The Sunday Ishmael: 24/08/2025: Put out More Flags

 

I couldn't fly the flag of St George here - even out in the countryside, it would be frowned upon, to put it mildly. Oh, there's no shortage of flag flying - the Orkney flag

is displayed by the Viking/Norwegian types and the Saltire

is flown by the Weegie ex-pats. There's even the occasional sighting of the Union Jack, because Orkney isn't rabidly pro-Independence. If Scotland seceded, Orkney would be Independent of Scotland in order to throw in their lot with Norway, which is fairly indifferent about re-embracing their lost children. A bit like West Africa, which hasn't rushed to extend a repatriation offer to the formerly enslaved citizens of the United Slaves.

But not the flag of St George - who was an unlikely patron saint of England, being a Greek chap who served in the Roman army, but not to let fact get in the way of a good story. No, never that flag in Scotland.  Not so in Weoley Castle, Birmingham, I am delighted to say. The Weoley Warriors are "A group of proud English men with a common goal to show Birmingham and the rest of the country of how proud we are of our history, freedoms and achievements.

Giving hope to local communities that all isn’t lost and they are not alone.

We will be using all funds for flags, poles and cable ties.

We are happy to take road requests on donation, please use the contact function below.

We have been overwhelmed with all of the donations given and road requests. Please bear with us as all volunteers work full time, we will endeavour to fulfil all requests.

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Thanks you for your support, god bless."

Rally round the flag, boys. Not just Weoley Castle - also in posho Barnt Green. And it isn't just in Birmingham that the English flag is being raised on lampposts. It is happening in Worcester, Bradford, Greater Manchester, Newcastle and Norwich. In York, Flag Force UK is raising funds to raise flags. Their website states: 

"Ultimately around the world people fly their flag with pride and no one bats an eye. We have the same right to do so while using the attention it gets to spur on positive action. Let's reclaim our flags and symbols and use them as a force to do good."

If you detect a certain defensive tone, it is because the fashionable bien-pensants are upset about this movement to reclaim pride in England, apostrophising it as racist, inflammatory and contrary to the official rubric that diversity is England's strength. I'm sure the flagsters are right. And about time, too. 

Apparently, the first flags went up in Weoley Castle, which is a nice enough residential suburban area to the south of Birmingham. I used to live near there. It has the ruins of its own castle, named "Wēo-lēah" (from the Old English) meaning "temple clearing". Before the Christian era there may have been a heathen temple there. The flags went up in protest that a 12 year old girl in Bilton School in nearby Rugby was prevented from participating in the school's "culture celebration day", for which pupils were asked to wear cultural dress rather than school uniform. The little girl wore a union jack-themed dress and was stopped from making a speech about being British.

Any culture except that one. Any national dress except that one. Any flag except that one.

To be honest, I always thought that flying flags was a bit naff. I thought that patriotism was alright for foreigners who don't know any better. That we don't need to do that, we British, because we know, deep down, that we are inherently superior to everyone else, and that the polite thing to do is not to rub it in.

I'm a convert now. Because it seems that the campaign of the sophisticated, terminally embarrassed, middle class metropolitan liberal-elite stone-mad wankers to destroy national pride, identity and history has been a huge success. That whole separate development rather than integration tosh, that cultural diversity crap, that failure to call out female genital mutilation as child abuse "because it's their culture", that serving of halal meat in school dinners in order to respect different religious beliefs (bollocks - you do know how animals are slaughtered in order to produce halal meat? If not, please go elsewhere to acquaint yourself - I can't bear the pictures) - yes, all that woke stuff has permeated the national psyche to the point where the middle class are ashamed to be British.

Thank god for the working class. 

Here's stanislav, writing about Birmingham back in 2010. 

Today, stanislav takes temperature in Birmingham, used to be workshop of Empire and manufacture every fucking thing, from tiny little needle to big fuck-off Howitzer and Spitfire and lorry and van and car,  now  whole fucking place  just poxy shopping centre is, Selfridges ugly building and Merry Hell Centre in Duddl-eye .

 Brummy not as bad is, obviously, as Jock, ginger, mutant, cross-dressing, wife-beating, child molesting  bastard out from mind on tonic wine, cheap smack and temazepam, lying in fucking gutter in vomitstained shellsuit and tattoo on forehead saying JUCK and never day's decent work has done or even can read and fucking write, only  to scribble "please fuck my arse, the noo"  down on public toilet wall, "for fifty pee, discount for parties, arranged can be, d'ye ken. Nae English."

