The chronicles of Ruin, continued.
Call me Ishmael said....intelligence is knowing what to do when you don't know what to do.
Anonymous said... When I don't know what to do,I come here.
10 September 2009 22:59
Call Me Ishmael: Taking the Piss since April 2009
Mecca, Saudi Arabia: Worshippers gather around the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest shrine, to mark the end of Ramadan.
Roads around Small Heath Park, Birmingham, were packed as thousands of Muslims came from all over the Midlands to pray together, celebrating the end of fasting for Ramadan and eating a lot. This party was organised by the Green Lane Mosque.
As I said in January, following the revelation that West Midlands Police had taken advice from Green Lane Mosque to form their shocking and racist decision to refuse Israeli fans permission to attend a football game in Birmingham, Green Lane Mosque is a controversial establishment - in 2023 an investigation by the Mail on Sunday found that the Green Lane Mosque gave a platform to imams giving sermons on how to stone a woman 'correctly' for adultery and delivering speeches that appeared to incite murder of members of the LGBT+ community.
During a sermon at Green Lane mosque in December, preacher Aqeel Mahmood made misogynistic comments and said men can physically punish their wives as a 'last resort' if they disobey - he advised men to physically discipline their wives as a 'last resort' if they were rebellious, saying that men have 'a level of authority over the woman'. The punishment should not result in pain, injury or fear, (how do you do that? "Here, dear, don't be frightened, thank me for hitting you, and look what you made me do. Again.") Mahmood then said that it is 'common sense' that wives should not leave their children in the care of others to carry out errands such as shopping and that women should never leave the house without the permission of their husbands unless it is a life and death situation.
In addition to inciting men to commit Actual Bodily Harm on their wives, in early 2025, Green Lane Mosque published videos on its YouTube site of sermons given by Mahamed Abdur Razaq - a preacher who, in 2024 said men are 'allowed to hit' their wives if they refuse sex. Basically, an incitement to rape.
There really is something seriously wrong with these blokes, and why West Midlands Police are pandering to them is a mystery. As is why they are not prosecuted for incitement to assault and rape. Then marched vigorously down the cells as a way of letting them know, without inflicting pain, injury or fear, that we don't do that sort of thing in this country. Clearly, the fuss about the Pakistani Muslim rape gangs has just sailed way over their pointy little heads.
A spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: 'The fact that West Midlands Police thought this was a reputable organisation to get an informed opinion from is just embarrassing. With these allegations of abhorrent comments made by its guest speakers, this mosque's track record should have had alarm bells ringing. West Midlands Police should have followed the intelligence without fear or favour. It clearly told them that the threat came not from Israeli or Jewish fans, but from thugs and Islamists in their local community who planned to attack them."
“In Russia, Putin is ramping up a different but not unrelated war, his war against childlessness. Russian women who do not want to have children will now be referred to the psychologist. The demographic crisis which is impacting countries across the western world is particularly severe in Russia, not least because so many young men are dying in the conflict against Ukraine. Whether or not treating women for mental illness when they do not want to have children is an effective tool for addressing this problem remains to be seen.”
Well, that’s one way of solving population decline – obviously bribing women to have babies hasn’t worked well enough. Russian women, including students, have been paid £900 to continue their babies to term and raise them, under their Pronatalism policy. The Russian birth-rate sits at 1.41 babies per woman, whereas although Britain's birth-rate is similar, at 1.49, our legislature is adopting an amendment to the Criminal Justice Act to decriminalise women who have abortions up to full term.
..............................................
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health,
to love and to cherish,
till death us do part
You see, Keir, it's no good blethering in that clerkly way of yours that Britain will not be drawn into this war with Iran. As far as Tehran is concerned, we're already in it and your sophistry cuts no ice. That is why RAF Akrotiri was hit by an Iranian drone strike on the 1st March. RAF Akrotiri is a British military base, not part of the Republic of Cyprus.
