In which the pond dips into a reptile frenzy and ends up in the deep end of the pool ...

As an aside, the pond wondered how Shanners might feel, having his name and byline yoked to that of Milo ...is he a conservative, telling it like it is? Is this where being a Catholic conservative must lead?

That's what happens when you step into the gutter, GOP jostling cheek by jowl with the likes of Roy Moore and the Donald, Shanners and Milo sharing space ...

The page three mentality dies hard in the Chairman's world, even amongst those with dim recollections of what 'broadsheet' v. tabloid once meant in this digital age ... cue, in a sensitive way, aware of all the current fuss, a handsome reptile illustration for the weather report ...

Never mind, that was yesterday's climate science, and today the reptiles are aghast and having a collective fainting fit ...well everyone except the Currish Snail which wandered off down memory lane to commemorate the brown paper bag man, as deeply corrupt as any politician in recent times ...

Never mind, on with the real issue of the day ... and the reptiles were full of it, howling at the moon with their deep displeasure ... as their hatred for Malware grows in leaps and bounds by the hour ...

The pond didn't know where to begin with the reptiles and the epic back-flip.

Oh enough of the cheap rhetorical devices, of course the pond was always going to start with nattering "Ned"...

The pond knew from the get go that it was deeply serious, because Ned had embraced brevity ...

Nobody knows what this will bring? Why it will bring an albatross, and the very boards will shrink, and all around much water, and nary a drop to drink ... god save thee ancient Neddy from the fiends that plague thee thus ...

And so to another tortured soul, the man forced to butt up against Milo ... and he too was angry at the Nats...

And even worse, he too was in despair at the rampant socialism now on view ...

Scribbled just like a Milo ... damn you SSM, you ruined everything ...

And look, there were a horde of other voices getting agitated, and the pond simply had no time, in a Walt Whitman sense, to embrace them all...

 

Another cheap rhetorical device. Of course the pond has the time when there's a hook like that ...

If there's one thing the pond enjoys above all, it's a complete absence of jokes ...

But wait, not satisfied with that set of steak knives, there's more, because the cawing Crowe also wanted to imitate a raven and stand above the door, croaking "nevermore", such that the reptiles decided his splash needed an urgent upgrade from offering a whiff of time to a smell of "Brutal truth" ...

  

Yes, it was even more doom, even more fear and loathing, even more sense that Manly and Collingwood supporters had picked the wrong captain and it was going to be a dismal year ...

Comrade Bill struck by lightning? Is that the best hope the gnomic bird can offer from his Delphic oracle ...

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil! 
By that Heaven that bends above us—by that God we both adore— 
Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn, 
It shall clasp a sainted PM whom the angels name Malware— 
Clasp a rare and radiant PM whom the angels name Malware.” 
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.” 
“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting— 
“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore! 
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! 
Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door! 
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” 
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.” 
And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting 
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; 
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, 
And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; 
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor 
Shall be lifted—nevermore!

Never mind, the cut and pasters are still going strong with all the notorious elements of the full-blown backflip, the specious device of a bankers' letter not making the cut ...

And so to a final word from the cawing Crowe. Yes, he's still sitting on the pallid bust of Pallas, ready for a final nevermore ...

Oh that's harsh, that's brutal. Largely ignored, with little to do and few to do it for them ...

“Prophet!” said I, “thing of evil!—prophet still, if bird or devil!— 

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,  

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this parliament and Liberal party enchanted— 

On this home by Horror haunted—tell me truly, I implore— 

Is there—is there balm in Gilead?—tell me—tell me, I implore!” 

Quoth the cawing Crowe “Nevermore.”

And after all that, where some reach for a stiff drink, the pond always reaches for a stern Pope, with more more papery here ...