Is not Glasgow or anything - but fucking shithole is anyway,  Birmingham, these days, and good for fuck all,  now, just like all of not very Great Britain, after brilliance of fuckpig billionaire  cheeky bastard shopkeeper of M and fucking S and B and fucking Q - or leaders of business as they like to be called - grubby fucking shopkeeperbastards peddling tat and junk made in Chink sweatshop and rubbish is and wanting to dictate government policy, since when is fucking shopkeeping bastard political scientist,  all can do is pay minimum wage and flog off loads of rubbish, is worse than fucking Taliban these bastards, them  and thieving bastard banking cunt are all so fucking clever we don't even make  fucking cars any more, only fucking rubbish wooden ones  -  Morgan, they make a handful of cars and employ a handful of people, the UK car industry   - and only good for fucking Diarrhoea Balti, Birmingham is, down Ladypool Road,  pissed up bloke and Chlamydia totty in bare leg and high heel can eat as much rotten Halal goat meat as possible for  three quid at Formica table and never mind poor beast throat had cut in backyard and bled to death, screaming in shit and blood, for Allah,  the merciful   and bring in own bottle of Newcastle Brown can  from paki supermarket next door,  with rotten old tomatoes and fruit sitting in  shitty old crate on pavement with dogpiss and exhaust fumes, like real metropolitan sophisticate,  for washing-down purposes and enjoy eye-watering bout of le posterieur flambee next fucking morning as  burning hot,  high pressure torrent of liquidise goat and naan bread come shooting out from arse in every fucking direction and arsehole stings just  like was swarm of fucking wasp living up Jacksie and can't even hardly stand-up straight from toilet and stink would strip varnish off from front door of hi-rise council flat and called multiculturalism,  this fucking nonsense rubbish is,  was dead ginger bastard Robin Cook who said Oh Ah, Fuck me, used to be could ask British person what was favourite dinner and roast fucking beef with pudding of Yorkshire would be answer, but now, aha, ahum, answer would be chicken tikka fucking masala and that goes to show how very far we have come as a nation under New Labour, going down Ladypool Road pissed up and scoffing condemned, unfit for human consumption  meat and arse-destroying spices, according to Cook, is equivalent of two-year tour of Indian sub-continent,  stupid ginger Jock bastard, as though eating shit curry same thing is as studying Paki history and writing and music, is not very much,  is true,  of history, because Paki country has only been here fifty fucking years or so and might not last another six fucking months and could disappear  and us too if Talimen cop hold of nuclear PakiBomb and have to get terminated with extreme and I mean fucking extreme prejudice, what with militantbastard and terroristbastard and  mullahbastard and insurgentbastard and bent governmentbastard  and Bhutto dynastybastard,  worse than house of fucking Windsor is and Prince of fucking Wales, not to mention applepie-eating, crewcut, granny-raping CIA murdering psychobastard gonzo and  embittered belligerent lesbian lunatic  Hillary Trousers flying all over the fucking place shouting at people as though it was the whole world what pissed on her wedding vows and not just Spunky Bill, the murdering, thieving, bullying, coke-snorting, whoremongering arsehole and soon to have heart failure, with any luck is. Fucking place could go up in garlic mushroom cloud any day.  And anyway Pakistani founder  bloke, Jinnah the Paki,  only set up muslim  country in first place because he and fellow head-chopping, women-stoning hysterical beardy  maniacs and worshippers of Allah the wise and merciful, peace and blessing be upon his name can't get on with neighbouring Sikh and Hindus all down together there,  shitting in the Ganges and holy bathing all at the same time, with cow and buffalo wandering in and out from house and  shitting sacred shit on carpet  and  some bastards  so  poor are that unfuckingtouchable is. Unfuckingtouchable, worse than piece of shit. Who wants to  multicultural, all men are pluralist brothers be,  with bastards like this, fucking savages, punch in fucking mouth should get and never mind pushing-in to queue down at Post Office.  The very idea.  First thing should happen when Hindu or Sikh or Muslim bastard come in country, even if is Krishnan Guru O'Murphy, off C4 news with Jon Sox, or famous gobby cricketing bastard playboy, Imran Khan,  is give good swift punch in nose, not bit of slap, good proper thump, broken cartilage and hot blood choking in throat and seeing stars and told, we don't do that untouchable shit in this country, is fucking rubbish.  And we don't slaughter goats in the back yard, neither. And No, you can't burn your dead uncle's body on the municipal fucking bowling green, fuck off and I don't give a flying fuck what it says in the European Human Rights Act;  is that fucking clear?  And while is here, is no more mosque or fucking temple to go up, is plenty allfuckingready. Is fucking England here and not fucking Asia.  Understand?  Is fucking England, have come to fucking England and is Christian culture and architecture and not homeland of Ali Baba and Forty Fucking Thieves with minarets and flying fucking carpet and bullock shitting in the middle of the A45 and nobody can shoo the bastard away.  Fucking England is  - or Wales or Scotland, best part is of England -  no point is trying to make home from fucking home, better off is to stay at home and use Mosque already there. Or Temple. Can build Mosque, OK,  but has to be in line with local planning and look like decent proper Norman C-of-E church, with spire. And fucking clock. And graveyard.  And gay mullah living in loving partnership before God with young rentboy. Okay, fuck off, now,  and Hare Krishna.  Is in England now and best to behave is like decent English bloke and not elephant-riding Mahafuckingrajah, with slaves and concubines. And all this Mrs  shit, her all wrapped up in head to fucking toe binbag  and walking four paces behind you down a Wolverhampton street  with her eyes cast down in the gutter, like  repentant fucking sinner from Middle fucking Ages,  you can forget all that bollocks, Ahmed, me old son;  same with your daughters, you and your half-shaven fag sons try any of that honour killing nonsense and you'll get a good fucking kicking, you heathen fucking cocksucking bovverboys.   And if only some bastard had said this all along, in best proper polite English terms of course and maybe no effing and fucking blinding, or not so much, then proper understanding and mutual respect would have been develop. Instead, bent,  jumped-up councillors and stupid,  gobby MPs have hung everybody out to dry in  deranged and chaotic equal opportunities climate, too timid, too cunning, maybe,  certainly too hungry for votes to tell our newcomers the score.

Anyway, Jinnah and Co said fuck all this superstitious shit, is only one god and Allah is his name and peace and blessings be on it and anybody disagree get  Fatwahed and beheaded on TV and we can't be doing with all these long beards and fucking turbans and mad sexual intercourse all day long,  all twisted-up like made of rubber was in Hindu book of Kama Sutra, filthy fucking bastard nignogs, we off out of it are, in new place and call it Pakistan, is long way of saying Paki.  And from there  we invade Birmingham. But if Paki bloke cannot get on with Sikh and Hindu what fucking chance is with Godless, heathen bastard Aston Villa-worshipping Brummie nutcase? Is not integrate, anyway, no matter what City fathers say, no matter what Baron Hatterjee of Sparkbrook says, horrible spit-spraying old faggot,  is just ghetto of Labour-voting shopkeeper and cash 'n'carry wallah. Or disgusting banana  republic, as High Court Judge, Mr Justice Knobrot QC, said, a few years back. 

Is hardly no bastard in work anymore here in Brum apart from probation oficer and outreach worker and fucking imbeciles in Selly Oak Job Centre or Restart. Anybody hear this cunt of a man, manager of Selly Oak Pisshole Job Centre on madeupnewsandfilth's Radio Four Programme?  Radio Four does worthy and concerned  programme, all  shit fucking rubbish  with no advert or jingle like decent station and daytime or early evening is like wander into world of phony, thoughtful, sanctimonious  caring, is fucking endless Woman Hour with wretched old fucking boot, Jenny Murray and  Pee Em with Eddie Smug and WATO with Martha Kearney and MoneyBox and some tight-fisted, mean as fucking dirt busybody  old fucking bastard from Hemel fucking Hempstead or Tunbridge fucking Well  phone-in, whining and  screeching, Can get extra farthing per month on pension, please? miserable, grumbling skinflint old  codgers and fucking tied-up and tortured should be in own home by Hoodies, Hello...Hello..can you hear me ...I want to give money to poisonous fucking bastard grandchildren to help them through Uni - Uni is what used to be called college of fucking cooking and hairdressing and watching telly studies and is run on cheap by local council with wanker lecturers who can't write a fucking sentence in decent fucking  English and need themselves Educayshun, Educayshun, Educayshun - and fund their fucking Gap year, obnoxious, smirking little consumerist pricks, and what best way is to pay no fucking tax? Oh, fuck me, thanks for your call, Margaret,  there, in Saffron fucking Walden and I am joined in the studio by an accountant, another accountant and another accountant, none of which fuckwits saw the credit crunch coming until it had wiped out all their clients' monies  but they'll be able to advise you, because they are the experts.......Anyway was programme on about Selly Oak Job Centre and was interviewing clients - ie deadbeat bums on fucking dole,  most of West Birmingham - and everybody says is all shit, no courses, no advice, no funds, get treated fucking worse than  whore at hockey match, come in the door and get fucking ignored by staff and eventually told is that  nothing fucking doing is and that all the jobs on the board are all made fucking up, honest and not invent, all made up, no point applying is because what happens is Ree-surcher from Job Centre telephones employer and says Any Job Going ? And employer says No, fuck off, be down there meself, soon, in fucking Job Centre. But might be jobs, one day?  Well, might be. Can put you down for twenty, then? Do what the fuck you want. Okay, then, forty. And soon all the boards and computer screen is fill-up with jobs which aren't, but might be. And government lying bastard minister for benefits can say, Oi, citizens, look,  here is million or two of jobs unfilled, better get off down Job Centre of Shit and get one, even if is all imaginary, imaginary job is better than no job, innit, and better watch out or will imaginary benefits be collecting.  Interviewer says to Job Centre Manager, Wossallthisshit, then, made-up jobs?  No, is straight up, meet all criteria of Department of Work and No-Pension, which is main thing, otherwise I get the sack and is coming in here myself and applying for jobs which figment  of statistical imagination are, and not really there at all. No, no,  no, is plenty of courses, paint and decorate and cv writing, to name but all of them...But Mr Smith says your staff told him no course was and to fuck off and get course from private firm...No, no, no, I do assure you he is wrong.....Is not fucking wrong, is fucking outside, Mr Smith,  go and fucking ask him, has sorted out course for himself which you useless fucking bastards should have sorted out.  Have spoke to dozens of fucking people and all the courses which they should be able to get for retraining for new fucking jobs in the new fucking economy of the fucking future and which Gordon fucking Brown and Ed fucking Balls are always going on about, and that useless  walking disease, Lord Nothing-Wrong-With-My-Arse Was -Just -Routine- Emergency-Arsectomy Requiring-Few-Day-In-Royal-Hospital-For-Officer-And-Poof, well, your staff have never fucking heard of them.  No, no, no,  I assure you and your smugbastard RadioFour listeners that this will be just a question of minor adjustments as the new programmes are rolled out across the country. And can't fucking obviously, comment on individual case, So there. Bollocks. Restart, down SellyOak Job Centre of Shit is, like every other fucking thing, whatever we say it is.