That is why Iran launched two intermediate‑range ballistic missiles toward the joint UK–US base at Diego Garcia on Friday. Both missiles failed to hit the target: one malfunctioned mid‑flight, and the other was intercepted by a US Navy SM-3 interceptor. The missiles were probably Khorramshahr‑4 or a similar long‑range variant, which has an estimated range of 4,000 km+, far beyond Iran’s previously known 2,000 km capability. That range means, according to defence analysts and mapping by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the following areas fall inside the theoretical strike zone: London, England (entirely), Wales (entirely), most of Scotland, but not the upper reaches of north-west Scotland, including Orkney, you will be relieved to hear, and Northern Ireland. UK ministers stress that the country has defensive systems and that there is no evidence Iran is targeting the UK. Really? Depends what you mean by targeting the UK - there was the little matter of two Iranians arrested after allegedly trying to enter a nuclear naval base, HM Naval Base Clyde, known as Faslane, on Thursday. And these defensive systems of ours - we got nothing, nothing, that can take down Iranian ballistic missiles. We would rely on United States SM‑3 interceptors. We've got nothing, nothing, to take down hypersonic glide vehicles. Even NATO considers this a major capability gap. Here we need the Americans again. They've got the systems. We need to ensure that they have the will to use those systems. And Keir has pissed Trump off - with his prissy logic-chopping - no, you can't, oh yes, now you can, now that Iran is not capable of making the lawyerly distinctions that are so evident to you. For better or worse, until death do us part, the UK and the US are in it together - that's the way Tehran sees it. And Keir better start making nice with Trump, instead of fannying about with Zelenskyy and sending him all our weapons.
And that means pissing off the enemy within. The ones with their bottoms in the air in Trafalgar Square. National security is a damn sight more important than securing a second term by placating the Moslem vote.
The boys in happier days.
"Where's the Dragon Ship?" Kuensberg asked Steve Reed, Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, sent out this morning, for some unaccountable reason, to answer War and Defence questions on behalf of the Labour Government.
Steve: "I can't tell you."
Laura: "Why not? Don't you know?
Steve: "It's on its way"
Laura: "Well, how near is it? Why was it so late setting off?"
Steve: "I can tell you that it wasn't late at all. In fact, all the stops were pulled out. It was in for a 6 week refit and they did the refit in 6 days"
Laura: " Why didn't they do the refit over Christmas? When we weren't at war? Why wait until it is needed to defend our Armed Forces?"
Steve: " I can't answer questions of National Security."
Laura: "Is it nearly there yet?"
Steve: "Am I going to come on national television and betray our secret plans to Iran?"
Laura: "Okay. Try this one. How close to Diego Garcia did the ballistic missile get? Was it a near miss?"
Steve: "Oh, for fuck's sake. I'm not going to tell you."
Laura: "It's a matter of national interest."
Steve: "No, the public are just nosy."
Laura: "The public want to know if they are going to be blown up in their beds. Like the citizens of Tehran are."
Steve: "Tough titty. I'm not telling Iran how close they got."
Panel Member: "They already know, you dope. The missile reported back. And they were watching it. They may have a stone-age religion, but their tech is better than our tech. Oops."
Steve: "Oh no it isn't."
Laura: " Where's our aircraft carrier, HMS Prince of Wales?"
Nope, wrong Prince - ed.
Steve: "Nice and safe, tied up in Portsmouth, having a little rest after that exhausting Operation Firecrest in the High North and North Atlantic with our NATO allies, putting the fear of God up Putin."
Laura: "Tied up? Is anybody taking this war seriously?"
Some of the above dialogue is an accurate transcription of exchanges of the Laura Kuenssberg Show on the P.B.C. this morning. Some isn't.
"For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
the time of the singing of birds is come,
and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land."
Song of Solomon 2:11-12 (KJV):
It was hailing today. Just saying. You may have an Iranian ballistic missile drop on your heads in London, but at least you don't have snow, hail, wind, rain and unsecured garden furniture flying past your windows.
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.
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.
Or if you go down to the Senate today, You're in for a Big Surprise.
Or Happy Mother's Day.
