The Sunday Ishmael 18-10-2020

Scottish political commentators are crowing over the forthcoming disintegration of England, hailing gorgeous, pouting Andy Burnham

as the new leader of the North, successor to Edgar Atheling and Harry Hotspur and gleefully anticipating a Harrying of the North by Boris to subjugate northern England; which can only further stir up anti-southern sentiment, already fuelled by the gaping economic and attainment gap between North and South. Boris says the situation is grave. Andy says he's exaggerating. Boris says Sir Keir should give Andy a good metaphorical slapping. Michael-can't-stay-out-of-a-good-fight Gove says Andy is posturing and must bend over to Tier Three restrictions.

 Andy says he will take legal action as the current furlough system is not fair to low paid workers. Boris says he will intervene if an agreement cannot be reached. Sounds like a Harrying brewing.

Boris Johnson visited Orkney in July this year, as you will remember.

It was not his first visit. Some years previously, before our Gnasher was mistress of all she surveyed, and before she was First Minister of the Scottish Government (honest, not invent, that's what they call themselves - not surprising that 25% of Scots believe that they are already independent of the United Kingdom), back when Scotland had a mere Scottish Executive, mr ishmael was privileged to attend a meeting of the Orkney Tourist Board at which the Executive Director of Visit Scotland, Willy McCloud, and his chum, Boris Johnson, assured the local tourist industry that they were working flat-out to promote tourism to Orkney.

Here's mr ishmael's report to the local paper on the event:

 Head Line: Jive Talking at the AGM

By-line: Jimmy Olsen, cub reporter and Superman's friend:

 Mr. Willy McCloud is acclaimed by all in the multi-trillion dollar global tourist industry, most of which he, personally, is going to bring to Scotland. A former accommodation provider and a man of such immense personal charm and warmth it is easy to see how his customers would have felt about a repeat taste of his hospitality. A higher calling, however, diverted young Willy's stellar talents to the world of tourism consultancy, management and promotion. His many talents were showcased last night to the primitive fisher folk and cave dwellers who make up Orkney's miniscule, faltering tourist business.

His facility with his sometimes discernible magic lantern show was dazzling; that it was disordered, uninstructive and flashed before us in a second or two was neither here nor there: who needs a professional approach to presentation when addressing savages dressed in sealskins? If Willy's department organises similarly smooth presentations for potential tourists to Scotland then those engaged here in tourism will really have to reappraise their approach to making a living; if it answers genuine questions with Willy's forthright courtesy and mastery of numbers and if it displays Willy's approach to alternative suggestions it is difficult to see how, in partnership with the Scottish Executive, VisitWilly'sScotland can fail to emulate the success of, for instance, the Holyrood parliament building - only a couple of years late and just under one thousand percent over budget.

Orkney tourism providers were also, at last night's AGM, thrilled to see Boris Johnson wearing one of his many hats  - this time as the proprietor of something called seeBorisinthehighlands.com

Boris treated us to a revised, motivational version of the Eton Rowing song: rah! rah! rah! money! money! money!go!go!go!  or words to that effect. That he had come here with no expense spared to so inspire us brought further ecstatic applause from an audience now whipped to a frenzy known only to Orkney hillbillys enraptured by their suited visiters from Sooth.

So much applause was there for Willy and Boris that some present felt that a hat should be passed round at this juncture without more ado; instead, displaying a uniquely sensitive approach to its employees, Orkney Tourist Board insisted that, despite their embarassment, they stand up to be inspected like a bunch of heifers and take a bow. Truly, there is no business like show business.

 Willy said that he could guarantee the quite satisfactory status quo at least until he was on the flight back to his executive suite in Edinburgh. The Chair invited those present to dig deep into their pockets to fund a fictional and powerless status quo to run in tandem with Willy's Brave New World status quo-to-come and soothingly told us that we could sleep safely in our caves for she would be deserting neither us nor her salary, we would always be able to come and be talked-to by her. Thus reassured, we trudged off in the northern night to our chilly caves there to watch, on our car-battery-powered televisions, a restorative episode of the more mundane, less fanciful reality portrayed in Little Britain.

