call me ishmael

Saturday, 14 November 2009

LUNCH WITH A GIRLFRIEND, A STAR IS BORN

November 3, 2009...2:56 pm

The Daily Politics – Defence Correspondent

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That’s me that is!

www.the-daily-politics.com/2009/11/defence-correspondent-welcome-clare.html

This is how it happened. Ages ago, I contacted the blog and said:

“Please plug my book, blah, blah, blah.”

Swiss Bob, the editor said,

“Sure.”

www.the-daily-politics.com/2009/09/afghanistan-immediate-response-major.html

Then I had lunch with a girlfriend and said, “I need to raise my profile as a writer and communicator.”

she said, “start a blog.”

I went away and the blog was born.

http://claremacnaughton.wordpress.com

I emailed Swiss Bob, as I figured he had to be a more experienced blogger than I was and asked him this,

“Thanks for featuring Immediate Response on your site. I have just started blogging and you seem integrated into a vocal community. I wondered if you would mind giving me some top tips on spreading my blog about a bit. Would you mind checking it out and sharing some of your wisdom?”

To which he replied,

“Find some blogs that you like, comment on them using your blog profile, an avatar/picture will help (mine is the Matterhorn for ‘Swiss Bob’), if it’s of you and it’s attractive even better, but the usual warnings about the Internet apply, as the blog is in your own name, you might as well. People can find you through your comments. (Update: I just visited your blog, you’re no horror show J put your picture on the main page)

Create profiles for CiF, the Telegraph, Coffee House, the most popular sites, leaving comments and occasionally links back to your own blog, these may be frowned upon but you need people to find you. Try to be inventive and amusing, not just “I’ve posted this: xxxx”.

Blogger has the ‘Blogroll’, see righthand sidebar above the archive at the bottom of the blog, these are sites I link to, other people link to me. Lots of people go round asking to be linked, I don’t bother, if they do they do. Old Holborn has just linked me again, being a base and popular fellow, he sends me quite a few visitors, as does Mr Theo Spark of ‘Last of the Few’. (Update II. I’ve just added you to TDP)

Add yourself as a ‘follower’ on blogs you like or that cover relevant subjects. Does WordPress have a widget like this? Check out what widgets are available to you.

If you’re interested I would be happy to post anything you have and link to your blog. I can’t say you’ll get tons of visitors but it’s a start. We have an opening for a defence correspondent.”

I said,

“Thanks for the advice – I really appreciate. It’s like a whole new world. I am have never considered myself a techno biff but for some reason I can’t seem to work out how to get that pic on the front page! I ‘ll keep trying. Thanks for adding me to TDP – I have added you to mine too, which means that you, as my only reader, can now click back to your own blog! Viral marketing at it’s best!

Did you waft the Defence Correspondent carrot under my nose to see if I was interested in taking the gig? I would be interested if you did. I don’t suppose there would be any money involved would there? Do you have a definition of what you expect from your DC?

BTW – I googled CiF, as I am such a luddite I didn’t know what it was and the result was:

California Interscholastic Federation
Construction Industry Federation
Common Intermediate Format
Cum in Face (internet Escort Slang)

None of these seem particularly linked to blogging! C”

He said,

“Very funny. CiF is Comment is Free (except it’s not, unlike The Daily Politics), the Guardian’s ‘blog’ pages, actually not the best place to attract visitors from but depending on your politics, it’s fun to bait the loonies. Telegraph Politics blogs can provide hundreds of visitors, as can Coffee House . Guido Fawkes is good for quite a few, as is that mad old bugger Old Holborn. There are obviously many others, like Mrs Dale.

The post of Defence Correspondent really is an offer, you could do it under your own name, or a pseudonym, I really don’t know the identities of some of my authors, and no there’s no money in it, because there’s no revenue to speak of (six months Google ad revenue wouldn’t buy us a decent dinner). This may change, I’ll let you know if it does. What I would like is inside info, and I don’t mean secret, little stories from the front line, what’s happening in Afghanistan on the ground, what problems the troops are facing etc. And feel free to come up with your own ideas.”

I said,

“That sounds great – I am in. The inside story from my perspective I can give you. I am quite active on the military forum ARRSE – I am not sure if you have heard of it but I will plug the fact that I am now your defence correspondent, which will drive people to your blog. I’ll think about what I think the opening gambit is going to be and I’ll make it a good opener.”

