Chthonian

Chthonian (pronounced thoh-nee-uhn)

(1) In Classical mythology, of or relating to the deities, spirits, and other beings dwelling under the earth.

(2) Dwelling in, or under the earth

1840–1850: From the Greek chthóni(os), the construct being chthon (stem of chthṓn (earth) + -ios (the adjectival suffix, accusative masculine plural of –ius) + -an (from the Latin -ānus, which forms adjectives of belonging or origin from a noun.  It was akin to the Latin humus (earth).  The alternative spelling in Ancient Greek was khthonios (in or under the earth), from χθών (khthṓn) (earth, ground, soil).

The Furies (Erinyes)

In Greek mythology, the Furies were the three chthonic female deities of vengeance; known also as Erinyes (the avengers), their counterparts in Roman mythology, the Dirae.  The names of this grumpy triumvirate were Alecto (the angry one), Tisiphone (the avenger) and Megaera (the grudging one).  In the literature, they’re sometimes called the infernal goddesses.

In Internet mythology, three chthonic female deities of vengeance.  Opinion might be divided about the allocation of the labels Angry, Avenging & Grudging. 

There are several myths of the birth of the Furies.  The most popular is they were born simultaneously with Aphrodite but in Hesiod’s Theogony, he claimed the Furies were born out of Uranus’ blood while Aphrodite was being born from sea foam when Titan Cronus castrated his father Uranus and cast his genitals to the sea; implicit in this version is the Furies preceded the Olympian Gods.  Another myth suggests they were born of a union between air and sea while according to Roman Poets (Ovid's (Publius Ovidius Naso; 43 BC–17 AD) Metamorphoses and Virgil's (Publius Vergilius Maro (70–19 BC)) Aeneid, they were the daughters of Nyx (the Night). In some old Greek hymns and Greco-Roman poet Statius' (Publius Papinius Statius (circa 45-circa 96) Thebaid they were the daughters of Hades and Persephone, serving them in the kingdom of underworld.  Furies listened to the complaints and callings of victims in the world when these people cursed the wrongdoers.  Those who murdered their mothers or fathers were especially important for Furies because (at least according to the Ancient Greek poet Hesiod (7-8^th century BC)), they were born of a child’s wrongdoing to his father.  They punished people who committed crimes against gods, crimes of disrespect, perjury and those who broke their oaths, but they thought murder the most vile crime and one demanding the most cruel punishment.

Virgil pointing out the Erinyes (1890), engraving by Gustave Doré (1832–1883).

The Furies served Hades and Persephone in the underworld.  When souls of the dead came to the kingdom of Hades, firstly they were judged by three judges; that done, the Furies purified souls the judges deemed good and permitted their passage. Souls deemed wicked were condemned to the Dungeons of the Damned in Tartarus to be subjected to the most awful torture, overseen by Furies.  Descriptions of the Furies (almost always by male writers or artists) varied in detail but mostly they were depicted as ugly with serpents about their hair and arms, wearing black robes with whips in their hands.  Some claimed they also had wings of a bat or bird with burning breath and poisonous blood dripping from their eyes.

Loafer

Loafer (pronounced loh-fer)

(1) A person who loafs about; a lazy idler; a lay-about.

(2) A name for a moccasin-like, laceless, slip-on shoe, worn by both men and women.

(3) In some south-western US dialects, a wolf, especially a grey or timber wolf (often in the compound form “loafer wolf).

1830: The construct was loaf + -er.  Loaf was from the From Middle English lof & laf, from the Old English hlāf (bread, loaf of bread), from the Proto-West Germanic hlaib, from the Proto-Germanic hlaibaz (bread, loaf), of uncertain origin but which may be related to the Old English hlifian (to stand out prominently, tower up). It was cognate with the Scots laif (loaf), the German Laib (loaf), the Swedish lev (loaf), the Russian хлеб (xleb) (bread, loaf) and the Polish chleb (bread).  It was used to mean (1) a block of bread after baking, (2) any solid block of food, such as meat or sugar, (3) a solid block of soap, from which standard bar (or cake) of soap is cut or (4) in cellular automata, a particular still life configuration with seven living cells.  The origin of “use your loaf” meaning “think about it” in Cockney rhyming slang was as a shortened form of “loaf of bread” (ie “use your head”).  The –er suffix was from the Middle English –er & -ere, from the Old English -ere, from the Proto-Germanic -ārijaz, thought most likely to have been borrowed from the Latin –ārius where, as a suffix, it was used to form adjectives from nouns or numerals.  In English, the –er suffix, when added to a verb, created an agent noun: the person or thing that doing the action indicated by the root verb.   The use in English was reinforced by the synonymous but unrelated Old French –or & -eor (the Anglo-Norman variant -our), from the Latin -ātor & -tor, from the primitive Indo-European -tōr.  When appended to a noun, it created the noun denoting an occupation or describing the person whose occupation is the noun.  Loafer & loafing are nouns & verbs, loafed, loafering & loafered are verbs and loaferish is an adjective; the noun plural is loafers.