Boris in the Highlands - summer hols, August 2020

 

Boris' tent in the Highlands, August 2020

 

 

 Yes - the Scottish tourist industry was safe in their hands, although the idea of the Prime Minister sitting in a damp field in a badly put-up tent being eaten alive by midges has a certain charm to it.

Dramatis Personae:

1. Willy McCloud (real name, honest, not invent)  Executive Director, Scotland  UK Hospitality Nov 2011 - Present

2. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (real name, honest, not invent)  Mayor of London 2008 to 2016, Foreign Secretary 2016 to 2018, Prime Minister 2019 to the present and, second only to Ringo Starr, the luckiest man alive.

3. Jimmy Olsen cub reporter on the Daily Planet November 1938 to the present, also known as Ishmael Smith.

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Stanislav on pandemic viruses:

Fuck me, bird 'flu now, as well as Alan Johnson's disease. Good job we have hereditary Plagues minister Rosemary Benn at the helm, as we slide back into Middle fucking Ages. Maybe Lady Sir Iain MachineGun Blair send merry men out, blast birds from sky with Hoekkler and Koch. At least do something useful with mad gunslinger psycho-cops. Maybe Tony Benn wrap-up warm in cardy, go out in field with flask of tea and shout at naughty bird, go away, I am old Labour. And vegetarian. Maybe Foetus Hague go and point finger.

On the bright side, though, a good outbreak of plague would clear out the old and the sick and the poor - although, thankfully, none of the establishment who will be inoculated up to their bollocks - and leave so much more money for houses of parliament pensions.

Leicester Royal Infirmary, flagship NewLabour disease pit, and employer of mad ventriloquist McCann, has a mission statement which says: Doesn't matter if our incompetent actions result in your death as you would have died eventually anyway. Honest. Stanislav not invent. The government could display real vision by adapting this to any outbreak of plague. Hard choices. Not come in Downing Street to be popular (just as fucking well, really, considering.)Trust me I am son of fucking Manse. Many must die in order that few remain rich. More joy in heaven over poor bastards flung in plague pit and cover-up with lime and forget about. May as well go now as hang around with arthritis, dribbling. Only die in hospital anyway, lungs fill up limbs drop off from AJD. Better off fucking dead, really. Not like us who is left behind to grow old and spend pension. At going down of sun and in morning will remember bird flu death millions. Age shall not wither. Maybe dig-up Bernard Matthews and give peerage for solve pension crisis. Lord Levy negotiate price with family, oi vay. Have Nagilah. Don't work Saturdays.

Stanislav go now in Tesco, buy whole stock of own brand Beechams Powder, come home, seal-up doors and window, not go out, not do plumbing job. Kill budgie. 

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In house of reptile last week is opposition debate on cuntus johnsonitis fatalis, named after singing postmistress and head of National Death Service, Mrs Johnson. This is epidemic of mildly sick people go in hospital and come out in box dead as fucking mackerel. Thousands of people is already dead, killed by useless private cleaning firm, Germs&Corpse U Like, lazy foreign nurse terrorist, greedy dirty doctor bastard and pension-mad chief executive of hospital. Is most serious health problem in country. Thousands more destined for slow, dirty extermination. Even fucking dogs catch cuntus johnsonitis fatalis from owners. Is worse, much worse than evilest evil ever committed on nine-eleven, is murder on a grand scale and yet, yet……in the debate is hardly no fucker to be seen. Handful of sleeping drunks; mad pizza saleswoman, maybe twenty, out of over six hundred MP, is lying about in chamber, farting. No Lib Dem at all. No Paisleys. No Jock Nazi Party. All must be in restaurant, knocking shop or public toilet with Michael White and Kevin Maguire, proprietors of Gay Toilet Sex Is Us.