Birmingham economy is fucked,  manufacturing is destroyed  by people who lied and stole and killed and cheated and blackmailed and now can only mouth jargon and fucking slogan about imaginary new economy, imaginary jobs and imaginary prosperity, thieves and jackals, good for fuck all and up against wall should go. Steven Byers gave Longbridge and its traditions away to thieving bastards, beyond the law or morality's reach, its workforce now at the mercy of government initiatives at Selly Oak Job Centre of Shit is. And if any justice was Byers and Hoon and the rest would be in custody remanded at Winson Green and no fucking bail, pending trial for deception and theft and good kicking having off thin blue line of lazy fat screws. Only trouble is madeupnewsandfilth quickly hoovered-up mess of ExpensesCrime and MortgageCrime and WarCrime and JunketCrime and EarthCrime and most especially, in Scotland, best part of England, of massive NonceCrime. 

George Cadbury great Edwardian philanthrowotsit was, here in Birmingham and made ethical business, sort of, was better, anyway, than nasty fucking leprechaun,  Willy O'Walsh,  does at BA and now is sold off to GlobaCorp, just for fucking money. as though money was real, like people and soon Cadbury chocolate outsource will be in New fucking Delhi, with cow and buffalo wandering around production line.  End of road for Workshop of Empire and just instead cheap corner shop will be and sharp-faced, ferrety Brummy  a citizen of depressed EuroRegion become. Like Albanian.

And testament will stand, Birmingham,  to growing our economy of goodforfuckall service industry, of worthless lying bastard financial adviser, of light regulatory touch. And culture will be of screaming  fag hairfuckingdresser  and Cruelty TV  and celebrity slapper with big plastic tits;  toolsetter and capstan operator, like  miner and steelworker and shipbuilder,  out on street with outlaw junky angel and prostitute will be, in Ruin.

So,  Asian vote will stay largely with SnotParty and so will probation officer, teacher, gay and bisexual community relations officers. And nurse and social worker. Blue collar bloke, still wiping off Byers' shit from face, will not vote Snot but will not vote Sam and Dave, either and  unlikely is to vote ShitEaters4HomeSeckatry. (Note off editor for overseas readers. In run-up, as we say, to last UK election, LibDem shadow Home Seck discovered by tabloids was to be dirty bastard copraphiliac, in house of commons was saying You watch me, voters, when I am Home Seck, which, actually speaking will be never, I tough am going to get with prostitution and stuff like that,  But and is big fucking but, huge fucking but, same bloke, Mark Eaton, MP, was doing unmentionable shit with rentboy, unfuckingmentionable, in fact, in United State of Obama, would have Hizonner Judge Hymie Goldblum yelling Yes, you can't,  you miserable sonofafuckingbitch and probably go in Old Sparky and get fried-up with eyes popping out and dangling down cheek and veins bursting and cock shooting sparks out from end, like Mount Vesuvius and crowd of Anafuckingbaptist witnesses in Sunday suit singing We Shall Overcome But You Sure as Hell Won't, Motherfucker,   if caught is doing this shit. 

Was German sort of perversion.  Everybody know that Herman the German is filthy fucking bastard and poking about in shit is every morning with Mrs and Jah,  Liebschen-ing is, dis poo is sehr gut, Liebschen,  is firm and gut colour and smell fresh and happy und look, Lieschen,   mein own poo is wunderbar, is neine  blood and full of seeds is so mein bowel is gut und cleansed, scrape clean with seeds from gut German wholemeal bread. Could probably, Liebschen,  pull rectum inside-out and eat dinner off. Come Liebschen, let's sit down together, holding hands  on our side-by-side Herr und Frau toilet bowls and do our liddle, healthy poos together, Jah? Heil Hitler.

Is famous for being romantic like that, German bloke. Only not with Jew. Or gipsy. Or poof. Well, Eaton bloke was (allegedly- see Wikipedia - ed.) worse than this, was worse than Herman the German. After day in Snot parliament, passing laws,  would go in rentboy flat, take off MP suit and lie under glass coffee table and rentboy poo would do on tabletop only tabletop not there was and, well, is fucking decent family blog here and not go no further but Fuck me, Jesus, what sort of people can be who would   have shit-eating freak in front of front fucking bench ? Here is our shadow Home Seckatry. And in his spare time, he eats shit, yes, that's right he eats shit, not his own mind, no, that would be disgusting,  he pays other people to shit on him and eats it. Is fucking  having fucking laugh, innit, with voter. ShitEaters might win in Solihull, which is very posh part of Birmingham and so full of poof and freak is but out of work car and chocolate egg maker will not vote for ShitEaters.)

Is some racial tension, growing unemployment and Austerity Years of National Recovery from the Bankers' Depredations are coming for all. Never mind, always is internet porn and daytime telly and burglary to fall back on. Probably political map  of Brum will remain mainly SnotGreen  with a few splash of Sam and Dave Blue and maybe little spot of ShitEater Brown, like skidmark.

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Thank you, stanislav. Heavily edited to take out the rude bits. Should not need to point out that this is 15 year old satire and not incentive to incite racial hatred, but, le loi est le loi si vous êtes Mede, Perse ou Lucy Connolly, so just to be clear, this is satire.

Back to the flag flyers of Birmingham, York, Bradford, Worcester, Manchester, Newcastle and Norwich.

"The meteor flag of England

shall yet terrific burn,

Till danger's troubled night depart,

and the star of peace return." 

Thomas Campbell -  1777-1844.

Bet you didn't know that the Union Jack is named after Jack Crawford? At the Battle of Camperdown off the Dutch coast on the 11 October 1797, Venerable was Admiral Duncan's flagship. During the battle, part of the Venerable's mast was felled, including the admiral's flag. Lowering the Admiral's personal flag was a sign of surrender, and even an unintentional fall was unacceptable. Despite being under intense gunfire, Crawford climbed the mast and nailed the colours to the top.

Hence - Union Jack and nail your colours to the mast.

Here's Bob Fox, At Trades Club in Hebden Bridge, February 2010, telling Jack's story:

What's on Telly.