The use to describe “a lazy idler” was first documented in 1830 as an Americanism which may have been short for landloafer (vagabond), similar (though not necessarily related) to the obsolete nineteenth century German Landläufer (vagabond) or the Dutch landloper.  Etymologists suggest landloafer may have been a partial translation of a circa 1995 loan-translation of the German Landläufer as “land loper” (and may be compared with the dialectal German loofen (to run) and the English landlouper) but this has little support and most regard a more likely connection being the Middle English love, loove, loffinge & looffinge (a remnant, the rest, that which remains or lingers), from Old English lāf (remainder, residue, what is left), which was akin to Scots lave (the rest, remainder), the Old English lǣfan (to let remain, leave behind).  One amusing coincidence was that in Old English hlaf-aeta (household servant) translated literally as “loaf-eater” (ie, one who eats the bread of his master, suggesting the Anglo-Saxons might still have felt the etymological sense of their lord & master as the “loaf-guard”.  The expression "one mustn't despair because one slice has been cut from the loaf" describes a pragmatic reaction to learning one's unmarried daughter has been de-flowered and is said to be of Yiddish origin but no source has ever been cited.  In modern idomatic use, the derived phrases "a slice off a cut loaf is never missed" and "you never miss a slice from a cut loaf" refer to having enjoyed sexual intercourse with someone who is not a virgin, the idea being that once the end of a loaf (the crust) has been removed, it's not immediately obvious how many slices have been cut. 

The loafer is a style, a slip-on shoe which is essentially a slipper designed as an all-weather shoe for outdoor use.  They’re available in a wide range of styles from many manufacturers and this image is just a few of the dozens recently offered by Gucci.  In the old Soviet Union (the USSR; 1922-1991), there were usually two (when available): one for men and one for women, both (sometimes) available in black or brown.

The verb loaf was first documented in 1835 in US English, apparently a back-formation from the earlier loafer and loafed & loafing soon emerged.  The noun in the sense of “an act of loafing” was in use by 1855.  What constitutes loafing is very much something subjective; a student underachieving in Latin might be thought a loafer by a professor of classics but the “hard working, much published” don who in his whole career never lifted anything much heavier than a book would probably be dismissed as “a loafer” by the laborer digging the trench beneath his study.  A “tavern loafer” was one who spent his hours drinking in bars while a “street loafer” was a synonym for a “delinquent who hung about on street corners”.  Loafer as a description of footwear dates from 1937 and it was used of lace-less, slip-on shoes worn on less formal occasions (essentially slippers designed for outdoor use, a popular early version of which was the “penny loafer”, so named because it featured an ornamental slotted leather band across the upper where a coin was often mounted.  The use in some south-western dialects as “loafer” or “loafer wolf” to describe a grey or timber wolf is based on the American Spanish lobo (wolf), reinterpreted as or conflated with loafer (idler).

Rowan Williams (b 1950; Archbishop of Canterbury 2002-2012) admiring Benedict XVI’s (1927–2022; pope 2005-2013, pope emeritus 2013-2022) red loafers, Lambeth Palace, September 2010.

When in 2013 announced he was resigning the papacy, there was much discussion of what might be the doctrinal or political implications but a few fashionistas also bid farewell to the best-dressed pontiff for probably a century and the one Esquire magazine had named “accessorizer of the year”.  In recent memory, the world had become accustomed to the white-robed John Paul II (1920–2005; pope 1978-2005) who would don colorful garments for ceremonial occasions but never wore them with great élan and eschewed the use of the more elaborate, perhaps influenced by Paul VI (1897-1978; pope 1963-1978) whose reign was marked by a gradual sartorial simplification and he was the last pope to wear the triple tiara which had since the early Middle Ages been a symbol of papal authority; briefly it sat on his head on the day of his coronation before, in an “act of humility”, it was placed on the alter where, symbolically, it has since remained.

