Friday 6 May 2016

ORKNEY, BEST PART OF SCOTLAND

I straggled on down to the polling station at a quarter to ten, held my nose and crossed the Dogshooters' box. 


Three hours later the Council's chief executive announced a thumping victory for Liam McArthur and a kicking for the Tribesmen. Tribeswoman in this case.

The turnout was up, not by the twelve per cent which the PBC stated  - a sixty two per cent turnout is not a twelve per cent increase on a fifty per cent turnout, but no matter, if they can't find Jimmy Savile we can't expect them  to do percentages -  but by nearly twenty-five per cent.

I doubt that it was a victory for Liberal Democrats as such, although Liam McArthur increased his majority, but more of a vote against the Tribesmen.  Maggie-Maggie-Maggie Sturgeon, as national socialists do, has taken significant powers to the centre - herself - notably the cops; 

 

 the bungling Chief Constable - is there any other kind? - of what is now Police Scotland being her liege man. Should I need to contact the cops I need to speak to a call centre in Inverness.  There is talk, currently, of the abolition of county councils entirely, of everything being determined by a mutant, groomed by Alec Salmond, who has never had a job in her life and is self-avowedly motivated by hatred. People here don't like that shit.

Gnasher also rewards those who vote for her and punishes apostates.  The Western Isles vote SNP and enjoy significantly reduced ferry fares, Orkney and Shetland, which are much further away and suffer worse weather do not return SNP candidates and still pay the full whack.

Unlike the two local Dogshooter Wiseguys, Carmichael and Wallace, 




McArthur is a courteous and  effective local representative and he's also a local man. His party is disfigured by so many - by Cyril Smith, by Boy David Steel, by Straight Simon Hughes, by the slimy opportunist,  Clegg; by the revolting, blowhard narcissist,  Field Marshal Ashdown - that a claim, tonight, by Lord Ming Campbell of a mere ten years in the wilderness for LibDemmery seems remarkably optimistic and one would expect Susan Fallon to be its last leader, and serve him right, pompous little prick.  Be that as it may, against the backdrop of his local colleague, Big Al Carmichael, being dragged through the courts, of his national party's demolition  and of the upsurge of Tribalism in Scotland, McArthure pissed down the Tribal throat.

Shetland was never as perilous a seat for the LibDems and Tavish McHooter increased his majority, also.



As we said, back then, under Kacza Nobody, the collapse of Scottish Labour continues, Blair and Snotty's NewLabour having - I suspect fatally - poisoned that well. 

Ruth Boy Davidson, 

SeeyouBitch....?
 
speaking whatever is the Jock equivalent of Mockney, is jumping about, gettin' down and up4it, claiming to be the New Opposition. 

Even has a Maggie suit of her own, 
like Gnasher

My vote didn't matter in the end  and it looks as though the SNP will remain comfortably in control of the wee parliament but at least they do not, for now, boss and bully a one-party state. 

The confounding of national socialism  doesn't justify opening a bottle of champagne but I will certainly go to bed on a large brandy and soda. 

33 comments:

Mike said...

I admire the strength of your stomach, Mr I.

The party of Steel, Smith, Hughes, Clegg would be too much for me.

Mike said...

Oh and Pantsdown - silly oversight.

call me ishmael said...

I should think, mr mike, that the huge increase in McArthur's vote was, like my own, fuelled by revulsion for the national socialists, and although the jackass, Rennie, leader of ScotDogShoot, claimed McArthur as a party triumph, it was nothing of the sort, he wonon a personal but largely tactical vote from reactionaries, like me.

Ruth Boy Davidson will similarly be claiming the rise in the ScotHamFace vote as a personal and party triumph but that, too, will most likely represent a nose-pegged tactical vote by Togetherists, ScotLab's Ms Nobody having recently flirted with Indelendence.

You'd have voted the same way, yourself, given the same choice. More later.

Anonymous said...