Hostage

Starring Gentleman Jack, aka Suranne Jones as British Prime Minister Abigail Dalton

Julie Delpy as French President Vivienne Toussaint

Bashy, (a rapper) aka Ashley Thomas as the Black Husband
Lucian Msamati as the Downing Street Chief of Staff, looking like David Lammy after a very heavy weight fell on him 

Netflix tells us that "Hostage" is a gripping new political thriller series on Netflix, featuring a storyline where the British Prime Minister's husband is kidnapped, forcing her to navigate a complex web of political intrigue and personal dilemmas.

This is Tosh. Complete, unadulterated Tosh, filled with stereotypes and clichés. It is impossible to suspend disbelief. Two female Heads of State, one with the obligatory Black Husband, one bonking her stepson, a David Lammy-style Civil Servant functionary, and a forest that resolutely stayed very English-looking, despite the tents, helicopters and hostage takers. Just titillatory crapdoodles. I swore I wouldn't watch more than the first episode. My friend managed 25 minutes before giving in. I'm up to Episode 4 now and was only able to stop myself gulping down Episode 5 because it was midnight and past my bedtime.  I know – terrific tosh! Downing Street has now been blown up and Madame la Presidente is dead – it all serves her right for being a dirty whore because it was the girlfriend of her stepson who duped him into carrying a laptop bomb into Downing Street. But Gentleman Jack will save the day, what with her perfect cheekbones and Black Husband and Half Black daughter who grassed her up to the press but all is forgiven, because what can you expect from a retarded teenager? And her Wilfrid Pickles old dad whose only narrative purpose was to show she has common roots is now murdered at the hand of Madame la Presidente’s step-son’s girlfriend who is cross because her Regiment - the Jolly Highland Sheep Stealers, has been axed because of Budget cuts. But, fortunately, before Downing Street was blown up, miraculously not killing Gentleman Jack, her Black Husband, Half Black daughter and la Presidente’s step-son, who seems to incur no moral opprobrium because he has stubble and is a bloke, despite banging his aged step mother and videoing it – the video that was released to all media outlets by his Hoots, Mon, former Jolly Highland Kilters girlfriend, fortunately, as I say, a deal was struck in which the French for Fuck’s Sake, will supply the British with all the drugs that the NHS has run out of, which deficit has caused rioting on the streets. Take a deep breath.

One more episode to go, one more episode to sort Britain out!!!

Highly recommended. If you like tosh. Which, it turns out, I do.

...................................................................................

You may like this.  It speaks to those of us who have far more decades behind us than ahead of us.

There are four splendid anthologies of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend and editor, mr verge, the house filthster. You can buy them from Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

IIshmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps 

please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.

Link for Hardcover : https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr

Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux

https://www.lulu.com/shop/ishmael-smith/flush-test/paperback/product-9yjvn7.html?q=Flush+Test&page=1&pageSize=4

At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage. If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.

With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.

The Jolly Highland Sheep Stealers Regiment now axed due to Budget cuts.

The Sunday Ishmael: the controversial edit.

 Editor verge said, no, no, mrs. ishmael, "you can't do that. Careful, now". 

 "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.  For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face." 

1 Corinthians 13:11-12 New King James Version

"If you’re not a leftist or socialist before you’re 25, you have no heart; if you are one after 25 you have no brain." 

variously attributed - Burke and Churchill amongst others

Which is why, of course, the amazingly unpopular Sir Starmer is proposing the enfranchisement of 16 year olds, from whom, he believes, he can con a second term. 

My own lefty liberal beliefs, as a child, when I thought as a child and spake as a child are pretty embarrassing these days: do not confront me with my failures, I have not forgotten them. For example, I believed that babies are tabula rasa 

and environment alone shapes the growing child, echoing Aristotle and St Ignatius Loyola, whose maxim was, ‘Give me a child till he’s seven, and I will show you the man’. Adolf Hitler believed the same, stating baldly, "He alone who owns the youth, gains the future", thereby providing an object lesson in attempting to manipulate and impose control. Starmer Youth, perhaps?

I was a child of my times, before the Genome Project, and since then we have learned that the tabula rasa model of the mind was a load of bollocks. Behavioural genetics, especially twin and adoption studies indicate strong genetic influences on personal characteristics such as IQ and alcoholism. Multivariate studies have shown that the distinct faculties of the mind, such as memory and reason, fractionate along genetic boundaries. This is not something to talk about at polite dinner parties, unless you relish being called a eugenicist and told to get out, we're keeping the bottle of wine you brought and if you're hungry, buy your own chips on the way home. 

Here's something else that's deeply disturbing. Ultrasound studies of twin babies in utero over time show the foetuses interacting in the womb, starting from the 14th week of gestation. They plan and execute movements specifically aimed at the co-twin. So when one twin is born fat and healthy and the other is thin and wizened, we know what's been going on. 

And here's another thing: during pregnancy, cells from the foetus cross the placenta and enter the mother's body, where they invade her tissues. This means that mothers carry unique genetic material from their children’s bodies, creating a microchimera, which affects the mother, from better wound healing to a higher risk of cancer.

 Over evolutionary time, the foetus has evolved to manipulate the mother's physiology and increase the transfer of resources like nutrition and heat to the developing foetus. The mother's body has evolved countermeasures to prevent excessive resource flow. Although the mother's immune system  removes unchanged foetal cells from the blood after pregnancy, the ones that have already integrated with maternal tissues escape detection and remain in the mother's body. When she gets pregnant again, she accumulates cells from each baby, and cells are transferred from the older sibling into the younger one, which, it seems, can cause the miscarriage of the rivalrous younger sibling, so that the first child gets to keep more resources. 

“I think one promising area for further research concerns unexplained pregnancy losses, and whether older siblings, as genetic individuals, can play a role in delaying the birth of younger siblings,” says David Haig, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University.

Based on evolutionary reasoning, the hypothesis is that foetal cells should be found primarily in the tissues that play a role in transferring resources to the foetus. That includes the breast, where they may impact milk production; the thyroid, where they can affect metabolism and heat transfer to the baby; and the brain, where they may influence neural circuitry and maternal attachment to the child.

Which validates that old wives' tale that a baby brings its own love with it. Sure - by manipulating the mother's brain. That may explain the reluctance of some mothers to abort the foetuses of rapists.

So, the conclusion forms itself - there are no innocent babes and the ancient Romans had the right idea when deposing the latest Caesar - kill his babes, too.

Throwing off the veil of lefty liberally wokey sentimentality, I was having a little think about Cincinnati.

The US is a very big place when you include Alaska and Hawaii. The United States is almost joined onto Russia. Looks closer than Orkney is to the Scottish mainland.  Made sense for Trump and Putin to have their meeting in Alaska and it also makes geopolitical sense for Trump to pall up with Putin and freeze out China.

It is all a question of perspective, and the Mercator projection doesn't really help in understanding where places are in relation to each other.

So when I read about Cincinnatti, I went looking for Ohio on a map and was kind of surprised to see it is not down there in the stone-mad southern states, nor is it over there near the stone-mad California fruitcake state - it is fairly near the civilised bit.  So why, as the Ohioans and Buckeyes say themselves, do they not have a race problem, but a problem race? Honest, not invent. I read it. 

Are you up to speed with what happened in Cincinatti on the 26th July?

