli ...

And there was comrade Dan with an easy jibe, "punching horses doesn't work against coronavirus" ...

Thank the long absent lord, the Caterist has left off predicting the movement of flood waters in quarries to mount a protest of his own ...

Ah yes, as the virus well knows, it's all the fault of commie socialist pinko preverts ... you know, like Gladys ... now, let's show the Major a thing or two, by railing at a global, cognitive elite.

Might the pond offer a tip? This railing is best done from the comfort of a think tank, perhaps one given a healthy cash in the paw grant on a regular basis by the federal government, always keen to pander to the 'leets ...

 

It goes without saying that the Caterist cognitive class has no aversion to risk. Show the Caterist a deluded cause, with a huge loss in court and a substantial damages payout, and the Caterist will plunge into the waters swirling in the quarry in an nanosecond, while shouting to the world "the actuarial risk of me having to actually pay out is always shrinking" ...

 

And there you go. Apparently the ning nong is sublimely unaware that he went to university, or so his wiki says ...

Cater was born in Billericay, Essex, and grew up in Hythe near Southampton. His parents were teachers. He graduated from the University of Exeter with an honours degree in sociology in 1980 and drove laundry vans for a year before joining the BBC as a trainee studio manager.
He went on to scribble moronic pieces about higher education encouraging abstract thought and prioritising theory over pragmatism, and the cognitive elite being often remote from practical reality, apparently unaware of his own comfortable existence as a well heeled executive director of a think tank ...

Sociology!?

Dammit, the wiki thought police cut out that last bit, but the pond thought it worth resuscitating ... because dammit, the pond refuses to admit that irony is dead in a post-Caterist age ...

And so to a welcome return as a bonus.

For a long time the pond has been wondering whatever happened to that reformed, recovering feminist, the Oreo ... and yet here she is, back again, as if she'd never gone away ...

Sadly the pond has to report that the reptiles seemed to have little confidence in the Oreo being of interest to anyone, and so had to start off with a video clip celebrating the deeds of Scotty from marketing ...

The pond neutralised that threat with a screen cap, excised another clip, and focused on pure essence of Oreo, and to the pond's dismay, discovered she was sounding like one of those cognitive 'leets the Caterist had warned the pond about ...

 

 

 

One of the pleasures of excising reptile illustrations is that servings of the Oreo can come in short chunks of meaty goodness ...

 

Excuse the pond. Was it only a few gobbets ago that the pond was reading the thoughts of the Caterist? Must the pond remind the Oreo of the company she's keeping?

 

 

 

And yet the Oreo blathers on about high immigrant areas as if she was Dame Groan reincarnated. How so? Does the Caterist have an explanation?

 

 

How could the pond forget? Of course, she's a reformed, recovering feminist who spent far too much time at university, and so is unaware that vaccines are an excuse for us all to be microchipped ... you can hear the story on Sky News after dark, the parrot will fill you in on all the latest...

And then the pond weakened. Taking so much Oreo so quickly gave the pond something of a sugar hit, and so it allowed in a truly feeble reptile illustration, the sort of meaningless junk visual you use when you really have nothing to offer ...

 

Indeed, indeed. Take whatever's on offer at the local clinic? After Scotty from marketing overpromised and under-delivered, why not help the hapless lad out, perhaps with a laying on of hands and a speaking in tongues about risks ...

What's that? It's true, the Oreo almost sounds like the world government, community minded, do gooder preaching, commie, socialist, pinko preverts the Caterist warned the pond about ...

 

Indeed, indeed, though she did leave out the arduous business of killing off the native inhabitants, fucking the reef and such like ...

But what an unholy, un-Caterist, un-Major, unhappy vision the Oreo has offered on her return.

Take the shot?! The whole point of reptile business, as the Major and the Caterist showed this day, is to take a shot at almost everyone and everything else, rather than offer a message about getting the shot ...

Avoid masks, show your larrikin spirit, defy authority, that's the message of the Sky News mob after dark.

The Oreo better realise this, and fast too, or they'll keep stuffing her text with video clips and snaps of surpassing banality...

And so to the celebratory Rowe of the day, with more Rowe celebrations here ...

 

 

Amen to that ... with a poster showing the pond's mood back amongst the reptiles on a Monday ...