Hello Mr.Ish. Unlike you I didn't vote at all. I spent 40 shifts last year, in heavy and moderately dangerous work without pay (if I calculate my tax "contribution" correctly) in order to fund these imbeciles. All the Council seems to do here is ruin parks and ancient graveyards by sending chainsaw-wielding lunatics under the excuse of tidying them up. I've got some pictures of them felling big yew trees which smashed some 16th century gravestones. Then they wood-chipped the valuable timber.
They impose draconian fines (a thousand pounds!) for letting dogs run free on beaches, they prosecute van-drivers for smoking e-cigs in their own vans, they've reduced Belfast traffic to a crawl, generating fines, by painting lines on the road and calling them "Bus Lanes" even in areas and times where there ARE NO BUSES!
They couldn't organise a dog-fight if they had two fierce dogs. Fuck, fuck fuck the lot of them. It's time to walk away from any system that allows authoritarian clowns from getting their dopamine fix every time they tell other people what to do.
Since I didn't vote, any shit they come up with is nothing to do with me. My local fucking shop wouldn't even open the cigarette doors to let me choose some roll-up tobacco, because of Council Orders, and they have to fill out a three-monthly questionnaire on how they've prevented people seeing the stuff they want to buy.
Is there any way back to a non-wankshaftery system? I don't know, but it won't be achieved by voting.
-richard

Alphons said...

The sad thing about these elections, not just in the Frozen North, but right down through God's own chosen route for the "threeday cycle farce,and into the soft Southern underbelly, is that no matter how one votes it is the politicians who always get in.
I have always said that policicians are revolting and I think it is about time we stopped their revolt.

Caratacus said...

Like Richard, I did not vote ... and for largely similar reasons. East Devon, whilst perhaps not in the same league as Tower Hamlets or Islington, still manages to infect much of what it does with the stench of corruption, graft and that blatant "bollocks to the public" attitude which identifies so much of what passes for 'public service (sic)' these days.

So, No, I will neither encourage the fuckers nor dignify their machinations with a pretence of democracy. Fuck 'em. My policy is one of retrenchment and deciding what is best for my family with little consideration for the finer points of what the bearded arbiters of normality (still living with their mothers) in County Hall may decide.

P.S. Splendid rant, by the way Richard and, with your permission, would like to spread it further afield.

Anonymous said...

Jockney would be the obvious equivalent Mr Ishmael.

You really shouldn't encourage them, by voting, I mean. They start going on about 'mandates' and the 'electorate having spoken' and all that shit.

BTW, I avoid Scotland like the plague, so perhaps you could tell me, as my experience is somewhat limited. What is it with the schoolboy-lesbian-chic thing amongst the females? Do they think it looks good? Perhaps it does, in comparison to the rest of the 'ladies'; the flatness of the surrounding landscape (and chests) etc.

Vincent

call me ishmael said...

Yes, you are all correct and I hate myself; I just couldn't face the prospect of waking this morning to the jeers of the local national socialists and if you lived in the same circumstances as do I, far from normal scrutiny, you would do the same thing, hold your nose and vote to keep the fuckers living in their caves, underground, eating porridge with their fingers and beating their wives. As it turned out, McArthur's vote shot up, I fully believe as a result of many coming to the same conclusion as myself. I can live with his party feeling re-mandated, because they are not, and I told him exactly why I was voting for him, in terms that he cannot misunderstand and will tell him again.

All which mr richard says is correct, it usually is, and applicable across the country, across the world, I should think, and my own default position but would be as his but short of assassination voting for McArthur was my only opportunity to resist the even more centrist and fascistic SNP, whose immediate depradations, hereabouts, would have made contemporary, hogtied Belfast look like the Garden of fucking Eden.

call me ishmael said...

If you can travel, mr vincent. you shouldn't avoid Scotland. The cities are like cities elsewhere but anywhere North of Stirling is worth the effort and the drive - or the train - through the Cairngorms from Perth to Inverness is uniquely, vastly, irrevocably, timelessly beautiful; from Inverness you can strike East, up the Great Glen to Fort William or North, through Cromarty, over the Firths, up and down the Braes to wild Caithness and the Northern Isles, beyond. Scotland's bitter internicine strife is everywhere you look if you want it to be or you can just enjoy the drive and the landscape, the huge, Northern skies and the clean air. Bikers from the Central Belt do John O'Groats, a merciless pisshole of a place, and return of a weekend and you can even take a day-return Orkney coach trip from Inverness.

There are no burnished Norman Cathedral cities, like Tewkesbury or Gloucester, Durham or York but there are bluff and brutish remnants of pre-Presbyterian Christianity, mainly, though, for me, Scotland's beauty lies in the absence of things, vast landscapes virtually unembellished since the Ice Age, save for desperate huddles of rough dwellings. You'd like it.

