Sunday 9 August 2020

The Sunday Ishmael 9th August 2020

Camping in France

This week has seen record numbers of asylum seekers arriving on the Kent coast, in more than 300  overcrowded small boats, with the total for the year now at nearly 4,000. There was a new record of at least 235 arrivals on 6 August. 
Four refugees were pictured paddling across the 23-mile stretch of water with shovels. 
.Home Secretary Priti Patel has threatened to use the Navy to send migrants back,
but experts question the legality of her plans.

Here's how mr ishmael considered the refugee crisis:
Good evening, this is me, Jon Sox, 
Channel Four's, and indeed the nation's,  humanitarian-at-large, with more on the immigration crisis, or, as I prefer to call it, the callous failure of those not, like myself, in showbusiness, to welcome  at least one but preferably several immigrant families to live in their homes and worship their God in the conservatory, if it faces to the East. And to build them another one if it doesn't. It is their human right, to worship as they see fit, turn your Venetian blinds into prayer mats.



 Let's face it, there is only one God, and Mohamed, peace and blessings be upon his name, is his prophet.

The crisis of callousness deepens by the day, by the hour, with up to three hundred thousand fit young men desperate not to come to Britain. 
You can see them, long lines of fit, healthy young men who don't want to return to Britain.
 Over now to our Chief Humanitarian, Alex Thompson, on a northern French beach.


Big butch newsman, 
gazing wistfully out to sea, compassionately, with a hint of stern reproof, for the camera.

Thanks, Jon, and that's right.  And do you know what, Jon, you and I have been in the compassion business for a long time but we've never seen anything like this. People are literally  queueing for transport to literally get them out of this Hell on Earth and away from Britain.

 

 I am joined here by three hundred thousand fit, healthy, young men who say they will simply not go to Britain.  The French are being beastly to them. And quite frankly so are the Germans.

 
 
 
Ve must shoot se English Tommy in ze vater, und blitzkieg his arsche from ze air. Heil Hitler.
  These men will literally stop at nothing to get aboard transport taking them literally from France.

 

To tell us why, here are two of those very refugees.

 


Tell us why you don't want  to go to Britain.

Nah, mate, it's fucking  terrible, shortages of food and water, people  sleepin'  in the bleedin' Underground, cor blimey, Britain?  I should co-co. I want a better life for meself, dunnI? I mean, it's in a state of bleedin' war, in Britain, with bombs falling all the time. And there int  no welfare state in Britain,  like, for when you're unemployed or  get sick. Nah,  can't go back to Britain. In fact I simply won't  go back to Britain. Must go in Syria. I want to and you can't stop me. It's me yooman right, innit. Fuck all that fightin' fer yer country.  Some other cunt can do that. It's Damascus fer me, mate. Fight, wot, me?  Hitler and Churchill, let them sort it out.

But what about those who say you should return to Britain and fight for your country? You're fit and healthy, young and strong, why are you running away from tyranny? 
Good job everybody doesn't do that, eh? 


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

 Japan remembers the 75th Anniversary of  the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima

Which ended the war with Japan, and allowed the prisoner of war camps to be liberated

 

An interview, following the Japanese Earthquake of 2011:

Yes, thank you, but the Japanese, they live with the constant threat of earthquake and tidal waves, or Tu-Sunamis, as we are now calling them on the BBC, as though we were all language scholars, what can you tell us about any special preparations they may have made, buildings-wise, to cope with this....this....ah...this Tectonic Plates shit happening?
Well, as you know, Oprah, they have great experience in this sort of thing, what with the terror bombing campaigns of the 1945, culminating in them all getting their faces melted off by the Freedom Atom bombs so they kind of take it all in their hobbling little strides, bowing and scraping and hissing at one another, grovelling about, doing their company exercises, singing their company hymns, saying their company prayers. And let's not forget that since the war the little blighters have been gangraped and brainwashed into believing that Consumerism is the new Bushido. Gone from feudalism to corporate slavery in a couple of generations, they have, from shovelling shit in the rice paddies to making digital cameras. Clearly, they're all Buddhists, of course, which helps.

How's that, Brian? 

Well, clearly they believe in some reincarnation shit or other, ancestor worship, that sort of thing; so, clearly, it doesn't really matter if they get washed away and ground up into tiny bits, they're all going straight up to Samurai Heaven; it's why they were so keen to chop the heads off British POWs in the last war. 

What, because of the earthquakes? 

No, because they're horrible little yellow bastards.


