The Sunday Ishmael 7th March 2021

 

 In addition to the Scottish news, this week has seen the young prince whose official title is "The Spare" and his Hollywood Princess indulging in a little spite and vindictiveness from the safety of an ocean's distance. So sad when families fall out, isn't it? (chortle, snigger), especially when dear old Phil the Greek has been so poorly. I had been nurturing tender little green hopelets that the monarchy would disappear when the senior members shuffle off this mortal coil, that the National Trust could take on all the properties, and Charles could finally, at last, be discharged to enjoy a nice bit of gardening and fudge making. However, I have been reliably informed that the constitutional apparatus that has been in place ever since George III fell into Porphyria's clutches, for a Regency to be created, is all set to be triggered on the Queen's 95th birthday, and that her eldest son will ascend to the position of Prince Regent. He'll do the job and the Queen, God bless you, ma'am, will be allowed her retirement before she embarasses herself and every one else, whilst fulfilling her vow never to abdicate and to serve the British people until she dies. And when she does die, the great British people (which we hope will continue to include those of a Scottish persuasion), will be so used to seeing Charles Regenting about the place, opening this and trooping that, that the moment will have passed in which a constitutional restructure could have taken place, at a phenomenal saving in terms of pay and conditions. 

Here's a couple of mr ishmael's essays to remind us of the recent history of the monarchy:

 

GORMLESS INBRED PRICK, SORRY, PRINCE TO MARRY AIRHEAD TOTTY, OK YAH!  16/11/2010

S'MADEUPNEWSANDFILTH 24-HOUR COVERAGE. ALL CHANNELS. ALL 'PAPERS.

His Royal Highness, Prince Gormless of Wales, is set to wed society beauty and sensible girl, Kate something-or-other in a national extravaganza but scaled-down a little bit because of all the jobless, homeless, hopeless people who will nevertheless be cheering-on their future monarch and monarchess. From their cardboard boxes. And serve 'em right, too, how dare they be care workers?  Say what you like about our Wills being a pampered fuckwit who can barely speak but at least he's fought fer 'is country, said Kelvin McFawkes, tabloid spokesman, sort of;  worn a uniform, anyway.  Which is more than these public sector people can claim.

Prince Ginger Harry, another one of the fuckers

 

 

 

 Prince Harry Nazi was interviewed by Kelvin McCunt about the Big Day. Best man? You bet.  A ruck, I should think so, specially if there's any Pakis there, only mean it in fun, like;  served alongside some nignogs, jolly good blokes, for jungle bunnies, as m'Grandad would say;  he's really cool, Phil the Greek.  No, seriously I am thrilled for Wills, although if he dies, I'll get to be King, knowhaddamean? You can take this blood's thicker'n water thing too far.  And anyway,  in our case it's not.

You can all fuck off, what?

Just as long as he doesn't think he's getting my job, that's the main thing; otherwise they both might find themselves upside-down in a Paris underpass, Dieu et mon droit, that's the thing, droit de signeur, that's another one, might give the little minx one myself. I'm allowed.

This is a great day for our country, says David Cameron.

Well, if I was a proper prime minister they would have consulted me but since I'm not they just told me. But never mind, I'm jolly glad that there's a diversion to all  Georgie Spunkface's bloodletting, that's the main thing. And we must all say to the nation, That's enough backsliding, never mind your jobs and homes and services, the happiness of these two young millionaires,  that's what the nation should be focussed on.  We should all stop being selfish and concentrate on the important things, like  the monarchy, although I can actually trace my family back further than these Hohenzollern-Saxe-Gotha- Battenberg-Windsor fuckpigs. God Save the Coalition!  I mean Queen. And down with personal photographers, that's what I say. Now.

TAXI FOR MISS MIDDLETON, IF SHE FUCKS UP.

OTHER ROYAL BRIDES.

AND OH, THE STORIES I COULD TELL.

YES, BUT NOT NOW DEAR, NOT NOW.

 

SHOWBIZ NEWS.