Back in 2009 and 2010, mr ishmael found himself very puzzled by the ease with which ducks slid off The Right Honourable the Lord Mandelson like water off a shit shovel. Had he lived to see Mandy's appointment in 2025 to the post of British Ambassador to the United States by Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of Great Britain and Leader of the Labour Party, mr ishmael might have concluded that the sickness that beset Tony Blair and Gordon Brown had mysteriously also infected Starmer, whose appointment of Mandy was "weirdly rushed", according to Jonathan Powell, Starmer's national security adviser, as revealed in the tranche of Mandelson documents, released on the 11th March inst. Is it as simple as Starmer's brains being out to rent? Boyant as Mandelson is, or was, surely Starmer had some recollection of past unpleasantnesses? Let us remember times past with mr ishmael.
HOW COULD SOMEONE TWICE DISGRACED,
PLAYTHING OF RUSSIAN GANGSTERS,
AND DISHONEST AS THE DAY IS LONG
WALTZ INTO THE POSITION OF DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
AND FIRST SECRETARY FOR EVERYTHING? (or, indeed UK Ambassador to the USA, interjects mrs ishmael.)
Ever since we have been blogging, commenting or writing to the newspapers, my young friend, stanislav and I, have chosen to refer to the former Labour Party as the Blair-Brown-Campbell-Mandelstein Project and we have characterised its central, abiding theme as being the power of potential mutual blackmail among that eponymous Quartet of the Damned. Why doesn't Blair sack Brown, why is Mandelstein unsackable, why does a press secretary call the shots; is it the case that they hang together or are hung separately, what do they all have on each other?
l to r: Brown, Mandelson, Campbell, Blair
Often we have lamented that the governing of Britain, as well as being largely in the hands and at the whim of shadowy, international gangsters, or financiers as they term themselves, Ambassadors of Greed, was rendered more than customarily incompetent by the alleged criminality of its central characters. They were hamstrung, suspended in mid-air not only by their amorality, their moral bankruptcy, their dubious, elastic sexuality, their greed and mendacity but ultimately, in practical terms, by the unlikelihood that those both driven and constrained by unfulfillable personal vendetta would or could ever make objective, nationally beneficial judgements on domestic or foreign policy or on public administration, that they were, in other words, a bunch of cunts.
Estranged from Truth and Decency, the longer they were in office the grosser became their manoeuvrings; paradoxically, the more distant they personally became from the rule of Law, the more furiously they heaped the potential for criminality - a guilty conscience - upon the populace; burning all the money in the Downing Street cellars, forcing rights and liberties and conventions through the shredders, upstairs; seemed like every time you turned around there was a new law you might be breaking.
Surveillance, molestation by law enforcement, illegal detention, the brutalisation of jurisprudence in HMP Britain and the encouragement of neighbours narking each upon the other, Stasi-style, generated in government an opposite polarity, opposite to the restrictive, looking-over-the-shoulder, paranoid climate inflicted upon the citizen; theirs was an unchallengeable lawlessness.
Whilst we at home were harangued, photographed, scolded, barracked, detained, beaten, ejected, confined, batoned, tasered and shot dead by a constabulary headed by gobby political apparatchiks; whilst we at home were more legislated against than ever before, our own Gang of Four was engaged, abroad, in crimes against humanity; international law wilfully misinterpreted, the casus beli summonsed from thin air, contemptuously cyber-plagiarised, fabricated - with a dark aptness - by a drunken, bisexual pornographer, the whole rotten episode made glorious by Colonel Rupert Golightly-Jockstrap and eventually vindicated by mealy-mouthed commissions and enquiries, staffed by hand-picked, lousy, wigged and ermined lickspittles, masters of the full and far-reaching cover-up, the Wretched of the Oxbridge civil service, pinstripe, weasel popinjays, whose gilded careers were case studies of Vice made Noble.
All was news-managed from Downing Street, the worthless shit, Brown, bullying and intriguing, Son of the fucking Manse, heedless of warcrime, stewing rancidly in his monstrous ambition as wog children fried, the horrible fucking bastard; Tony and Imelda, lining-up bribes and freebies, Mandelstein in the background.