The pope and the archbishop discuss the practicalities of cobbling.

Benedict’s pontificate however was eight stylish years, the immaculately tailored white caped cassock (the simar) his core piece of such monochromatic simplicity that it drew attention to the many adornments and accessories he used which included billowing scarlet satin chasubles trimmed with crimson velvet and delicate gold piping and others woven in emerald-green watered silk with a pattern of golden stars.  Much admired also was the mozzetta, a waist-length cape, and the camauro, a red velvet cap with a white fur border that around the world people compared with the usual dress of Santa Claus, X (then known as twitter) quickly fleshing out the history of the Coca-Cola Corporation’s role in creating the “uniform” although there was some exaggeration, the Santa-suit and hat familiar by at least the 1870s although Coca-Cola’s use in advertizing did seem to drive out all colors except red.  On popes however, the red velvet and white fur trim had been around for centuries though it fell from fashion after the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II; 1962-1965) and was thus a novelty when Benedict revived the style.

The pope farewells the archbishop.

Not all (including some cardinals) appreciated the papal bling but what attracted most attention were his bright red loafers, a style of shoe which popes have been depicted wearing since Roman times and the Holy See was forced to issue a statement denying they were hand-crafted by the high-end Italian fashion house Prada.  In their press release, the Vatican’s Press Office reminded the world the red symbolizes martyrdom and the Passion of Christ, the shoes there to signify the pope following in the footsteps of Christ.  Rather than a fashion house, the papal loafers were the work of two Italian artisan cobblers: Adriano Stefanelli and Antonio Arellano and Signor Stefanelli’s connections with the Vatican began when he offered to make shoes for John Paul II after noticing his obvious discomfort during a television broadcast.  Signor Arellano had a longer link with Benedict’s feet, having been his cobbler when, as Joseph Ratzinger, he was the cardinal heading the Inquisition (now called the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF)) and as soon as Benedict’s surprise elevation was announced, he went immediately to his last and made a pair of red loafers for him (he’s an Italian size 42 (a UK 8 & a US 9)).  Upon his resignation, as pope emeritus, he retired the red loafers in favor of three pairs (two burgundy, one brown) which were a gift from a Mexican cobbler: Armando Martin Dueñas.  Pope Francis (b 1936; pope since 2013) has reverted to the austere ways of Vatican II and wears black shoes.

Channeling Benedict: Lindsay Lohan in red loafers, September 2016.  Although unconfirmed, it's believed these were not a papal gift.

Denunciate & Denounce

Denunciate (pronounced dih-nuhn-see-yet or dih-nuhn-shee-yet)

To denounce; openly to condemn.

1585-1590: From the Latin dēnuntiātus (announced), past participle of denuntio (I declare) & dēnunciāre (to declare) and, in English, the same word as denounce except directly from Latin.  It’s a strange word in that as a verb it’s rare to the point of obscurity yet is common as the noun denunciation.  Denunciate is a verb (used with or without object), denunciated & denunciating are verbs, denunciable is an adjective, denunciator & denunciator are nouns and denunciatory is an adjective.

Denounce (pronounce dih-nouns)

(1) To condemn or censure openly or publicly; to deplore, vehemently or openly to condemn.

(2) To make a formal accusation against an individual or institution, usually to the authorities.

(3) In law and international relations, to give formal notice of the termination or denial of a treaty, pact, agreement etc (rare except in technical use).

(4) To announce or proclaim, especially as something evil or calamitous (archaic in a secular context, still used in religious circles).

(5) To portend (obsolete).

1250–1300: From the Middle English denouncen, from the Old French denoncier (to speak out; to proclaim), from the Latin dēnuntiāre (make an official proclamation, to threaten), the construct being dē- (from) + nuntiāre (to announce), from nuntius (messenger).  Denounce (used with object), denounced & denouncing are verbs, denouncement & denouncer, noun and denounced is an adjective.

