Rip Van Bunyip

YAWN, stretch, scratch the few odd things .... a fellow nods off for a little nap and, golly gosh, there is no telling what will be there when consciousness begins to knit again the sleeve of care. Take Blogger, for example, which has introduced a new back-end format that, upon brief inspection, seems more complicated than needs be. The first little cross of the new day.

And Fairfax, what of Fairfax? It was there, wobbly and canted but still standing when the Professor pulled up the doona in late April and curled into a comfy foetal ball. Now it seems Mrs Rinehart is about to take charge and aren't those luvvies just so miffed about it! Little Andrew Jaspan has come down from the tower -- a high chair to anyone else -- and is casting bolts all about the place. If only Fairfax had heeded the Mancunian Candidate's wisdom, all would be copasetic, or so he says. This, mind you, from the editor who took his Earth Hour riding instructions directly from a PR outfit and was deemed so lacking in gravitas his own staff expressed a lack of confidence in his leadership.

See, Mrs Rinehart already is spreading the balm of amity. All the luvvies are bonza mates again and fuming in chorus about the threat to democracy posed by the icky sort of person seldom invited to Yarraville dinner parties, where the smart hostess knows better than to strike for a rough balance between the sexes. With marriage equality on everyone's lips just lately, an all-male mixed gathering must no longer be seen as an oxymoron.

But please, no gloating (well not much, anyway) about Fairfax. Rather, make the effort to understand the Other, as they say. There they were, all on the last leg of the long march. The universities had fallen and the schools producing a fresh generation of children warned off from critical thinking. In Spring Street we still have a premier who has made no effort to root out the political operatives who pose as public servants and continue to shape policy according to their green-left will. And in the media, well paradise was just a teeny push away. Finko and Ricketty laid the groundwork and all the smarties were poised for the final assault on Rupert and his hate media.

And just then, like Lochinvar out of the West, Mrs Rinehart arrives with $84 million and not the slightest desire to make the guest list for David Marr's next soggy-biscuit soiree.

They've lost it, seen it slip from mung-beaned fingers, and it must be terribly galling.

So don't laugh too loud, as the sound of mirth will only tip them off. The ABC and SBS are next, with a little help from PM Abbott, and it would be better to knock down the gates before the inhabitants know we are coming.