Alistair Campbell and Peter Mandelson
Tony Blair and Mandelson
An early mentor of NewLabour was, ominously, Mr Rupert Murdoch, proprietor of skymadeupnewsandfilth and a press baron vile beyond caricature, although generous in that he allows many of his employees to moonlight as MPs, the apologetic, motormouthing Mr Spit-Gove being one of Rupe's boys. Any government alarmed by the cheapening of the national discourse, the sexualisation of infants, the bombardment of readers with lust and greed and stupidity and the wholly unwarranted, cruelly destructive intrusion into the lives of ordinary human beings would tell Rupert and his stable of rancid Nazi hacks, Kelvin McCunt and the rest, to go and fuck themselves, tell Murdoch to fuck off back to Australia, where crudity such as his is worshipped, where they know no better, where ethnic cleansing is still on the agenda, where Sheilas are treated like shit, where the politicians imbibe stupidity with their mothers' milk. Our politicians being what they are, however, and Murdoch being what he is, there will be another level of blackmail at work, NewsCorp will have unused files bulging with indiscretions and worse, much worse, insurance against anyone attempting to curb the filthy bastard's excess.
Murdoch, anyway, has sought to levy a subscription from online readers and in an attempt to glamourise his product, to entice unwary readers into parting with their money in exchange for his cruel, bigoted drivel, he has acquired the serialisation rights to Lord Crabs' bouillabaisse of gossip, innuendo and lies, entitled: The Third Man.
Campbell, in Mandy's memoir, is seen, if at all, only through frosted glass because he is an oik, effective at ramrodding the craven filth in the Lobby but plain vulgar, whereas Lord Crabs, we should remember, confided to the nation, whilst stuffing the Millennium Dome with rubbish, that he was "born to govern," his grandfather virtually a post-war Labour aristocrat, Campbell's, if he knew him at all, probably worked down the pit. And drank pints.
One would think it a snobbery too far to expunge Mr Campbell from the record as Mandelstein has done but Peter is, by his own account, the owner, the trademark holder of the QueerProject which begat NewLabour and he should know; his, as Rupert will insist, is the Inside Story of Ruin and if he says there were but three gay conspirators - two with attendant lavender spouses - then three it was and all the imagery of Ali and Tony closeted together deciding our fates to the clunking accompaniment of a Prime Minister's Edition Fenders Stratocaster must be errant imaginings, les dossiers sexy et fabrique, we must have dreamed them, Mr Campbell's mateyness with John Shit-Scarlett of MI5, his castration of the BBC and the mysterious matter of the Lonesome Death of David Kelly, these must be the doings of a lowly penpusher and not a member of the Ruinous Gang of Four, for as Lord Crabs tells us in his penny dreadful it was but a Ruinous Gang of Three.
The Third Man - Then
And now.
Is the Starmer/Mandelson/Epstein affair enough to bring down the Starmer government?
That's the happy sight of pigs flying overhead. Duck, that's the sound of shit falling on our heads from a great height.
Martha's Vineyard, 2012 l.to r. Prince Andrew, Jeffrey Epstein and Peter Mandelson "A man is known by the company he keeps" - Aesop's fable
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.
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.
My name is mrs ishmael and I'm a Northern Boomer. A Generation Xer called me a Boomer the other day, taking the piss, really. Set me thinking, though. All this inter-generational strife, stoked up by media, of course, has people believing that those folk born after the war and before 1965 really never had it so good. All nonsense, of course. In terms of material advantage, young adults now beat we northern boomers hollow (maybe the southern boomers fared better than us up north.) But these days, people have carpets that go from edge to edge of the room, not a rug on painted floor boards, they have fridges, freezers, TVs, a computer in their pocket, they go abroad on holiday to stupid places in the Middle East and need to be rescued, they all have cars, masses of clothes, so much stuff that they have a word for their inability to tidy up - Stuffocation, and TV programmes are made by Stacey Solomon showing them how to throw stuff away.