That was Professor Brian Gob, talking to us there. But what about the nuclear problem, I mean they're going off like fucking Catherine Wheels, aren't they, those reactors? Well, I'm joined here in the studio by Professor Trevor Gob, of the University of Shepton Mallet who lectures on Nuclear Meltdown Tectonic Plates Studies. Professor Gob, what can you tell us; are these things safe? Well, yes and no, Kirsty, it's very much a case of suck it and see, in a very real sense, at the end of the day. At the end of the day, the Devil, as ever is in the detail. You see, if you have a level playing field and someone moves the goalposts then the bottom line is gonna be that it's time to wake up and smell the coffee, at the end of the day. It's all down to the procedures. They have 'em in place, the Japanese, like no ofher nation in Earth, which isn't surprising, really, considering.

Considering what, Trevor?

Well, Kirsty, considering all them mutants they got, walking around with two heads and no fucking arms, and arses where their ears oughta be, you know, eyeballs in their armpits, albinos and cleft palates and cloven fucking hooves where their feet should be, all those descendants of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Now, as to whether they are safe, that's really two questions. I mean, they might be safe. And on the other hand, they might be dangerous as fuck. No point asking me, I used to teach woodwork, when we were still a polytechnic. Before that fucker Blair went and fucked everything up. I mean, half the country with degrees, what's that shit about, every other fuckwit in the land, smirking, banging-on about how his girl,  Chardonnay or his lad, Ethan, is off to Uni, to read hairdressing studies. A city and guilds in dovetail jointing, or welding, that was something to be proud of, but they give degrees out to people who can't spell their own fucking names. No use, Kirsty, the BBC trying to educate them about nuclear fission in Japan, not when they couldn't change a fucking three-pin plug, not to save their fucking lives. And as for Stephanie fucking Landers rabbiting on, the silly fucking cow, about how all this fire and fucking brimstone shit in Japan is going to affect the footsie one hundred and maybe cause a double-dip recession, about how the fucking Nikkei stock  exchange is faring; well,  she may as well be farting out of the window for all the difference it makes. Now, there's a thought for the viewers, eh, our Steph, in some mad porno re-write of the Wife of Bath's Tale, her arse hanging out of Broadcasting House, breaking wind in time to the Shipping Forecast. She come s from a showbiz family, doesn't she? Couldn't be any worse than all this shit you keep serving up about Japan. And fucking Lebanon. And Egypt.

Well, you know, professor, we have to be relevant and up to the minute, if we were reflective and thoughtful and intelligent we might be accused of straying into the realms of journalism and clearly we don't do that; news, that's our business, news, and filth.

That was Professor Trevor Gob there for us, on the very real potential for something newsy and urgent happening in the town of Fuckyoufissionama.

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


From mr ishmael's thought for the day: 

From the bombing of Dresden to the Bogside,
From Harfleur to Hiroshima,
Our sorriest martial triumph is in 
The massacre of the innocent.
That we unleash Slaughter most Noble and Worthy upon others  forbids our complaint when he is turned upon us.

.........................................................................................
And, in non-war news, we can report the ending of the civil liberty of Freedom of Speech: hat-tip to  mr verge for the story:
 

Fiona Lamdin reported a racially-aggravated attack in Bristol, broadcast by Points West and the BBC News Channel last week. The victim's family were anxious the incident should be seen and understood by the wider public. The BBC said: "It's for this reason they asked us specifically to show the photos of this man's injuries and were also determined that we should report the racist language, in full, alleged to have been spoken by the occupants of the car." The BBC said it had received 18,656 complaints by Sunday 2 August about the use of the word that is now bowdlerised as "the n- word." Some celebrity with a silly name has taken advantage of the stramash to generate some publicity by resigning from his post as a BBC radio DJ, saying the news report sounded like "a slap in the face to our community", earning himself the accolade of "you're a King" from his chums.

 
Lucy Worsley, in a television programme covering racial tension in the United States, described an 1865 speech by President Abraham Lincoln, who said that black people should be given the right to vote. Confederacy supporter John Wilkes Booth, who went on to assassinate Lincoln, said  'That means nigger citizenship. By God, that's the last speech he will ever make" . Before quoting that remark, Worsley said: "his words carry a health warning".
Social media users reacted with fury, causing Lucy Worsley to apologise, saying: 'it wasn't acceptable and I apologise.'
And we report the demise of the acting profession, as it now seems to be offensive to depict any character not sharing the same characteristics as the actor:

Actress Zoe Saldana has apologised for playing Nina Simone in a prosthetic nose and skin-darkening make-up in a perfectly dreadful 2016 biopic. (2% rating on review website Rotten Tomatoes) 

Saldana said: "I should have never played Nina.I should have done everything in my power with the leverage that I had 10 years ago, which was a different leverage, but it was leverage nonetheless....I should have done everything in my power to cast a black woman to play an exceptionally perfect black woman....I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I know better today and I'm never going to do that again." Just not black enough, Zoe.