As for the Gnasher chic, well I'm fucked if I know, I have a notion that strident politics attracts, even demands an in-your-face sexual Otherness, you gotta be gay to get on, but I really don't know. Certainly Ruth Boy Davidson's predecessor, the ghoulish matron Annabel Gouldie, was a gruff, leatherfaced old bull dyke. Hasn't done President Trousers any harm so far.

Anonymous said...

Lived on a farm in Galashiels for a short time in the '80s. Very beautiful. Clean. But the people, the fecking people Mr Ishmael... put me off, it has.

My fondest memory is assisting in the calving of a poor beast in distress, in the field, 12 inches of snow, 4 in the morning. Managed to rope the poor thing and not at all gently extract her. All ended well for cow and calf.

The isolation most certainly appeals.

PS If half of what I gather is even remotely true, Hillary has a great deal to worry about concerning what the butler saw. Makes Bill look quarter-decent even.

Vincent.

mongoose said...

And then he goes and votes for a fucking Dogshooter! I do hope you have fashioned a wee tartan pillow for yon pup to cover his wee ears with.

Fortunately I have missed the entire day's braying and lying apart from the mega-cunt Vine last night who seems to think he is clever and artful. "No, no, no, you mustn't compare the vote this time to last time, or the time before - what could be more fatuous and provincial? - but compare it to this here time I want you to compare it to. And here the Labour vote is in this one representative constituency or err, Sunderland, the tiniest fucking sliver of a smidgeon higher than it was (but well within the margin of error of having fallen like fuck) and so we can say with confidence, Mein Fuhrer, say that the Labour vote has held up remarkably well. (Except that the Tories should be being destroyed mid-term as they slash and burn libraries, and bedrooms and steelworks and leave innocent Syrian waifs, orphans yet, astray and unprotected in err, France. Oh.)

Anonymous said...

"...a gruff, leatherfaced old bull dyke." Wasn't Leatherface the nutjob in Texas Chainsaw Massacre? Mind how you go, old son, mind how you go...

v.//

ps - that "Mama Westray" tourist guide didn't have any Ishlmaelite editorial input by any chance? Thriving Japanese export market for squid-flavoured Orkney pork and so forth...

call me ishmael said...

In congress with strangers, at any rate, mr vincent, the high- and islanders are circumspect at worst and can be cordial in a well-scrubbed sort of way though I know nothing of Galashielians and would not give houseroom to a Glaswegian or Edinburghian: people can be a pain the world over, the opportunities, though, for their evasion are here plentiful.

Hillary, indeed, since before- before, is so garlanded in Crime's rank blooms that had she conscience its entrails would writhe in scorching agony; pray let the FBI or Trump or any opposing voice denounce her, lest she corrupt the whole world.

If one has stomach and appetite the you-thing crackles with Hillary's wrongdoings.

call me ishmael said...

My case is made as cogently as I am able, mr mongoose, and makes corporal the truism concerning the end and the means.

Every time I see Jerry Vine hopscotching around his maps I can see him acting the cheery Redcoat on that awful Eggheads pubquiz programme, he is indeed a dismal, disfigured wretch, neither journalist nor light entertainer, one of those hobgoblins, vomited up occasionally, by the PBC, Philip Schofield, he's one, Dr Lucy Lisp, just morons who can speak confidently. zi wonder how such vermin continue to prosper.

call me ishmael said...

Never had the stomach, mr verge, for TCSM. or even Scarface, too tender a disposition.

I don't know Mama Westray but the whole Orkney food and drink game is as absurdly pretentious as it is anywhere else. Shit.

The beef's good if you like beef and the cheese is good if you like cheese but I don't like either; it is impossible to grow vegetables here and the local bakers double up as funeral directors. Thank God for the ferries which stock the supermarkets daily.

Any thoughts on Maurice, by EM Forster, does it stand anywhere in the canon transgresif?

mongoose said...

I am only kidding you, Mr Ishmael. I think. I am after all a Dogshooter myself if only we had a Dogshooter's party down here for which to vote.

Vine is the personification of everything wrong with the BBC. Needs a swift skitter up the gallows steps, does Jeremy. And take the Snow boy with him too.