Two black men ambushed a white man on the street in the early hours of the morning, initiating an attack which immediately gained popularity with many other black people enthusiastically joining in, punching and kicking the victim. A white woman attempted to shield the victim, whereupon she was punched and knocked unconscious. A hundred or so people were present, but no-one else attempted to intervene and only one person called the police, as most people were either taking their turn in kicking and punching the victim, or filming the assault. 

The truly disturbing thing is that black community leaders and ministers are calling for the victim to be charged with inciting a riot.

Cecil Thomas, Democrat and Ohio State Rep.

Thomas, a former police officer, said the lack of charges for the white victim in the white shirt who allegedly “incited” the mob violence “raises serious questions on whether there is bias involved in the investigation. It also brings into question the possibility of lack of integrity and whether there’s something else to hide. The Black community of this city demands to be respected and until justice is fully served, this city can not and will not move forward.” 
The "incitement" consisted of the victim having "words" with a black guy in the pub. When he left, he was followed outside and vigorously beaten unconscious.

Slavery and War are part of the human condition. Probably because of Eve eating that apple and getting her and Adam slung out of the Garden of Eden. Bound to be the woman's fault. We might wish that War and Slavery were not intrinsically part of the human condition - but tough. They are. When you win a war you get to keep your defeated enemies' goods, chattels, territory, women and children and execute the blokes. The victor can have sex with the women and children and sell them to enrich himself. Yeah, all women's fault.

Every empire had slaves. Greek, Roman, Mongol, Viking - all of them. All of our ancestors.  The Arabs were pretty efficient slave takers, not just in War, but in coastal raids, scooping up people from handy villages and selling them on. The sub-Saharan Africans  were particularly wedded to the slave economy and their slave traders enthusiastically provided enslaved Africans  to the European slave trade, which provided labour to the Americas, beginning in the 

16th century and lasting to the 19th century, when Britain abolished it and went to some trouble to end the trade at sea. The vast majority of those who were transported in the transatlantic slave trade were from Central and West Africa and had been sold by West African slave traders to European slave traders, while others had been captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids. As the National Museums Liverpool explains: "European traders captured some Africans in raids along the coast, but bought most of them from local African or African-European dealers."  The majority of the slaves worked in the rural economy. Slavery ended in the United Slaves in 1865, with the end of the Civil War. That is not very long ago - only 160 years, and the aftermath of having a slave economy is by no means resolved - as the Cincinnati incident, and other similar incidents, demonstrates, with mutual suspicion and hostility between two peoples who are essentially segregated from each other. 

In 1860 there were 4.4 million African Americans living in the U.S. In 2023, 48.3 million people in the U.S. self-identified as Black, making up 14.4% of the population.

As a social experiment, it is a massive mess - the movement of a population to another continent. And nobody is grateful. Nor does the formerly enslaved West and Central African population wish to be repatriated. It doesn't look like they wish to be integrated, either. Civil War?

No wonder Trump is freeing America from its former role as the global policeman - he has enough trouble attempting to make America Great Again.

We don't have quite that problem in Britain. The alien population that we have been importing with the connivance of politicians of all political parties against the expressed will of the British people (Brexit and the election of Labour with an overwhelming majority) are not enslaved, nor are they reluctant. Indeed, they are eager to come to Britain - paying thousands of pounds to people smugglers, who must be very rich indeed, as 50,000 illegal immigrants have invaded Britain during Labour's term of office. Around a year, I believe. That's two divisions in the British Army. The Army currently consists of  approximately 74,296 soldiers. Just saying.

Despite paying through the nose and enduring hardship to invade Britain, they are not grateful. They rather despise the culture.

If the political establishment refuses to deal with the situation while they can, this country is likely to become as segregated, hostile and dangerous as America.

Feel free to call me a racist. Everyone is a racist. It is as human as War and Slavery. Get over it.

To happier matters: The Genital Café 

This was the Genital Café, just up the road from Shearer's Magnificent Emporium. A Social Enterprise scheme, it was part of Orkney Blide* Trust, a mental health charity. Cooking, serving and cleaning up created training and employment opportunities to people with experience of mental ill health. Its unique selling point was its accessibility for wheeled humans - the lowered counter did not present a barrier to folk in wheelchairs, who therefore enjoyed full frontal views of staff genitalia enrobed in stretch denim and navel rings embellishing protruding pasty bellies. For fuck's sake, exploded mr ishmael after his sole visit to the establishment, I'm not so disabled that I can gaze with equanimity on buttocks and bollocks being scratched by their owners who do not scruple to rest said arses, sought after as they may be, on the counter where my food is prepared. Are you ma-a-ad? Are you trying to kill me? 

*Blide - (adj.) happy, pleased - The Orkney Dictionary

Gone now. Part of Old Kirkwall. Now the home of the Orcadian Turkish Barber Shop, which has re-purposed the booths and depressed maroon vinyl seating. 

Time to revisit mr ishmael and the Turkish Barber's.

"Being barbered is such a strange intimacy, all that looking-at and talking-to another bloke in the mirror, I can't be the only one made uneasy by that strange, public confessional booth, by a professional groomer telling one what would look good, hair-wise, parting-wise. 

My Dad  treated me to a barbershop shave - you know, all that fetishy palaver, a roasting  hot towel in tongs  draped over my face, a badger bristle brush soaping my face  and a stropped, cut-throat razor gliding over my Adam's apple.  Seems to me like the sort of ritual a hangman or a suicide bomber might enjoy, before going about his day job.  Once was enough. Those Al Capone blokes, in Chicago,   they must've been fucking mad, sitting in a chair with some spic fairy waving a blade around their windpipes.

I think the Ruperts used to command their batmen body servants to do it to them,  the hot, close shave; but then the Ruperts, well, TE Lawrence-Rupert, of Arabia, anyway, used to require of his manservant that he  beat  his  guilty buttocks  for him, with leather straps and God only knows what else.  A man's life, in the army, thrashing his master's arse.

I haven't  turned into Robinson Crusoe or anything, I just get mrs ishmael to tidy things up, once in a while; sometimes I do it myself, just wash it, comb it all forward and scissor a couple of inches away, job done, it's not surgery or anything.  But it's thinning  on the top now and I thought I'd better get a trained bloke to even things up a bit and so I went into the A Class Turkish Barbers, Dundee.

In the barbers,  I sat me down on the leather settee and commenced to watch Turkish Gaz shave this bloke's already closely-shaven head until he looked like a concentration camp victim and then take twenty quid off him.  In the other chair, Turkish Gaz's brother, Solly, was doing the same to another customer, only he was leaving a line, half-way up the scalp,  the kind of thing I used to do with the lawnmower, a line between mown strips that wasn't really there;  this was a neat line all the way around his head just above his ears which kind of made the almost-invisible stubble look as though it was, well I don't know what it was supposed to look like, looked fucking stupid to me, two-tone, that's what it was, a two-tone shaved head. See, bro, I 'as got yo line, innit, chortled Turkish Solly of A Class Turkish Barbers, Dundee.  'Ow many times it is I 'as done yo line now?  Issa lot anyway, I could do that line in me sleep, man, tellin' ya.