When I were a kid, although I was fortunate enough to be born into a middle class, professional family, we were poor in today's terms. Most people were poor. The nation had emerged from a crippling war in which our cities had been bombed out of existence - Hitler's slum clearance project - there was so little food that folk dug up their lawns to plant potatoes and kept chickens to supplement meagre rations - try telling kids now that their food could be rationed, instead of being delivered, cooked, to their door by a Deliveroo driver. Most kids' dads had done their war service - fought in the armed forces. Most kids' mums had done their war service by supporting the troops, working in factories to replace the men who had been called up, or working on the land as Land Girls. By 1942 all male British subjects between 18 and 51 years old and all females 20 to 30 years old resident in Great Britain and the Isle of Man were liable to be called up, with some exemptions. After the War, Boomers' older brothers and boyfriends did their National Service.
National Service as peacetime conscription was introduced by the National Service Act 1948 by Clement Attlee's Labour government. From 1 January 1949, healthy males 18 to 30 years old were required to serve in the armed forces for 18 months, and remain on the reserve list for four years. They could be recalled to their units for up to 20 days on three occasions during these four years. Men were exempt from National Service if they worked in one of the three essential services: coal mining, farming, or the merchant navy for at least eight years. In November 1960, the last conscripted men entered service: call-ups ended on 31 December 1960 and the last conscripted servicemen left the armed forces in May 1963.
I knew blokes who had done their National Service and loved it - get away from mum, travel, adventure, Boy's Own Paper stuff.
At my Primary School, there were two prefabs in the grounds for all the extra kids (baby boom). Classes were big- between 42 to 48. No classroom assistants to help children with special educational needs or disability. There was an air-raid shelter behind the prefabs. The toilets were outdoor. Kids walked to school or caught the bus. Because we were middle class, my dad had a Lambretta
and he would drop me off at school on his way to work in the morning, ridiculously early, but I had to walk the two miles home in the afternoon, dodging the psychopath village boys who enjoyed taking girls down a peg or two by the infliction of violence.
The only advantage that I can see that Boomers had over subsequent generations was that not only was higher education free, but you also got a Maintenance Grant for 3 years. Not many went to University, though - in 1969, 6% of young people went, up from 3.8% in 1960. And home ownership generally was not common. Rental was big.
So, having refuted the canard that Boomers had everything and therefore deserve to be impoverished and abused by Generation XYZ and Millennials, can we assume that the comfortable lives that the post 1965-ers have been given by a generous British state have resulted in a willingness to serve their country? Nope. You can ask, but they have no intention of rousing themselves from their lethargy, their mental elf and their video pretend war games.
A recent authoritative study reported by The Times, in partnership with YouGov and Public First into the views and beliefs of adults aged 18-27 revealed that only 11 per cent said they would go to war for Britain while 41 per cent said there were no circumstances at all in which they would take up arms for Britain.
Which really is hugely concerning, given that Britain is at war and no-one seems to believe it. Fluttering ladies of a certain age tell me that Trump is a horrible man. And? They say that the pictures of bombed cities are dreadful. And? That displaced people are having an awful time. Yes, And? Hospitals and schools are being bombed. Yes, and your point is?
Their point seems to be that Trump should just stop it because it is nasty and they don't like it.
The problem is that we have Sir Keir Starmer, International Man of Law and Vacillation, heading up the Cabinet, abetted by Ed forfucksake Milliband and Yvette Hauteur-Cooper, who vetoed providing Trump with assistance when he needed it. Now Trump's got a grudge against Britain. And we're still at war - no, I know it has not been declared - they don't do that anymore. But the evidence is pointing in that direction. And we gave our munitions to Ukraine and so depleted the Royal Navy that we don't have sufficient boats to fight (or, at least, intimidate) on two fronts, as Trevor Phillips pointed out this morning. We sent the aircraft carrier to the High North (thank god, some protection for the Northern Isles) and couldn't manage to get our Dragon Ship serviced and off out of Portsmouth into the Med last week to defend our base in Cyprus, and of course, it couldn't go this weekend because Portsmouth doesn't work at the weekend. Sir Keir has promised to increase defence spending, as required to do by NATO and Trump - but that was basically a lie to shut people up, as the increase is scheduled for 5 years hence, by which time I sincerely hope that the British people have democratically sent him back to his law studies.