And I went onto ARRSE and started this,

http://www.arrse.co.uk/Forums/viewtopic/t=136818/postdays=0/postorder=asc/start=0.html

And the Bob announced it to the world. So that is how it happened…….cogitating now. I am about to draft my debut post for http://www.the-daily-politics.com and annoyingly I don’t think it’s going to include any of the ideas from the ARRSE http://www.arrse.co.uk which means they are going to berate me and hand my “arrse” to me if they even bother to read it! Oh well, I can’t live my blogging life worrying about what anonymous bunch of folk on a mentalist military forum think of me.

Women Know Your Limits!!!! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjxY9rZwNGU

2 Comments

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2 Comments

Swiss Bob
November 3, 2009 at 10:20 pm

We’ve got to teach you some basic html

Reply
- Clare Macnaughton
  November 4, 2009 at 8:35 am
  
  Yes please!!!!
  
  Reply

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY, THE TELEGRAPH, MR TINY SPEAKER IS THIEVING LITTLE GIT, AFTER ALL.

Mr Tiny Speaker nearly shows Mrs Tiny Speaker's drawers to the boys.

The Filth-o-graph can reveal that Mr Tiny Speaker is worse than the last bastard, Gorbals Mick.

Mr and Mrs Tiny Speaker, already on a huge salary and armour-plated pension, insist that the taxpayer stump up for a large TV and DVD player, because of the children; that the free flat be redecorated to the tune of £45, 000, because of the children. Oh and Sky, too, because of the children.

Mr and Mrs Tiny Speaker, or you and I, have also spent just over a grand a week on entertaining - piss ups - since the wee fellow was elected. Plus ca change, plus ca meme chose.

Mr and Mrs Tiny Speaker out walking, one of her steps to two of his.

Friday, 13 November 2009

SOCIALIST PLAYBOY IN SHOCK DEFEAT

COCAINE TOMMY SHERIDAN CONCEDES DEFEAT

Mr Tommy Sheridan, Leader of the Himself Party, faces the cameras as he fails to take the Glasgow-North Westminster seat. I didnae do it an' I wisnae there, it's all that bastard Murdoch's fault.
It's a braw big conspiracy by yon capitalist lackey bastards, so it is.

Balding Mr Bondage, a Big Brother HouseMate, a mature student, a career bail-ee and the man who single-handedly buried socialism in Scotland was on this occasion appearing without his Comrade-Wife and co-accused, Gail, Miss Primart 2006, and said that he would be back, only not, if as seems likely, he was in HMP Barlinnie. Again

"D'ye fancy spanking ma airse, hen, maybe stick a wee ice cube up ma jacksie? "

Mr Sheridan enjoys a non-chauvinistic exchange with a young woman.

Thursday, 12 November 2009

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

My name has a Scottish version; not so much a version or variant, actually, come to think of it, but an entirely different name, something that is common in Scotland and which sounds like my name, often, therefore, in Scotland, I am addressed by this name, instead of my own; it is no big deal. Lots of people have names which are easily mis-spelt, mis-pronounced, misheard; it's not the end of the fucking world.

It seems to be a perfectly straightforward, human error to see or hear James, when the name is Janes, perfectly natural and normal, something which must have happened frequently to the irately bereaved Mrs Janes and to her late son.

Being the prime minister of the United Kingdom must be a taxing job; responding, as recent incumbents have chosen to do, to a round-the-clock inquisitorial media, the knowledge that one's every minute gesture, every aside, is long-lensed by fuckwit papparazo whose only concern is the debasement and misrepresentation of democracy and and if one is simultaneously managing a huge portfolio of responsibilities for which one is demonstrably unsuited it must lead inevitably to a slip of the tongue, or in the case of the letter to Mrs Janes, the pen. Prime Minister Snot will be aware that his every utterance, his every scribbled line, is a hostage to fortune; yet he, nevertheless, in sending hand-written notes to the bereaved of the Afghanistan Nightmare, tries to do the right thing.

People who started off, fifty years ago, with illegible handwriting have had, since the introduction of self-taught word-processing, little reason to practice, much less improve their often irredeemable scribble, some days, I can't even manage my own signature much less draft an intelligible hand-written note to the postman. There are occasions, though, when, if sincerity is the motivation or its demonstration the purpose, we must put pen to paper.

The savvy thing for Brown to do with his consolatory billets doux, like the one to the wretched, unpardonably querulous Mrs Janes, is to have some stooge type them out, proof-read them, double-check the details and then for him to sign them; this, rather than his cack-handed spontaneity might have appeased, if anything would, the most recent, snarling TommyMummy, although, as with so many of her gobby ilk, the fantasy of blood-free soldiering outweighs, in her life, the harsh reality that the enemy shoots back, plants bombs, kills big handsome son and if it wasn't Brown's mis-spellings which deflected her own probable guilt and certain anger, it would have been something else, maybe the fact that each and every guardsman, bombardier or riflleman does not have a personal, indestructible helicopter at his disposal, an impenetrable force field surrounding him, so he can shoot out but no-one can shoot in.