Growing concerned that this was not a gents' hairdressers in the usual sense, I had been looking along the counter for some scissors but all I could see was a vast selection of electric razors, black ones, red ones, white ones. And hair driers.  They each had a couple of hair driers, slung in holsters on the counter, like Colt .45s in the Sherriff's office. Whaddatheywant with hairdriers, I wondered, these guys have virtually fuck all hair when they come in here and none at all by the time  Gaz and Solly're done with them, what's to dry? You don't need a hairdrier for a shiny bald head with a fucking line around it. But then I saw Sol, down the other end, he had flames coming out of hands which were  frantically waving around his customer's recently shaven head.  Fuck, he's caught fire, poor bastard, mind you, paying twenty or thirty quid  to look like a nineteenth-century convict, he can't be right; probably just spontaneously combusted, Nature's way of telling him he's a waste of space, which he surely is;  happens all the time, I understand, just go up in flames and smoke, they do, only their shoes left, or in this bloke's case his lurid green and pink trainers.  I used to worry about that quite a lot, spontaneously combusting,  going so far as to mind-design a sensor-operated, shoulder-borne  fire extinguisher, with a nozzle on a tube just above the head, one wisp of smoke and a mighty deluge would flood the wearer, but these days I am less self-centred in my anxieties, more community-, more planetarily-orientated, worry myself sick, sometimes,  I do, about big fuck-off lumps of asteroid smashing into the Earth at sixty thousand miles an hour, blowing everything to fuck, roasting us all in our beds and blacking out the Sun for a hundred years;  serious climate change, that stuff, a  gazillion kilotonne nuke, turning everything all Golden Wonder.  You may mock my concern but cosmically speaking  that sort of shit happens every five minutes.

And then I understood, that what Sol was doing, down the other end of the salon,  was burning the hair out of wotsisname's, TwoToneHead's,  ears, with a lighted spill and he was waving his hand in and out of the flame, I suppose to stop the ear catching fire.  Fuck this, I thought,  for a game of soldiers, I came in here for a bit of a trim, not an Aushwitz scalping and having my ears set alight; I'm off, I'll buy a good pair of scissors and do it myself. In the hotel. No, not in the hotel, too dark, even in broad daylight, cut my ear off, I would and some whore probably bust-in, anyway, offering me a figgy shampoo or a pineapple blanquettejob a la mode. I'll give myself a trim when I get back home.  Not having some gobby Turkish git poofter set fire to my fucking head, after he's shaved it bald.

But I was too late, Turkish Gaz was extending to me a plastic cape and saying Your turn, sir, sorry to keep you an' 'ow is you today, an' 'ow you want yo' hair?

Before I sat down I said to him, struggling for an idiom, and regretting it immediately,  You do old-fashioned? Cutting?  With scissors?  Only me not wanna shave, like other blokes, certainly no shavez-vous  mon tete, comprenez? 

No, is OK, can scissors do. 

 And me not wanna catchee fire, in ear hole. 

 I didn't think he would, put the fire in my ear, not unless I let him shave my head clean, like a boiled egg, which I wouldn't. Be like Galipoli all over again if Gaz and Sol tried that. But I could see the grim logic of it, now, the fire, what's the point of  removing every trace of hair from the cranium, if there's strands hanging out from the earhole? Look fucking rubbish, that would. It was actually quite sensible, in the world of NewPeople's convict chic coiffure, to set fire to your ears.  Crazy fucking bastards.  Although, if we set fire to the Pampas grass - you can't cut the fucking stuff, not without a nuclear-powered, laser chainsaw - it just grows back bigger and tougher.  Maybe there's former customers of A Class Turkish Barbers, Dundee, walking around the town, tripping over their ear-hair, smashing their dumb faces on the pavement. Serve 'em right.

You want hair cut to ear, like this, Gaz enquired of me in the mirror, or above  ear,  like this?

Maybe just below ear a bit.

Like so?

Yeah, like so, just make a  bit tidy, make even-out. OK? 

OK.

I can put myself in trance, almost at the drop of a hat; no, I can, really, I can, just drop my chin on my chest, close my eyes, drop my hands in my lap, breathe-out and I'm gone;  I dunno if it would see me through an asteroid colliding with  John O' Groats and dumping a trillion tons of super-heated water on my house but it works for things like epidurals and that's what I did as Gaz snipped away, doing that folding-between-the-fingers and stretching and snipping thing that proper barbers do. I shut my eyes and lost myself.

You wan' some nice spray?

OK, whatever you think.

I wish I hadn't said that because I soon smelt like what I imagine a Balkans Bond villain to smell like, sweet and heavy and a bit unwholesome but as sixteen-yearly haircuts go it wasn't too bad. And I found out what the hairdriers were for.  Barbers in ancient days used to brush you down with soft-bristle brushes, pull your collar away and brush all that scratchy stuff the fuck out of it,  then they'd sweep your hair from around the floor  using a cheap, nylon sweeping broom and a dustpan. Every minute or so, during my trim, Gaz would blast me with a hairdrier, to get rid of the clippings and when he had finished he half-crouched, half-scampered, half-ran after the hair on the floor, coralling it, at hairdrier point, little bits of stubble - apart from mine, which could be measured in inches -  in a pile in the corner of the shop, like mouse droppings. 

He only charged me a tenner. Wasn't too bad an experience at all, once I had determined to take some Turkish heads, like we used to, if they came near me with scalp-arson in their eyes. I wondered if they knew of or were bothered by the number of inns and coaching houses in England named The Turk's Head or The Saracen's Head;  I mean, if we, not that we would, went to Turkey on holiday and found, in every street - do they have streets? - a coffee shop called the Brummy's Head, the Scousers Entrails or heard one Turk say to another, see you later, Ahmed my brother, for a coffee, down the Geordie's Giblets, salaam eleikum, and it's your turn to pay, I wonder how we'd feel.  But fuck 'em, anyway, Turkish barbers, not as though they're important to proper people, not like my young friend, stanislav, was, a Polish plumber. "

.................................................................

This, and many other articles: tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited may be found in the four splendid anthologies of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend and editor, mr verge, the house filthster. You can buy them from Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

IIshmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps 

please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.

Link for Hardcover : https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr

Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux

https://www.lulu.com/shop/ishmael-smith/flush-test/paperback/product-9yjvn7.html?q=Flush+Test&page=1&pageSize=4

At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage. If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.

With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.

This graceful, dainty little lady stayed with me for a few weeks this summer. A big city girl, she loved the sea-side. Here she is exploring the waterfall that cascades onto Scapa Beach below the Distillery.

And this is her, pretending to be the figure head on a paddle board out at sea.

What I did on my Holidays

 I have a slight - a very slight - hardly noticeable - quite insignificant, really - hearing loss. And very expensive hearing aids. And subtitles on the telly. 

I live in a Coonty where they talk like this:

Depressing as hell, isn't it? And the god-awful music. And the pillock emphatically stating how safe Orkney is. For god's sake, doesn't he read the Criminal Court pages in the Orcadian? Note that - pages - not half a page, not a paragraph, but at least two solid pages reporting on the Kirkwall Sheriff Court. Higher percentage of offenders on the Sex Offender Register than Glasgow, adjusted for population size. Drugs, Booze, Domestic Violence, Rape, Murder - just like anywhere else, really, where humans cluster and abuse each other.

Orkney's week of agricultural shows has just concluded, with the County show last Saturday. As the blurb says: "Orkney's shows are more than a day out for the farmers. They are a huge draw for families who enjoy seeing the animals, catching up with friends, and browsing at stalls selling locally produced crafts and goods, food produce, and country clothing or chatting at the fundraising tents and entering their competitions and raffles, or viewing the latest farm implements for sale."

