Some final housekeeping for the moment

Loon Pond has now shifted and gone HERE.

The Michael Duffy Files has now been running a tad over a year. It started as a jolly jape, though not amongst chums, by dedicating itself to the task of celebrating, disputing and excoriating the opinions of commentariat columnist Michael Duffy in the Sydney Morning Herald - such monomaniacal scribbling seemed a way of ensuring it would remain largely invisible to the world while acting as a kind of deep emotional therapy for the writer.

Alas Michael Duffy ceased writing for the Herald, though you can still catch him trilling away on Counterpoint at Radio National, available in transcript sometimes or for listening and downloading here.

So then the site shifted over to a look at other commentariat columnist loons on a more regular basis, and alarmingly it began to attract readers and of course loons. Many more than expected, and while of course sensible readers only admired the plumage and the loud squawking before moving on, the odd loon left a note to indicate that indeed the site struck chords. Even if they were discordant chords only suitable for inclusion in a Stockhausen concert.

Perhaps my fondest memory is of a loon from Nedlands in Western Australia who kept coming here in search of Hal G. P. Colebatch and leaving naughty anonymous messages, when he could just as easily have met Mr. Colebatch in his local coffee shop.

But as the readership began to grow and the loons began to squawk and prowl, it became painfully clear that calling the site after Mr. Duffy was both unfair and improper, at least after he became invisible and absent. After all, as vile progressives, who amongst us can believe in absentee landlords or absentee columnists?

While the title was changed to Loon Pond as an interim measure, the site now pops up all over the place bearing Mr. Duffy's name in its address and as a reference point. And some of the odium and opprobrium for its anti conservative bias no doubt lingers around him. This is hardly fair, because as columnists go, Mr. Duffy was largely inoffensive and on occasions sensible, and it's simply not right to have him somehow linked in to a commentary on deeply weird loons like Piers Akerman or Janet Albrechtsen. 

Unlike others, Mr. Duffy has shown a steely indifference to this blog, which is both sporting and sensible, and so it's only fair to call a halt after a year of musings under his name.

Which is not to say it's gone forever, so much as taking a rest, in much the same way as Jeffrey Bernard was regularly unwell.

If Mr. Duffy ever decides to return to regular column, the Michael Duffy Files will be on hand to pay devoted attention to his scribbling. 

But in the meantime, Loon Pond has shifted to its very own site and very own call sign.

If you want to visit Loon Pond, go HERE.

Apologies to all those who rely on bookmarks and similar intertubes folderol.

If you don't want to visit, fair enough, you may bugger off. It is after all only a form of therapy for the writer, and the fewer the loons that visit, the happier we all are (especially the loons from Nedlands, WA).

In any case, to borrow from Irish comedian Dave Allen, goodnight, thank you, and may your god go with you, whomever she might be.

Actually I don't think Dave said that last bit, but hey why not fling in a plug for Dave Allen's comedy stylings and the joys of being a practising atheist.