But via The Sun, an arsewipe of a 'paper, Mrs Janes, rebukes Brown for "eighteen times missing the dot from the letter i" - no, really, it's there, in The Sun, he also uses the word sincerely twice, once in the body of the writing and once as a salutation, these, Brown's idiosyncracy and lack of inspiration a mark of disrespect, not only to Janes, herself, but to all the dead, probably, by extension, to all the highly literate readers of skymadeupnewsandfilth, renowned throughout the world for their painstaking spelling, grammar and pronunciation, innit, Gotcha! You couldn't make-up this shit.

Mr Rupert Corpse, proprietor, skymadeupnewsandfilth.

Mr Corpse, formerly an Australian, now an American, owns much of the mass media in the UK, where he doesn't pay any tax and has bred a nest of vipers to continue his wicked work when, the sooner the better, the horrible fucking bastard is dead.

Mr Corpse owns many so-called opinion-makers such as
Michael Portillo

Matthew Parris

Michael Spit

and

Unlike Murdoch's unaccustomedly grammar-obsessed slags, I haven't read the offending letter, it was, or should have been entirely private and special, valued all the more, really, for its inconsequential fuck-ups. For a change, it is not Field Marshal Snot, here, playing politics with dead soldiers but whichever wretch currently runs the Sun for Rupert, in concert with the one person who, were we not so empty-headed, trivial and stupid, Ruined, would have kept schtum. They are not all undignified and spiteful, the relatives, although blinking and stuttering, knowarramean-ing in bereavement's morbid but sought-after floodlights, far too many disgrace themselves and the memory of those slain. Here is a letter, to go with the belt and the helmet and the tunic, here, from the prime minister of the day, and, alright, his handwriting is shit but at least it's personal, a piece of history, actually, the boy's gone, now, let's behave with some dignity. I know, let's hold this letter up to ridicule and debase, entirely, the idea of private correspondence, let's tape the 'phone calls; Jamie woulda loved that, does my mouth look big in this?

Saturday, 7 November 2009

POPPIES.

Oh they're wearing fancy poppies, as they're lined-up in the Mall
But they're no-good, thieving bastards, rotten cowards one and all
Rotten cowards one and all, me lads, rotten cowards one and all
And they're wearing solemn faces, as they're standing in the Mall.

And you'd think that they was 'oly, with their kissers all turned down
And a look so bleedin' pious you'd think the angels 'ad come down,
the angels 'ad come down, me lads, the angels 'ad come down
And blessed 'em all, for bein' such a sorry bunch of clowns.
A sorry bunch of clowns me lads, all standin' in a row.
Got-up like tailors' dummies, the lowest of the low.

They do this once a year, me lads, the flags and all the tears
But we live with their rottenness, for years and bloody years.

Was the improvised explosive, done the damage to the lads
And they might have fared right better had they been in armoured cabs,
But they never spent the money, so the lads all 'ad it rough
While Bobby Bleedin' Ainsworth, 'ad is nose stuck in the trough,
'is nose stuck in the trough, me lads, 'is nose stuck in the trough.
'E 'ad 'is fingers in our pockets, an' 'is nose stuck in the trough.

Some is living in an 'ostel, some is livin' on the street
There's some 'as got no ears, no eyes, and some 'as got no feet.
And some 'as got no feet me lads, and some 'as got no feet.
Oh, it's hard to go a-marching, when you hasn't got no feet.

And some 'as melted faces, make the children look away,
Make their wives and girlfriends shudder, though they'd never like to say
That there's worser things than dyin', like comin 'ome this way.
They can do wonders, now, with plastic
Or so the doctors say.

And some is off on jailhouse leave, and can't be here today,
The Judge, y'see, he banged 'im up for ever and a day.
'E banged 'im up for fightin; but that's what soldiers do
And when he's got no war to fight, 'e 'as trouble getting through
Trouble getting' through, me lads, when all the shootin' stops And no-one wants to know 'im, just the prisons and the cops
The prisons and the cops, me lads, stick in a soldier's craw
Cos those what sent 'im killin' is far beyond the law.

If I but stole a fiver, now, from comrade next to me
I'd be on charges, sharpish, there, for everyone to see
They'll never get their collars felt, however much they steal
It's like that Alan Duncan said, a splendid fucking deal.
They write the rules, then break 'em, say they didn't understand.
They're shitting in our faces, up an down the bleedin' land
Shittin' in our faces, just as hard as e'er they can.