 So when may we expect an apology from David Suchet (75% Ashkenazi Jewish, 25% English) for daring to portray the Belgian detective, Poirot?

and a retrospective apology from the estate of the late Eli Wallach (Polish/Jewish/American) for representing the Mexican, Tuco? 


So, despite Lenny Bruce's efforts to drain  the offence from certain words, there is now one word that no-one can say, even to condemn its use, without sacrificing career, good name and dinner party invitations. Just to remind you: 


Are there any Niggers Here Tonite? 
Lenny Bruce
"There are no Dirty Words, just Dirty Minds".


mr ishmael's essays:
Jon Sox, Humanitarian at Large      drafted 8/3/16 
A Thought for the Day                      posted 3/12/15
A Whole Lotta Quakin' Goin' on      posted 15/3/11

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Maoist self-criticism as self-preservation. This one is exquisitely fucked-up as the culpaslag is, as mrs ishmael points out, black but not black enough. Zoe Virtue's "Exceptionally perfect black woman" is a bit rich - Nina Simone was not a happy camper and her parenting skills were pretty much what you might expect from someone with borderline personality disorder. Oh, and speaking of Mississippi Goddam, when Alan Parker died the other day, Radio 5 summarised his career several times in the space of a couple of hours with Evita, Fame, Bugsy Malone and Midnight Express, but no mention of Mississippi Burning. You could be forgiven for thinking someone in the production team didn't want to garland a civil rights film that was directed by a white man, and starred two Hollywood honkies by the name of Hackman and Dafoe. Hackman, by the way, (California-born, midwest-raised, Canadian mother) played a Mississippi native - another serious offence in the new dispensation, surely. (And maybe we should start putting "white man" in inverted commas, to indicate how essentially meaningless it is, though if anyone asks we can tell them it's the typographical equivalent of sanitary gloves, such as one would wear when picking up a bit of roadkill or some freshly discarded rat-shit.)

The photo of Tuco in the post comes just before or just after that wonderful moment when he kills a gun-toting wannabe revenger, who blathers on about why he's there and what he's going to do - "If you're gonna shoot, shoot. Don't talk."

v./

Bungalow Bill said...

Has there ever been such a forsaking of reason on such a scale, save by the most notorious regimes? All at the very moment when we are alleged to be most rational and scientific. Perhaps this is what happens when we worship ourselves.

Mike said...

Agreed Messers verge and BB. The scale of the lunacy and the speed its happened - in our lifetime, basically - makes me wonder if something is responsible for the collective insanity. Maybe vaccinations, or fluoride in the water. Or hypnosis via the media? Something destroying the brain. Its undeniable that most people in the West are becoming increasingly stupid.

PS Tuco: reminder to re-watch that film.

mrs ishmael said...

And I also agree, gentlemen. Do you think we might have slipped into a parallel dimension? It is all extremely odd indeed - as if the national/global script is now being written by the "B" team, the proper writers having been redeployed to some emergent new Earth.
Maybe I should start apologising now?

Anonymous said...

Don't forget to check your privilege first, mrs ishmael.

Well worth the time, Mr Mike, especially if you have a nice big widescreen TV and a decent sound system - 3 hours well spent.

v./

Doug Shoulders said...

Senor Wallach also played head bandito in the Magnificent Seven and was in danger of becoming type cast.
“There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend. Those with loaded guns and those who dig.”
Would it be Demasiado to call the good the bad and the ugly a masterpiece of cinema?
I still watch the end scene shoot-out to this a day.
People these days are becoming more and more stupid or more and more selfish…or a combination of both
Anything churned out by filmmakers these days to designed to pander to those two human iniquities.
The end scene is about fifteen minutes long and would be left on the cutting room floor these days. It’s not instantly gratifying enough.

mrs ishmael said...

Not too much at all, mr shoulders. Compelling stuff from a different, cleverer era of cinematography, when the audience was able to sustain attention, interpret facial expressions and understand plot. Now they only need to be able to sit fairly still during a succession of car chases, explosions, acrobatic fighting, pornographic couplings and explicit titillation, whilst eating monster mega buckets of sugar-filth, assured of a feel-good ending. Oh dear, I've turned into my father.