Mistress Fissssh has been very quiet today I see. Only her personal mandate to keep her warm in a country peopled by ungrateful wretches and quisling traitors who don't know a national McHeroine when they see one. It brings a tear to me eye so it does.

SG said...

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, now we're talking. The original 1974 version -  of course (why do they do all these shit, unneccessary remakes apart from the profit potential? Why not just re-master the original and punt it out to a new, young audience and scare the fuck out of them...). Sinister, atmospheric, a chronicle of ruin in its own right but not really gory by modern 'standards'. I'm surprised that you haven't seen it somewhere on your travels Mr I. I think it would provide you with much food for thought... Leatherface was played by Gunnar Hansen, an Icelander - a near neighbour, Mr I. Apparently he went to special needs schools to observe the behaviours of the inmates and inform his portrayal of the 'nutjob' (shit - an image of Jimmy Saville just came to mind... However I am sure Gunnar was better than that!...). Christopher Sharrett's treatise on the same refers: http://tinyurl.com/hpgn29y

BTW 'The Windsors' on Channel 4 at 10pm tonight - starring Harry Enfield (as Prince Charles) may be worth a look...

Anonymous said...

Quite so, Mr SG, strictly the original, horribly matter-of-fact, filed forever under "American Dream: Allegories and Underbellies."

Nowadays I'm the same, Mr Ish, can't be doing with films like that any more. The line-in-the-sand came some years ago when watching a thing set in Australia called "Wolf Creek", during which two of the victims (who at this point are in no doubt whatever about the nature of the beast who's captured them) momentarily disable the perp; instead of stomping him to death several times over and once more to make sure they try to escape and of course he recovers and blah blah blah. The narrative was making accomplices of its viewers. The same point was made in Michael Haneke's "Funny Games", which was just as horrible but at least had some moral purpose.

Can't help you with Maurice. Wasn't there a film with Hugh Grant and Simon Callow? Puts you right off, so it does.

v.//

SG said...

Mr I, your choice of a brandy and soda seems apposite as I seem to recall that National Socialism, after the intervention of a few years, was followed by Champagne Socialism...

yardarm said...

Congratulations, Mr Ishmael to you and your fellow Orcadians in blowing a mighty fart towards the Skirters, even if it did mean voting Dogshooter. I`ve even toyed with voting Leave in order to add my own splatter to the top hat full of shit that will hopefully be emptied over Cameron`s empty head come June but if he falls another psychopathic class warrior will take over. Thinking of scribbling ' You scum all suck bankster cock ' on the ballot paper.

mongoose said...

It does seem that there is a natural high water line for those in favour of a McParadise - and it isn't 50%. Even with all the kids being allowed to vote last time, they couldn't swing it. An acquaintance of mine moved - "emigrated", perhaps - up there a few years ago. He was a rabid SNP-er up to and including the referendum but has now abandoned these heartfelt ideals and bunked up with the McTreehuggers. He keeps sending me shite but terror-filled emails about fracking. It would seem that he's just a bloody anti- really, an outsider against shit - whatever it is. A political illiterate, in fact, is what the lad is but we'll not tell him. That would be rude.

So Mrs Fish will need to lash together some coalition of believers and, alas, unbelievers, and hold it together through the process long enough to get 51% of the cats herded over the line. So if the excuse were a Brexit vote or Cameroon legislating to slaughter the kilted new-born or such, she would have to have a hissy-fit, an unofficial non-sanctioned vote in Scotland, tears and further tantrums, some sort of two-step with other doomsayers and hope that Cameron's successor was pliable enough to give way, and grant a second referendum. And still she'd have to win a fresh vote probably a year or two later again. It doesn't look achievable to me.

So they are back to a Devo-Max rifling of the till, which perhaps was the real objective all along. All the yelling must be continued however in order to maintain the dream. Five minutes silent and everyone will forget and get back to their mutton pies and Buckie.

Off to Edinburgh again soon. Springtime in Scotland. Give a little whistle.

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Mr. Caratacus, and yes.
-richard

call me ishmael said...

That's well observed and well-put, mr mongoose, the fly in the ointment for the Tribersmen is Ruth Boy Davidson - whose increased support comes from the togetherists for she will lead a punchy, confident opposition, fired-up and purposeful, whereas Labour have, since the inception of the parliament, chosen deadbeats - Dewar, Henry McThief, the dreadful Jack McConnel and his doxy; Thieving Wendy Fishface, Ian Grey, Jo-La and now this Ms Nobody. Ruth Boy will liven things up and from that anything may happen, most likely, sensible people will, if they haven't already, grow weary of Fat Alec and his groomee, Ms Moustache, exhausted by their crap and their clamour. There is no majority for separatism in Scotland and the more of a threat it becomes the greater will be the opposition.