"You'll normally find showjumping, dog trials, a fun fair, entertainment and food outlets at the shows too. All in all, a great day out!"

Yeah, right. 

I don't actually go to any of the shows - East Mainland, Shapinsay, Dounby, or the Coonty Show. I've been in the past and really don't feel the need to go again. I don't like beer, mud or coos. Not keen on people, either. But I do listen to Radio Orkney, which was breathless with excitement, reporting on the marvellous exhibitions of shampooed and blow-dried goats and precocious children over-the-mooning about sitting on a pony or leading the family dog around the ring. It was all the usual stuff the other morning, when I, morosely spooning in Live Greek Yoghurt for my micro-biome, heard the presenter announcing the next category - the Poetry Section.

Wow, thought I, performance poetry. 

Would it be in Orcadian dialect, like Harry Josephine Giles?

Harry, an alumni of St. Andrew's University.

Cameron Stout, the Radio Orkney presenter, informed the listenership that he was takkin the microphone inta the mar-quee. Would the poets be in booths, I wondered? Would they get rosettes?

But, no. 

The airwaves were melodious with clucking, crowing and squawking.

For this relief, much thanks.

Not Poetry.

Poultry.

I blame Cameron Stoot and his diction. Nothing to do with my insignificant, really slight, hardly noticeable, hearing loss.

So, no, mrs narcolept, I didn't go anywhere lovely on my hols, thank you for the kind thought. I had family visiting, escaping the ferocious heat South to enjoy the wind, rain and fog of an Orkney Summer. 

Summer Recess

 

mrs ishmael is on holiday again.

The Sunday Ishmael: 20/07/2025

“I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room at 10, Downing Street.

This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11.00 a.m. that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany."

 Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister, 11.15 on September 3rd 1939 addressing the nation via radio.

They did things differently then, the past being a foreign country. I've been thinking about this war business recently - specifically, how do the ordinary people - not those employed at GCHQ or the Ministry of Magic Defence, or the Government, know that a state of war exists, if they are not told?  Told as firmly as Neville Chamberlain told his people on that Sunday morning 86 years ago. As you know, I am fairly convinced that Britain is at war - which is why I found the sabotage of two of our fighter jets at RAF Brize Norton by Palestine Action to be treasonous and the action of a Fifth Column representing the interests of a foreign conglomeration of nations opposed to Britain's interests. I'm rather pleased that the perpetrators are being prosecuted and that their organisation is proscribed as a terrorist organisation. If you go on their website, you will read this: "Palestine Action is proscribed in Britain. For that reason, the website has been transferred to others in the global movement who are not active in Britain or British nationals."

Note that. Global Movement. A movement opposed to the stated  foreign policy aims of Britain.

The useful idiots, of course, who combine their anti-Semitism with a set of woke liberal-left, Metropolitan elite, middle-class ideologies, are still turning out at weekends to protest against the proscription, and being arrested in droves. 

A minor performer at the Royal Opera House staging his own protest last night during the curtain call while management shouted at him from the wings. Hope that's his career fucked.

I suppose Neville Chamberlain could so confidently tell his people that they were now at war and it was going to be tough, because the British were pretty much united as one people, with a shared cultural identity. This allowed Churchill to confidently deliver these remarks  in the House of Commons on the declaration of War: "there is .... a feeling of thankfulness that, if these great trials were to come upon our Island, there is a generation of Britons here now ready to prove itself not unworthy of the days of yore and not unworthy of those great men, the fathers of our land, who laid the foundations of our laws and shaped the greatness of our country."

Nobody thinks like that these days, especially our Prime Minister, whose island of strangers speech was criticised but who has rebutted his initial apology, saying: "We must get control of immigration, the basic argument that we need a cohesive society, an integrated society, where we can walk towards the future together as one country, as neighbours and communities together. That does really matter to me.”

 86 years ago, there were divisions in Britain, of course, but politicians  believed that the people would pull together and endure hardship and death in support of Britain's foreign policy aims.  And they were right. But the Second World War changed that Britain. The people threw out the Conservatives who had taken them into war and the new Government created a welfare state that would care for its people from the cradle to the grave. It worked, too - average life expectancy was 60.5 years in 1939, whereas it is now 82.06. We're living ourselves out of house and home.

Something rather significant was lost during the journey from 1945 to the present day - a sense of nationhood, to the point where politicians can only hint at just how much trouble Britain is in internationally, for fear of a large section of the population cheering.

Enoch Powell, much demonised, in his 1968 speech,  warned of the "kind of action which is hardest for politicians to take, action where the difficulties lie in the present but the evils to be prevented or minimised lie several parliaments ahead." 

Short termism is the inescapable corollary of party politics, in which unpopular measures are never taken, because whichever set of politicians it is in power want to be re-elected in a handful of years' time. As mr ishmael said: "for evil to prosper, it needs only for good men to think to their careers".

So, having failed, quite predictably, to do anything to minimise future evils, we now find ourselves living in the future, alongside Bob Vylan, Palestine Action, and the useful idiots. They (the useful idiots who busied themselves knitting sunflowers and collecting old clothes and bandages to drive across Europe) seem to have forgotten about the invasion of Ukraine, which was all the go a handful of years ago. Which is comfort to President Putin, I guess. Not that he needs it, as he is winning his war, now that Ukraine is falling apart.

In a war of attrition, the side that has the most men wins. Russia is big, has lots of men and is friends with countries who are helping out by sending more men. Ukraine has full conscription of all men over 26 who are not in reserved occupations. Those men who remain in Ukraine are press-ganged on the streets - 6.8 million Ukrainians got out since the Russian invasion, to avoid war and conscription, despite men aged 18 to 60 not being allowed to leave the country since February 2022 without special permission.  8 million have been internally displaced. The war has not inspired heroic self sacrifice amongst soldiers: in the first six months of 2025 Ukraine’s Prosecutor’s Office opened 107,672 new criminal cases for desertion. Since 2022 some 230,804 such criminal cases have been instigated. 

The war is not popular: In October 2022, 88 per cent of Ukrainians believed that they would be a ‘flourishing country inside the EU’ within a decade (Bless). Now 47 per cent think that ‘Ukraine will be a depopulated country with a ruined economy’. A separate survey found that 70 per cent of Ukrainians also believe their leaders are corrupt. Minister for National Unity, Oleksiy Chernyshov and Minister for Reconstruction, Oleksandr Kubrakov, have been investigated for embezzlement and treason. Zelensky, whose term of office expired in May 2024, is rumoured to be clinging to power in order to avoid charges of corruption himself. His political enemies are sacked, charged with corruption or other criminal allegations -  Vitaliy Shabunin, one of Ukraine’s most prominent anti-corruption activists, was charged with evading military service and fraud. More than 5,000 Ukrainians have come under sanctions and had their property frozen. This device is now widely used to silence opponents of Zelensky's regime.  Sanctions have also led to the closure of three YouTube channels belonging to Zelensky’s critics in the past month.

Whatever had Ukraine to do with us? Why did Boris and subsequent Prime Ministers dive right in to support Zelensky against Putin - who did have a point, I thought, considering how appallingly ethnic Russians were being treated in Eastern Ukraine? It seemed downright offensive and interfering of Britain to make an enemy out of Putin, not to say self-destructive in the extreme. The result? Putin does now regard Britain as an enemy of Russia.