Speaker Gorbals Mick is absent probably queuing up outside toilet - because is nobody on Labour benches need protecting from tricky question, his only purpose on Earth. Health minister “Cocaine Carol” Flint is off doing worthy relief work in streets of Kings Cross and singing postmistress, Alan Johnson, herself, is busy putting finishing touch to new album, Songs from a Mortuary. Department of Extermination is represented only by grey-haired old biddy, used to be dinner lady in Rowley Regis, now, fuck me, minister of state.

Madam Deputy Speaker, says veteran Tory nobody, Is fucking shit, all this, get letter all day long from constituent, father go in local hospital, Madam Deputy Speaker, share fucking bed with two other people, roll around in shit, get some slap from nurse, get no food, starve and then fucking die, Madam Deputy Speaker; yes I will give way to the Honourable Drunk opposite…

I thank the honourable gentleman, said Barry Knuckles (New Lab, West Bromwich) and wish to tell House that I get these fucking letters, too, all fucking day long, Madam Deputy Speaker. Fucking constituents pestering fucking life out of me. I mean, Madam Deputy Speaker, what the fuck do they expect me to do about it? Work in fucking warehouse before I came here. Do I look like a fucking doctor? Is very real problem for honourable and right honourable members. Need pay rise, Madam Deputy Speaker, need more staff, need less hours and more holiday, Madam Deputy Speaker. Otherwise attract wrong type of person in House. Put people off voting for me.

I thank the honourable member for his intervention but back, Madam Deputy Speaker, to this old bastard in my constituency….Yes I will give way to the right honourable lady…

I am grateful to the honourable wotsisname and might I just say Madam Deputy Speaker that my pizzas are on sale in the lobby of this house and outside the other place, too, at an introductory price of three for two and they are, if I may say so, like yourself, Madam Deputy Speaker, and myself, hot stuff…

The House rang to shouts of Siddown; Tory Slag; You must be fucking joking and Show us yer tits then, this last from Mr Knuckles of New Labour.

Order, order, the right honourable lady must be heard.

Thank you Madam deputy Speaker and as I was saying to my friend His Holiness Pope Nazi only the other day over lunch in the Vatican, these pizzas of mine really do, Your Holiness, represent outstanding value and maybe you would consider a bulk order for your Paedophile Escape Committee Working Lunches. I know you have a lot of hungry mouths to feed on these occasions and I could get you one fucking Hail Mary of a deal on a lorry load of the five-cheese variety. The Lunch is a-over, fuck off in a-peace, was the Holy Father’s strange response. Got enough-a on-a my gold-a salver with those-a fucking McCann nutters a-coming around here every five minutes with a fucking film crew, saying darling you were lovely but can we do that again, just-a one more take, darling, Capiche ? Shower of a-fucking heathen cunts. Go on, fuck off back to the nutter house before I-a fucking excommunicate you, you-a mad old bitch. Take your fucking pizzas a-with you. This is-a fucking Italy. We don’t-a want-a pizza made in-a fucking Milton Keynes. Anyway, thought-a you was a fucking M-a fucking P, eh ? Not-a fucking fast-a food-a salesgirl. What next-a happen? Is-a whole fucking house of commons go on-a fucking Tesco advert, every fucking little help-a. Fuck-a me, great Catholic, Napoleon, was-a right, is a nation of-a fucking shopkeeper, go-a straight in-a fucking Purgatory or my-a name-a is-a not Joseph Mengele, Butcher of-a fucking Poles, Scourge of-a fucking Jews and-a Protector-a General of-a sacred brotherhood of-a Nonce U Like. These geezers, blessed be the name of the Lord, is as much-a sin against as-a sinning, these kiddies is all tarts, always asking for it. Not fucking grateful. So what if holy man of God fuck up arse of few altar boys in otherwise life of service to one true religion. Issa perk of fucking job. Little bastard get used to have insertion of Holy Ghost. Don’t get fucking manse to live in like heretic fucking Presbyterian. Dominus Vobiscum and suffer the little children to-a come unto me. O sole mio, arrivederci Roma, issa Walls-a Cornetto, give-a it to me.