I think that most of the tree-huggers are actually cock-huggers and are a rallying point for politicised Otherness, which, you will know, I consider a contradiction in terms, Long Live Queers being my crie de couer.

Woman on a Raft said...

I am away to Scotland, the noo, to stay by the sliv'ry Tay. The blue and gold of that estuary is a treasure. Also hope pop over to Arbroath for I dearly love a kipper.

I would appreciate travel advice as I have to go via York. Disregarding mileage (I am happy to drive further for a better ride) would you favour the eastern routes which use the Forth Bridge crossing, entailing the ghastly ring road around Edinburgh, or drive more westerly and cross nearer to Glasgow?

call me ishmael said...

It was Goodfellas, mr sg and mr verge, closed that door to me, the sytlised, grotesque violence and I now shrink from it, having enough horros of my own, without sharing those of some nasty little, fucked-up coke-snorting luvvie-monster like Scorcese and the rest. I did watch a bit of Pulp Fiction the other night, from the basement gimp scene onwards and fopund that quite acceptable in a comic-book way, yet last night left the room whilst Richard of York burned alive Joan of Arc ion the Wars of the Roses; my imagination over-revs and I fear it will blow all of its bearings; Daytime Cruelty TeeVee is bad enough for me these days, I simply cannot view even make-believe torture.

I passed ove the Windsors, mr sg, a couple of times, and didn't know what it was, was it any good?

Anonymous said...

"All which mr richard says is correct, it usually is..."
That means a lot, thanks, and you're usually correct also.
-richard

call me ishmael said...

In my experience the traffic congestion approaching the Forth Bridge is overstated, although I guess the rush hours are best avoided, mrs woar. There is the compensation, anyway, of crossing the road bridge, seeing the glorious old rail bridge and the new road bridge, under construction, that is always my route on the same journey. There's something, I dunno, boyishly John Buchanish, about following the Great North Road - York, Durham, Alnwick, Berwick and then seeing the rail bridge.

Seahouses, by the way, on that route, is good for kippers, there's a coastal pub, there, does good crab sandwiches and a half-pint and it's only a few miles detour from the main road, which can be tiring through Northumberland. The second-hand bookshop in Alnwick, on the left on the way in, Northwards, is worth a look if you haven't already. The Best Western Invercarse hotel, In Dundee, I have recommended previously, fabulous views of the Tay, gazed at over breakfast or dinner through a wonderful Victorian garden.

I will be in York, myself, shortly, for the Mystery plays, approaching from Gretna, across the Pennines and looking forward to that and I expect we shall return much as I have suggested for you. The Tay Forest area, north, in Perthshire, - LochRannoch and such - is amazing, if you ever get the time, the very best part of England.

SG said...

It was a right royal piss-take Mr I! The review in The Telegraph has it about right I would say:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/05/06/the-windsors-was-rude-crude--and-a-real-blast-of-punk-comedy/

call me ishmael said...

Right, read that, mr sg, I'll watch it next time.

Alphons said...


Woman on a Raft & mr ishmael

I live not a million miles from York and I would advise you both to take with you plenty of money and keep it in thief proof container. Do not linger in one place very long and wear strong underwear.

mrs narcolept said...

We found a perfect house to buy not far from Loch Rannoch, but Perthshire English-speaking friends had their lives made a misery by Referendum freaks and I lost my nerve.

call me ishmael said...

I really cannot tell you how distressing I find that, mrs narcolept. Loch Rannoch is my favourite place in Scotland. I shall not cease visiting but if I do encounter any Tribesmen I shall, as we say in the Midlands, fire a round of fucks into them. No chance of you reconsidering? I know that the Saltire flies over many places but they are generally cowards, these flag-wavers and the tourist indusry is largely staffed and run by English and Central Europeans. I don't think it could ever become liuke 70s North Wales, Loch Rannoch.

call me ishmael said...

I take such precautions any time I leave Orkney, m alphons. I am one of God's Amish, everywhere Outwith is corrupt and malign