Denunciate & Denounce

Technically, the difference between the two is that denounce is a synonym of denunciate and denunciate is a related term of denounce.  As verbs, the historic difference was that denunciate meant “openly to condemn” while denounce meant “to make known in a formal manner; to proclaim; to announce; to declare”, a use long obsolete.  By inclination a reductionist and polished by the party pros in the practice of delivering easy-to-understand slogans and messages using simple words, repetitively recited, Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime-minister 2018-2022) wasn't noted for linguistic flourishes but, late in November 2021, chose to say he was “…denunciating any violence…”.  The context was an earlier public protest against certain COVID-19 measures and what he said was a clarification his of earlier remarks which some had claimed were in the spirit of Donald Trump's (b 1946; US president 2017-2021)  “…good people on both sides” comment when discussing a protest in the US at which a fatality occurred.  That hadn’t gone down all that well and Mr Morrison probably wanted to avoid the accusation of being "neutral in the battle between the fire and the fire brigade", Winston Churchill's (1875-1965; UK prime-minister 1940-1945 & 1951-1955) vivid evocation of what he thought the BBC's nihilistic attitude to things he though bad.

While the noun denunciation is in common use, the verb denunciating is so rare there were some who mistakenly assumed he’s conflated denouncing with enunciating, either misunfortunistically (in the George W Bush (George XLIII, b 1946; US president 2001-2009) way) or, as one tweet more ominously observed: “You don’t need Freud to understand the mixed message.”  Whatever might be the take on the politics, grammatically, the prime-minister was correct but the use was so unusual that one might wonder if it was tossed in as a linguistic distraction.  Mr Morrison was often denouncing things, individuals and ideas he found abhorrent, whether it be anti-corruption bodies which look a little too closely as how politicians operate or the CEOs of public corporations being a bit generous with bonuses not served in the politicians' troughs.  If again he needs to seek inspiration, he may turn to the Bible, both the King James Version (KJV; 1611) and New International Version (NIV; 1978-2011 and said to be most popular with Pentecostal preachers) often using the word and, if ever things seem a bit obscure, there’s always Leviticus and Ezekiel, both offering plenty about what demands some denunciating.

Balaam proclaimed his poem:Balak brought me from Aram;the king of Moab, from the eastern mountains:“Come, put a curse on Jacob for me;come, denounce Israel!”  (Numbers 23:7)

How can I curse someone God has not cursed?How can I denounce someone the Lord has not denounced?  (Numbers 23:8)

I denounce unto you this day, that ye shall surely perish, and that ye shall not prolong your days upon the land, whither thou passest over Jordan to go to possess it. (Deuteronomy 30:18)

Hannah prayed, "My heart rejoices in the Lord; my horn is exalted high because of the Lord. I loudly denounce my enemies, for I am happy that you delivered me. (1 Samuel 2:1)

Who would denounce his behavior to his face?Who would repay him for what he has done? (Job 21:31)

Whoever says to the guilty, “You are innocent”—people will curse him, and tribes will denounce him; (Proverbs 24:24)

I will denounce your righteousness and your works, for your collections of idols will not benefit you. (Isaiah 57:12)

Then certain ones said, “Come, let’s make plans against Jeremiah, for instruction will never be lost from the priest, or counsel from the wise, or an oracle from the prophet. Come, let’s denounce him and pay no attention to all his words.” (Jeremiah 18:18)

Indeed, I hear many people whispering, "Terror on every side. Denounce him, let's denounce him!" All my close friends watch my steps and say, "Perhaps he will be deceived, and we can prevail against him and take vengeance on him." (Jeremiah 20:10)

Just then, certain influential Chaldeans took this opportunity to come forward and denounce the Jews. (Daniel 3:8)

Then He proceeded to denounce the towns where most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent: (Matthew 11:20)

Blessed [morally courageous and spiritually alive with life-joy in God’s goodness] are you when people hate you, and exclude you [from their fellowship], and insult you, and scorn your name as evil because of [your association with] the Son of Man. (Luke 6:22)

The world cannot hate you [since you are part of it], but it does hate Me because I denounce it and testify that its deeds are evil. (John 7:7)

Therefore you have no excuse or justification, everyone of you who [hypocritically] judges and condemns others; for in passing judgment on another person, you condemn yourself, because you who judge [from a position of arrogance or self-righteousness] are habitually practicing the very same things [which you denounce]. (Romans 2:1)

This testimony is true. Therefore sternly denounce them, that they may be robust in their faith (Titus 1:13)

However, do this with gentleness and respect, keeping your conscience clear, so that when you are accused, those who denounce your Christian life will be put to shame. (1 Peter 3:16)

The film Mean Girls (2004) was based on Rosalind Wiseman's (b 1969) book Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence (2002) which explored the interaction of the shifting social cliques formed by schoolgirls.  A tale of chicanery & low skullduggery, once deconstructed, Mean Girls can be understood as a series of denunciations which act as the pivot points, both within and between scenes.