Pissin' in our pockets and spitting in our eyes
And travellin' on the gravytrain to the house of bleedin' lies.
An Armistice, all of their own, and no-one got no blame
They just paid a few shillings back and carried on the same.
Carried on the same, me lads, for now and evermore
Stuffed like pigs and drunk with power, while we go off to war.

The members and right honourables know only how to lie
And cheat and steal and fornicate, whilst we march off to die
In some benighted wogland, some jungle, veldt or bush
Or in the hills and mountains of the Hindu bleedin' Kush
The Hindu bleedin' Kush, me lads, you'd think they'd understand
That the killing fields of Afghannystan are No Man's Bleedin' Land.
No Man's Bleedin' Land, me boys, and it was ever thus
They shoot from caves and run away, in the Hindu bleedin Kush.

There's Charlie in 'is medals, heir to the bleedin' throne,
The one what we're out fightin' for, while he's sitting safe at home.
E'll 'ave yer Mrs, like as not, you give 'im 'alf a chance
He just takes what he wants, you see, it only takes a glance
For he is true nobility, the country's pride and joy
Whilst we are noble savages, cannon fodder to deploy.
They'll send us up to fiery death, and out in unsafe trucks
And when we're blown to Kingdom Come, why, no-one gives a fuck.

But when we come in sixes, with coffins draped in flags
They look a bit embarrassed, like, they're just a bunch of slags
Just a bunch of slags, me lads, all standin' ramrod straight
They'll smile and say So sorry, just a simple twist of fate
I would have gone myself, you know, but I'm important here,
We also serve, we lousy pricks, who only stand and wait.

You can put your bleedin' poppies where the Sun don't never shine
For hypocrisy's your only creed, you ain't no friend of mine
You ain't no friend of no-one's, if the truth was only told
To the boys you send to bleed and die and never to grow old.
It wouldn't do for your sons, all to the manner born
To die alone in foreign fields, forgotten and forlorn
To die alone in foreign fields, forgotten and forlorn
That's the stuff for me and mine, our bodies ripped and torn.

So you can put your bleedin' poppies where the monkey put his nuts
The only thing we've seen from you is cuts and bleedin' cuts'
And some ain't got no bullets and some ain't got no boots
And some are boys of seventeen, just bleedin' young recruits
Bleeding young recruits, me lads, all blown to smithereens,
They never saw their twenty-first, they never left their teens.

See, they're only paper flowers and you're only paper men
And if the call to valour came you'd cut and run again.
But paper flowers, that's the thing, to show you are sincere
And shiny shoes an' overcoats, that's why you're standin' ere.
We're soldiers of the Queen me lads, and not this sorry bunch
Who steal their houses, dodge their tax and steal their bleedin' lunch
They're one step down from parasite, a squalid learning curve
Lets hope before they meet their end, they get what they deserve.

Oh they're wearing fancy poppies, as they're lined-up in the Mall
But they're no-good, thieving bastards, rotten cowards one and all
Rotten cowards one and all, lads, rotten cowards one and all
And they're wearing solemn faces, as they're standing in the Mall.

SCRATCHER IN THE SHIT.

MARK ? COUP ? EQUATORIAL GUINEA ?
STUPID BOY COULDN'T EVEN FIND IT, NEVER MIND OVERTHROW IT. JAIL? DON'T THEY KNOW WHO I AM, COME TO THINK OF IT, I DON'T KNOW WHO I AM, DO YOU? WHAT? MOTHER? NOT YOURS, SURELY? PUT CONRAD BLACK ON THE CASE, HE'LL SORT IT. JAIL? WHAT, HIM, TOO? ALRIGHT THEN, PINOCHET. WHAT? DEAD? FUCK ME, THE PLACE HAS GONE TO THE DOGS SINCE JOHN MAJOR'S BEEN IN CHARGE.

call me ishmael

Saturday, 14 November 2009

LUNCH WITH A GIRLFRIEND, A STAR IS BORN

Clare.Macnaughton's Blog

November 3, 2009...2:56 pm

The Daily Politics – Defence Correspondent

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WHAT THE PAPERS SAY, THE TELEGRAPH, MR TINY SPEAKER IS THIEVING LITTLE GIT, AFTER ALL.

Friday, 13 November 2009

SOCIALIST PLAYBOY IN SHOCK DEFEAT

Thursday, 12 November 2009

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

Saturday, 7 November 2009

POPPIES.

SCRATCHER IN THE SHIT.

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