Britain was able to afford to introduce the welfare state and the NHS after the Second World War because it didn't have to spend on its own defence - relying instead on America to bear the lion's share of defending its NATO partners. Now that America has its champion, Trump, who basically has announced that up with this we are no longer prepared to put, what are our pundits and politicians saying? That America is no longer a reliable ally. No, I fear that Britain is no longer a reliable ally.
Please can we have Kemi Badenoch for Prime Minister and Penny Mordaunt for Foreign and Defence Secretary?
Holding luxury beliefs about open borders and global fair play is a bit like being the driver of a luxury car. You can be the best driver in the world, but if you take your Jaguar or Mercedes Benz out on the road, you are at risk from the drunk, the incompetent, the testosterone-fuelled uninsured teenage boy racer. Attempt to apply your luxury post-modern beliefs to the current global situation and you will be run over by such as the Iranian Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Seyyed Ali Mousavi, a suave fellow, of whose appointment it is said by iraninews.com that his experience and background in international legal affairs is expected to contribute positively to Iran's foreign policy objectives in Britain. Interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg today, he assured her that Iran is a peace-loving country and he chided her over her lack of delicacy in her line of questioning. She'd asked him about the 20 attacks on Britain by the IRGC since 2022. And about Iran's nuclear capability. And its attacks on neighbouring Middle Eastern countries. And killing thousands of its own protesting citizens in January this year in Tehran. Mousavi's response was that more delicacy was required in asking about such matters.
Stand up for Penny Mordaunt, Sword Bearer, who admiringly thanked Laura for her lack of delicacy.
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.
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.
Poor old thing. He's only 79, yet he's shaking like a leaf, seems to have terrible trouble understanding basic questions and is stick-thin. Yet he was capable of mustering a proud little smile when an email was read out describing him as a stud and hung like a horse. He is suffering from Essential Tremor, he says. Sign of a misspent life.
Do have a look at this compilation of key moments of his testimony, particularly at 9.52, when former President Bill Clinton was asked: "Did you engage in any sexual activity" - in relation to his behaviour in a hot pool in a Brunai hotel. He said "No". The follow-up question should have been: "Mr President, do you know what sexual activity is?"
Happy St. David's day. 1st March. Daffodils, you know.
Prettier than leeks, and less pungent, the daffodil, especially the variety called the Tenby daffodil, replaced the leek as the national emblem of Wales in the 19th century. Previously, it was well known that your whoreson Welshman had a habit of sticking a leek into his hat, to distinguish himself from non-Welsh people. Here's a comedy Welsh soldier, Fluellen, in Act 4, scene 7 of Henry V:
"Your Majesty says very true. If your Majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps, which, your Majesty know, to this hour is an honourable badge of the service. And I do believe your Majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy’s day".
Here's Yuri Andreievitch Zhivago amongst the daffodils, welcoming the Spring at Varykino, feeling the warm sun on his face after the long, agonising, ice-bound winter. Filmed by David Lean and released in 1965, the exquisitely beautiful sequences of the Russian countryside were not what they seemed. The spring scenes at Varykino — including Yuri running joyfully through the daffodils — were filmed near Madrid, where the entire faux‑Russian landscape had been constructed. The crew planted 7,000 daffodil bulbs specifically for that sequence. Unfortunately,nature misbehaved - the Spanish winter that year was unusually mild, so the bulbs started blooming far too early, and the crew had to dig them all up,
store them, and replant them later so they would flower on cue for David Lean’s camera.
It’s very Lean: obsessive, beautiful, and wildly impractical — all for a few seconds of cinematic transcendence. This was before CGI, of course. Now a Director could summon a continent of daffodils - or an army of leeks, for that matter, in pursuit of his vision.
In his 1954 poem, Church Going, Philip Larkin's protagonist compulsively visits churches, a bit like John Betjeman:
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end;
He wonders what will become of churches, once belief has fled:
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?
Larkin, who died in 1985, didn't live to see what English churches have actually been turned into - antique wholesale warehouses, all-you-can-eat for a tenner Chinese/Indian/Mexican/Thai fusion canteens, mosques. There's also a thriving trade in converting churches into dwelling houses for committed Sodomite Satanists. Maybe I've been unduly influenced by my recent exposure to Pillion, a sad and depressing study of BDSM, reviewed in these pages on the 15th February, but, judge for yourselves:
They've shoved a bed up the holy end, retained the Communion steps so that subs can kneel fetchingly-
look closer:
Or what about this one?