Carpet

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Acrimony

Acrimony (pronounced ak-ruh-moh-nee)

Sharpness, harshness, or bitterness of nature, speech, disposition, animosity, spitefulness or asperity; a state of or expression of enmity, hatred or loathing.

1535-1540: From the Middle French acrimonie (quality of being sharp or pungent in taste) or directly from the Latin acrimonia (sharpness, pungency of taste), figuratively "acrimony, severity, energy" an abstract noun, from acer (feminine. acris) (sharp), from the primitive Indo-European root ak- (be sharp, rise (out) to a point, pierce) + -monia or –mony (the suffix of action, state, condition).  Figurative extension to personal sharpness, bitterness and hatred was well established by 1610 and has long been the dominant meaning, the application to describe even a dislike of someone “irritating in manner” was noted from 1775.  The adjectival form acrimonious dates from circa 1610 from the French acrimonieux, from the Medieval Latin acrimoniosus and, again, is now usually figurative of dispositions, the use referencing taste or spell now entirely obsolete.

In the West, democratic politics, sometime in the nineteenth century had, evolved into the form today familiar: a contest between parties or aggregations sometimes described otherwise but which behave like parties. There’s much variation, there are systems which usually have two-parties and some which tend towards more and there are those with electoral mechanisms which cause distortions compared with the results the parties actually achieve but the general model is that of a contest between parties.  What that generates can be fun to watch but what’s more amusing is the contest within parties in which there’s more fear, hatred, loathing and acrimony than anything transacted between one party and another.  Sometimes these hatreds arise out of some ideological difference and sometimes it’s just a visceral personal hatred between people who detest each other.

Paris Hilton (left) and Lindsay Lohan (right), September 2004.

In December 2021, Paris Hilton revealed she and Lindsay Lohan had ended their acrimony of a decade-odd, because they’re “not in high school” and the renewal of the entente cordiale seems to have been initiated the previous month when Ms Lohan announced her engagement.  In her podcast This Is Paris, Ms Hilton observed “I know we’ve had our differences in the past, but I just wanted to say congratulations to her and that I am genuinely very happy for her”, reflecting on the changes in their lives and that of Britney Spears, the three who had been dubbed “The Holy Trinity” after Rupert Murdoch’s (b 1931) New York Post in 2006 published the infamous “Bimbo Summit” front page with the three seated in Ms Hilton’s Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren (C199; 2003-2010).  Perhaps feeling nostalgic, she added “It just makes me so happy to see, you know, 15 years later, and just so much has happened in the past two weeks… I got married, Britney got her freedom back and engaged, and then Lindsay just got engaged. So I love just seeing how different our lives are now and just how much we’ve all grown up and just having love in our lives.”  She concluded with: “And I think that love is the most important thing in life, it’s something that really just changes you and makes you grow, and when you find that special person that is your other half and is your best friend and you can trust…that’s just an amazing feeling.”  Both recently became mothers and exchanged best wishes.

Acrimony in action

At prayer together: Former Australian prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard, Parliament House, Canberra ACT, Australia.

More than one political leader has observed the secret to a successful relationship between a leader and deputy was to make sure neither wanted the other’s job and the Australian Labor Party's (ALP) Kevin Rudd (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2007-2010 & 2013) should have listened, not a quality for which he was noted.  Winning a convincing victory and supported by a groundswell of goodwill not seen in a generation, in December 2007 he became Prime Minister of Australia with Julia Gillard (b 1961; Australian prime minister 2010-2013) as deputy.  Things went well for a while, then they went bad and Gillard staged a coup.  After the hatchet men had counted the numbers, late one mid-winter night in June 2010, the deed was done and with Rudd politically defenestrated, Gillard was installed as Australia’s first female prime minister.

Beyond the beltway, the coup wasn’t well received, the voters appearing to take the view that while Rudd might have turned out to be a dud, it was their right to plunge the electoral dagger through the heart, not have the job done by the faceless men stabbing him in the back.  The support which had gained Rudd a healthy majority in 2007 declined and the 2010 election produced the first hung parliament since 1940, Gillard was forced form a minority government which relied on the support of a Green Party MP and three soft-drink salesmen, all with their own price to be paid,  Perhaps surprisingly, the parliament actually ran quite well and was legislatively productive, a thing good or bad depending on one’s view of what was passed but there certainly wasn’t the deadlock some had predicted.

Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd.

A slender majority of the politicians may have been pleased but the electorate remained unconvinced and however bad Rudd’s standing had been in 2010, by 2013 Gillard’s was worse and, after a splutter or two, in June 2013, the long months of instability came to a head and the hatchet men (this time aligned with Rudd) again assembled to do their dirty day's work.  Rudd took his vengeance, regaining the prime-ministership and Gillard retired from politics though the victory proved pyrrhic, Rudd defeated in the general election three months into his second coming, the spin being his accession to the leadership being what saved his party from what would have been a much worse defeat under Gillard.  Pyrrhic it may have been but he got his revenge so there’ll always be that.

In 2013, Rudd had lost to Tony Abbott (b 1957; Australian prime-minister 2013-2015) who gained quite a good swing, picking up a healthy majority which conventional political wisdom suggested should have guaranteed the Liberal-National coalition at least two terms in office.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t until two years into his term that some in the Liberal Party worked out there’d been a filing error and Mr Abbott thought he’d joined the Democratic Labor Party (the DLP, Catholic Church’s political wing in Australia) and genuinely believed he was leading a DLP government.  Malcolm Turnbull (b 1954; Australian prime-minister 2015-2018), who in 2009 had been usurped as opposition leader by Mr Abbott’s hatchet men, sniffed blood and assembled his henchmen, handing out the axes for what proved to be one of the longer slow-motion coups.  It culminated in a party-room vote in September 2015 when Mr Turnbull took his revenge, assuming the party leadership and becoming prime-minister.

This time, things went really well, Turnbull’s victory greeted with genuine optimism which exceeded that even which had swept Rudd to power in 2007 but it didn’t last and Turnbull missed his historic moment to go to the polls.  Like Sir John Gorton (1911-2002; Australian prime-minister 1968-1971) in 1968 and Gordon Brown (b 1951; UK prime-minister 2007-2010) in 2007, he didn’t seize the moment and do what Anthony Eden (1897-1977; UK prime-minister 1955-1957) did in 1955, realise this is a good as it's going to get and to delay will only make things worse.  Things got worse and after the 2016 election, although the government was returned, Turnbull's majority was greatly reduced.  To some extent, the electoral reversal could be accounted for by Turnbull using the campaign slogan "Continuity with Change", ridiculed almost immediately because it turned out to have been used in a US television comedy as an example of the sort of cynical, meaningless slogans around which election campaigns are now built.  The 3WS (three word slogan) is actually a good idea in the social medial age but whereas Mr Abbott was a master at using them in the propaganda technique perfected by the Nazis (simple messages endlessly repeated) and made "Stop the Boats", "Big Fat Tax" et al potent electoral weapons, Mr Turnbull proved not so adept.  His successors wouldn't make the same mistake of over-estimating the voters' hunger for intelligent discussion. 

God expresses his disapproval: Lightning strike in Wentworth on day of Wentworth by-election, 20 October 2018.

That couldn’t last either and it didn’t.  He had problems during his premiership, some of his own making but most not and in August 2018, the hatchet men of the other faction staged one of the more interesting coups and certainly one of the more convoluted, the challenger, whatever his original intention might have been, acting as a stalking horse, unsuccessful in his challenge but trigging a demand for a second vote which Turnbull, reading the tea leaves, declined to contest.  Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime-minister 2018-2022), a perhaps even too convincing a Vicar of Bray, then won the leadership against two opponents from the right and left and both improbable as prime minister in their own ways.  Turnbull resigned from Parliament, triggering a most unwelcome by-election in which the Liberal Party lost the seat of Wentworth to an independent, thereby losing its absolute majority on the floor of the house.  The dish of vengeance had been served hot and eaten cold.

Morrison went on to secure an unexpected victory in the 2019 election.  There’s been a bit of commentary about that surprise result but, given the circumstances, it can’t be denied it was a personal triumph and for the first time in almost a decade, the country had a prime minister who could govern with the knowledge none of his colleagues were (obviously) plotting against him.  His term has, like all administrations had its ups and downs but unlike many, ultimately he didn't gain a benefit from the COVID-19 pandemic and was defeated in the 2022 election.  Because the acrimonies between some of the leading figures in the new ALP government were well-known, political junkies were looking forward to a new round of back-stabbing and shark-feeding but thus far, the tensions have remained (mostly) well-hidden from public view.