The bien pensants seem to have abandoned Ukraine in favour of getting upset about Gaza. One day they were knitting sunflowers, the next they were stitching Palestinian banners. Quite apart from the injustice and inconsistency of supporting one country invaded by its  neighbour whilst supporting the invaders of another country,  a country, moreover, aligned with and allied with Britain, the question asks itself - whatever has that got to do with us?

Now if Scotland invaded England or vice versa, I could see the sense in knitting a few roses and stitching the cross of St. George.

Then there's the whole Afghan resettlement debacle and the super injunction to suppress the truth of the incompetent data leak by a junior official (the take-away from this is to make sure you check your emails before sending them out, particularly when hitting the reply to all button). That was a bit of a mess. The operating principle here seems to be the deep fear by Government of the mob. Hide the truth as long and deep and far as possible, because we don't want the French revolution played out in Birmingham. Rest easy, political elites - because, in factional Britain, nobody can agree on who the enemy is. 

Ukrainian Borscht

Russian Borscht

Marinate chicken thighs, peel potatoes, make a chocolate cake, whip up a crab sauce, vacuum, dust, cloth up, get out the good china, set the table – why on earth did I invite them round? Going out would have been so much easier and would have supported the local high street. Entertaining isn’t a hobby for single people living alone – it takes at least two people to host a dinner party. There's the cooking, serving, keeping the chat going, steering a course between not getting falling down drunk and yet being sufficiently lubricated to present a few anecdotes and opinions whilst not courting controversy. However, social obligations require one to reciprocate hospitality, despite all experience and foreboding to the contrary. 

When my first husband (we'll call him Jeremy) ran off with an optician's assistant from Bromsgrove, I continued going to Marriage Guidance. Why not? He'd never accompanied me to the sessions anyway. I was getting lots of positive unconditional affirmation and my Marriage Guidance Counsellor had taken the view that I was better off rid. Newly single,  my counsellor suggested a divorce party would celebrate my new reality. I hosted a dinner party for 8 – all people I thought were my friends and supporters. As usual, my menu was over ambitious, and kicked off with Borscht. This rendered the teetotaller drunk and invited the opprobrium of his friend upon me. The reformed teetotaller called for more and more Borscht, which was running low. His ravenous cries, like a baby bird demanding more worms, prompted me to throw a bottle of red wine into the Borscht pan, to eke it out. As there wasn't time to boil the alcohol off, it came to resemble warm, beetroot-flavoured wine. This was followed by pirozhki, salads, cheeses and a fancy pudding. Everything got out of hand, what with too much red wine and the reformed tee-totaller, me not producing the food promptly and not clearing away quickly on account of being pissed. So, Trisha, who was always a difficult kind of friend, collared me in the kitchen and told me that things were so much better when Jeremy was with me. So much for a divorce-celebration party. I’m not in touch with any of those people now. I think the reformed tee-totaller is dead.

Right, on with the motley -

Borscht - as prepared by me back in the past, which is a foreign country, where we did things differently, so don't complain to me about authenticity, for fuck's sake.

Ingredients

1 pound of beef - sirloin steak is good

1 tablespoon olive oil

2 big onions thinly sliced

2 bulbs of garlic, squeezed through a garlic press

1 large carrot - grated

2 beefsteak tomatoes  cut into small cubes

1 red bell pepper cut in 1/4 inch squares

1 tsp sugar 

2 cooked beetroots, peeled, quartered and sliced

2 large potatoes cubed

2 tsp salt

Loads of black pepper 

2 teaspoons of paprika

1 teaspoon of flakes of chili 

2 tsp tomato paste

1 bottle red wine and another one to make your Borscht go further (not recommended)

2 Bay leaves

To Serve

sour cream or Greek yoghurt

spring onion or chives

freshly ground black pepper

Method

Take your Big fuck-off knife and cube the meat

Throw the beef into a huge pot, together with the first bottle of red wine. 

Let the pot simmer over medium heat for 1 to 1.5 hours. 

If the meat pot starts boiling, reduce the heat and add water, so that  the meat remains covered.

keep skimming the broth.

In a separate pan, gently fry the vegetables in olive oil, then add them, together with seasoning, tomato paste and spices, to the meat pot.

Simmer it all up until the potatoes are soft.

Serve in individual, warmed, bowls, topped with sour cream/Greek yoghurt, a sprinkle of green chopped spring onions or chives, maybe a chive flower, and black pepper.

If your guests demand more - which they probably will, resist the temptation to throw the second bottle of red wine into the pan, serve it separately and get the cabbage rolls out of the oven. That will shut them up.

Here's some more cooking tips from Stanislav: 

Go in garden, taking dog, Buster, for piss at same time, have to go on lead because naughty old dog is and run back in house for piss instead of do in garden, like good boy does; is only sometimes but pain in arse is. Old bloke now, Buster, and gets confused.

Go down in garden admiring last of Lupin and Highland daisy, pulled up from A9 and spread now, like fear and loathing in Cabinet.

Locate some garlic among weeds and maverick potato and not worry, is not so bad as it looks

Pull up garlic from ground. n.b. is easy thing to grow garlic, just break big bulb in little clove and stuff in raised-up bed and forget about while writing blog and doing plumbing, come back in few months and pull up by neck. Can leave longer and bigger will be, but nice and young is sweetest and best, like this.

Take up in house, chop from stem with big fuck off knife and wash off from dirt, taking good care to put waste bits in compost bin.

Split in cloves and crush a little with big fuck off knife and drop precisely good handful in bottle of olive oil, any sort will do and leave for ten days, infusing to do.

Rosemary infused oil and garlic one, too

Can do exact same process – Go down garden, pull-up from ground etc with Thyme, for frying or roasting chicken and stanislav favouritest of all is Rosemary, just do exact same with handful of fresh picked Rosemary and is good for Roast Potato a la Cardiac Arrest, Roast Lamb and almost any white or oily fish, only not smoked, can use any herb-infuse oil for oil-an-bread -  Oh, fuck me, do try some oils and breads, is very sophisticated. And cheap, too, for miserable jumped-up dinner partying sonsoffuckingbitches. Have some bread and dip in oil and for dressing-up salad leaf, either alone or in combination with other stuff. Can pour in mashed potato and fry up cabbage and stuff like that, cover with black pepper, ground up in mill, like Dago waiter does and say Enjoy, cheeky fucking bastard, get punch in fucking mouth off stanislav, enjoy or not enjoy is stanislav business and not oily fucking Dago in apron.

If not garden has just buy stuff from TESCO and make up as before. But garden is best and anyone herbs can grow, on windowsill even, only not hemp or Old Bill come in will bashing down fucking door and retrieve few grammes of weed with street value of ten billion pounds. All that shit. Fucking wankers.

Anyway good happy cooking from stanislav. Herbs taste good, are best medicine, look good, taste good and by Golly, does you good. Granma’s pharmacy was hedgerow, innit.

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There are four splendid anthologies of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster. You can buy them from Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

IIshmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps 

please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.

Link for Hardcover : https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr

Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux

https://www.lulu.com/shop/ishmael-smith/flush-test/paperback/product-9yjvn7.html?q=Flush+Test&page=1&pageSize=4

At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage. If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.

With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.