Neatly arranged for a spot of flagellation.
While this one seems to have retained everything you'd need for a Black Mass luxe, with nibbles to follow:
What? I hear you gasp and splutter, what the actual fuck, as the young people say, but, it seems, according to surveys, never actually do. Well, I'm hoping to move house and so Rightmove sends me e-newsletters of "dream properties". The latest offering was of church conversions. Buildings, not religious conversions. I'm not a Christian, as you probably remember, although I was raised by nuns in the whole smells, bells and catechism tradition, but I find that I am offended. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines blasphemy as: "the act of insulting or showing contempt or lack of reverence for God or to something sacred".
I'd rather these decommissioned churches became mosques. Or synagogues. Even though Christians seem to have lost the fire in their arses that drove their religion to sweep through the Roman Empire; Jews and Muslims have retained their belief systems - and all three have the same God of the Old Testament. People of the Book, innit, although the Christians and Muslims branched off with their own Prophets. Which caused two millennia of upset as each branch strove to exert their own supremacy, superiority, spirituality and dietary customs.
Which brings me round to the Middle East, after meandering down those green and leafy primrose paths and byways of conversation. Why would any sane person go to Dubai on holiday? No, really. What's wrong with Scarborough? Or Tuscany, if you are feeling adventurous. I've been to both and can thoroughly recommend them - although you have to be careful not to eat your chips outside in Scarborough because the seagulls are addicted and will rip you apart to get at your chips. Northumberland is lovely at this time of year - great carpets of snowdrops in church yards.
Dubai, though? There was this holiday-making totty on the politics shows this morning, baking her exposed skin in an effort to contract skin cancer and attention from the religious police; complaining about the lack of arrangements for her to register as a holiday maker, and be given immunity from the bombs.
What is the matter with these people? Where else are they demanding the right to go on holiday? Gaza, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, Syria? Why not Ukraine or Russia?
The Labour Government has been very careful to distance itself from the joint U.S./Israel attack on Iran and the assassination of
Supreme Leader Khamenei, the army chief of staff, General Abdol Rahim Mousavi, defence minister General Aziz Nasirzadeh, Major General Mohammad Pakpour, Ali Shamkhani, security adviser to Khamenei, Saleh Asadi, head of the Intelligence Directorate of the Khatam al Anbiya emergency command, Mohammad Shirazi, head of the military bureau, Hossein Jabal Amelian, head of SPND (Organisation of Defensive Innovation and Research) and Reza Mozaffari-Nia, a former head of SPND and former deputy defence minister.
I suppose John Healey, Secretary of State for Defence, has to weigh his words very carefully, given the indebtedness of Labour to the Muslim vote. And, now, I suppose, that applies to David Paulden, as his ranks have been swollen by the addition of Hannah, the young English plumber (honest, not invent),
who swept to victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election having had her election materials printed in Urdu and persuaded the imams to tell their male congregants to make their families vote for her - which they did by dint of entering the polling booth with them and telling them where to put their cross. "Family voting" they call it, and it is illegal, but I suppose they have immunity. Shame about all those yards of bright yellow hair which, doubtless, Hannah will have to cover with a headscarf when talking to her constituents.
Left to Right (literally) John Healey, Priti Patel and David Paulden
Much though it irks, it looks like the Conservatives, for once, are the party of principle. Makes a change.
Shame then, that in the prophetic words of William Butler Yeats, in The Second Coming:
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned..."
It is all a bit of a worry, with the Middle East in turmoil as Trump's Armada focuses on regime change in Iran and Reza Pahlavi, the Crown Prince of Persia, waits in the wings to resume his historic Crown as, he assures us, a Constitutional Monarch in a westernised democracy. Like King Charles III.
Didn't Israel do well, though?
I'll conclude with the ominous ending of Yeats' Second Coming:
"And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"
It really is all a bit too, too, Revelations. Well, I suppose we have been warned.
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.
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.
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.