Anyway Madam Deputy Speaker it occurred to me in my lunch with il Papa that prayer might be the solution to this cuntus johnsonitis fatalis business. If only people in hospital were to pray to the Lord God who made them all, only not of course those beardy cunts and carpet munching vicars in the C-of-E, then our hospitals would be much better places. Prayer is the answer, Madam Deputy Speaker; prayer and pizza; a few Our Fathers and a warmish slice of Widdecombe’s Fair Pizza can ease an old person’s unnecessary passing no end. And I commend them both to the House.

Fuck off you mad old bat. Shove yer pizzas up yer arse. Show us yer tits. (hon. Mr Knuckles) Resign.

If I may, for the Government, Madam Deputy Speaker, reassure the House, said the dinner lady from Rowley Regis, the right honourable Madge Atkins, minister of death, that in conjunction with my right honourable friend, the hereditary minister for plagues, Mrs Rosemary Benn, we have carried out reee-surch into this whole matter and rather than bring in the bulldozers and waste public money on culling these patients and having huge funeral pyres darkening the fucking skies and feeding the frenzied, if diminutive literary skills of Mr Toilets Maguire - skies black with the smoke of infected old age pensioners being burned alive, and so on; cull of infected elderly spreads to Northampton, fire pits smoulder for days as government appeals to UN for airdrop of firelighters and lighter fluid, Nazi doctors roasted my sick father alive - we all know what the press would make of such a solution. So instead, members and right honourable members, we have decided to enlist the services of New York demolition expert, Mr Rudolf Fire-In-The-Hole Giuliani, who assures me that he can demolish all the hospitals with the patients still in them: we’ll put explosives in every floor and they’ll all come down sweet as a nut, right in their own footprints. Just be like mincing everybody up. It’s all quite humane, they don’t feel much and its better than the daily beatings and torture from the Sri Lankan nurses. I mean, I wouldn’t shit you, lady, its not nice or anything, but they were all probably going to die at some point, so fuck ‘em. We hoover up all the debris and ship it out to India to be turned into curry powder or whatever the fuck they do with it. And if the relatives complain you just say it was the ragheads did it and then invade Pakistan. It worked for us. That’ll be ten billion dollars, please.

I would further advise members that I spoke, through the door of the Michael White Exclusive Toilet Suite in Downing Street, to my right honourable friend, the prime minister, who, whilst terribly busy, found time to approve this visionary measure in order to deliver on the aspirations and values of the British people. Well, those British people not clogging-up the hospitals, anyway. Doctor Nutter McCann has offered to lend his expertise, too, as he became familiar with barbecue techniques during his recent sabbatical in Portugal. All he needs in return for doing his act is a donation to he and his wife, Myra’s, personal mortgage charity, from every grateful citizen. This, therefore is the government’s solution to the cuntus johnsonitis fatalis epidemic; never mind killing the sick old bastards slowly, by thirst and starvation and beatings and infection, lets just blow them, Madam Deputy Speaker, all to fuck. Rally round the flag, y’all
 

Hear-hear, hear-hear. Three cheers for Uncle Sam. Peerages all round. The House will rise. ( and go in search of joyful relief from Michael White and Strict David Aaronobitch.)

Stanislav advise only go in hospital with body armour and AK 47. (Most Reverend Bishop Jonathan Spank-Me Aitken can get cheap from friend down Turkish bathhouse)

Historical note: Alan Johnson served under Prime Minister Gordon Brown as Secretary of State for Health from 2007 to 2009 . At the age of 18 he was employed a s a postman.

Professor Quatermass - not really professor, well, maybe of advanced cheese studies or history of mobile telephone ring tones at University of Ashby de la Zouch, but not of politics; said:“Take country from this moment to next....?” Is shit, right, bollocks. Country and all things else take self from one moment etc. Happen anyway. Is no “moment.” Show Stanislav where is “moment.” Tell Stanislav when is next “moment.” Professor Q talk like any number of cunts on Today programme. At this moment in time. Devil, as ever, is in details. In very real sense. Is bottom line. At end of day. Prof Q is:“Desperate to see people works in offices...” God fucking help us all. Is height of ambition, eh? Everybody work in fucking office, be optimistic, be faintly artistic, listen to PotatoMan Mark Lawson blether and whine about Japanese cinema, like expert; watch Paul Morley on hundred best whatever programmes. Every fucking day. Is little known connection between punk rock and Medici Rennaisance. Oh yes. Make BBC cheque to Paul Morley RentAGob Ltd. Fuck me. 

Great Polish painter Rembrandt is art. But Balinese people have great saying, is “We Have No Art. We Do Everything As Well As We Can.”

Professor, run away from office and moments and Mark Lawson and metropolitan conservatism; make escape from Arts phonies like skriking, speech-impaired, hunchback, transexual Kirrrsty Wonk; forget optimism, just forget it. Come in Scotland and be miserable. Sit in cave, eat porridge with fingers, drink whisky, wear skirt, beat wife, read Scotsman, memorise melancholy doggerel of shit writer Burns and hate everything. Scotland is land of fathomless, irremediable, eternal grievance. Come in Scotland and dream of Vengeance.                                                                                                     Stanislav McLeodski   October 09, 2007

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Medical Bulletin 

Harris, the Blog Dog, has been hospitalised with acute pancreatitis, which is as painful as having your leg cut off without anaesthetic, according to the vet. Humans with this condition scream, but dogs hide their pain - an evolutionary characteristic developed to prevent the pack turning on them and ripping their throats out. Harris was on

Here's where my leg was shaved for my drip. I was very brave.

a fluid drip and intravenous morphine every 6 hours and lots of meds to calm everything down. Anyway, he's home now, on paracetomol syrup, probiotics, omeprazole, four meals of chicken and rice a day, and his bed next to the radiator. He glares at me a lot. Clearly blaming me.

Here's me, resting.

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Mr Ishmael and his young friend, Stanislav's essays were: 

Jive Talking at the AGM          undated -     circa 2012 

Fuck me, bird 'flu now              comment    November 13, 2007

House of Reptile                       comment -  November 23, 2007 

Professor Quatermass             comment   October 9th 2007 

 

Today, again,  mr ishmael's young friend, stanislav, a polish plumber, has been featured, to whet your appetite for Quick Rub Down with a House Brick or With love from Stanislav or Popped Down a Mine Shaft - the title is not decided yet. mr verge is currently working on the second volume, which will feature reprinted and previously unpublished stanislav. And, of course,  Honest, Not Invent is available in paperback or hardback.

 

We have stanislav from as long ago as 2007, and some of the finest ishmael essays from the present blog.  The book is available from lulu.com.   and it is now listed by both Blackwells and the Book Depository. Ishmaelites wishing to buy a copy should follow these steps:

Please register an account with them first.  This will save you a couple of quid, as going straight into the links provided below seems to make paypal think it's ok to charge in dollars, and apply their own conversion rate, which will put the price up slightly for a UK buyer.  Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Honest, Not Invent" into the Lulu Bookstore search box.  If you follow a link, a pop-up box asks for age confirmation - simply set the date to (say) 1 January 1960, and proceed.  If you type the title, the anthology will not appear as a search result until the "show explicit content" box (found at the bottom left by scrolling down) has been checked.  You may also see the age verification box, as above, at this point.

Link for Hard Back : 

https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ishmael-smith/honest-not-invent/hardcover/product-njr7vg.html

Link for Paper Back : 

https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ishmael-smith/honest-not-invent/paperback/product-wq2kpg.html

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.  (ORDER10 might also work, for a 10% discount, if the 15% has expired.)With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £14.35; HB £23.74.