GREAT PHILANTHROPIST TO MARRY. 14/11/14

Always first with celebrity gossip, always ready to do a serious journalistic pantomime on  MediaMinster's This Week Show or have a serious, inebriated political discussion on the madeupnewsandfilth midnight news  and filth review, 

Toilets Maguire is this week's guest showbiz editor, showbiz, it could  be his middle name, Toilets Showbiz Maguire, has a great ring. Anyway, 'sover to you now, Toilets, bonny lad....

Thanks, Andrew. And yes, this week I can reveal that the man who single-handedly  abolished poverty, hunger and music is to remarry. Nah, 'way bonny lad, it's no' Gordon Brown, 

he's already wed, in a manner a speakin', like,  beardish, his is a beardish marriage, it's common enough, y'ken,

beardism, among them as works in the political branch a showbiz, like, there's ower Gordon, obviously,

 

A LOVING COUPLE.

 

Christ man, Honeymoonin' at fuckin' Auschwitz,
 now, even Ah gorra admit, an Ah'm a great fan a Gordon's,
that that's some weird matrimonial shit.

  But there was that  Charlie Dipso Kennedy,  

 

A LOVING COUPLE 

the LibDem lad, or SDP or Liberal or whatever the fuck he called himself;   only gettin' hitched when he thought he might form a Coalition, get his ginger arse in a big fuck-off limo  and then, 'ey up, the minute he realises that he's never gonna be in Doonin' Street,


 he's off doon the divorce court, like shit off a shovel, man. 

Then there's that Alec Salmond,  up our way,

A LOVING COUPLE
Well, to  say  that  I keep my wife locked in the attic, it's just the sort of scaremongering we've come to expect from anyone who disagrees with me. 

there's some as says there's summat a bit fishy aboot his ain Mrs;  never see the tiny wee lass, do you, an' she's reet long in the tooth,   near enough eighty she is, an' there's nay wee Salmond bairns swimmin' aroond an' t'all intents and purposes, like, yon gabbling fishwife, 

wee Nicola Gnasher, is Alec's real Mrs, ye ken?   

An' then there's my old mate off This Week, Michael Portillo, we're allus hearin' aboot 'im being half-Spanish an' half-Scottish an' half-Septic, aye an' half steam locomotive but we never 'ear nothin about 'im being even half-married, 
 
even though 'e is, like;  a bit beardy, is 'ow we describe it, in the trade, la casa Portee-yoh, is it one a them, wossanames, them Morganatic marriages?  Sounds posh enough for Micky, like, Morganatic. 

 But no, it's none a them ones, as is gerrin hitched,  it isnae our Gordy or any on 'em;  it's none other than the greatest livin' gabshite of all fuckin' time, like, as is gerrin wed again, it's nothin' less than one of our ain greatest global 'eroes, it's Sir Bob Geldof.

He dunna reely gi' interviews, Sir Bob,

 him bein' so canny an' wise an' important like, to, well, everybody on the planet; an' rich, too, mussen forget, like, that he's stinking rich, like all great, humble  humanitarians tend t'be. Comes from a rich Dublin Jewish family, he does, Sir Bob. It's one a they things, like, aboot the rich, they never actually gi' awa' any a their own loot, fucksake no, they just manage to persuade poor folks to gi' awa' their dosh. 'Sreely reely clever, Ah think, bonny lad. It's reet smart, the way them royals do things, an' all, charity-wise, knoworramean; 'slike every time there's a new one joins the firm, some slapper

Who's a naughty Duke of York, then?

what's introduced one a they prince lads to things they never even dreamt of, like, or some brain-dead ruggerbugger, a bit 'andy wi' 'is fists or mebbe wi' 'is belt, 

 a birra rough, like, fer the princesses and duchesses,  anyway, once they marry-in,  they just get handed a reet good buncha charities to be called their ain.

 There mus' be 'undreds on 'em, man, kept in a  big cupboard in Buck House, marked, Charities, Royals for the Use Of, that no fucker's ever heard of until Andy the Duke of Nonce marries some bloated porker an' she gets given her own charities to sponge off of and then it's like they been household words, all along, just nobody ever mentioned 'em before, them kinda household words.

Well, actually, one is so terribly proud to be patron of The Homeless Hamsters  Charity and to support in one's own small way the very valuable work they do for displaced rodents. Now can we go and get a fucking drink, I mean, for fuck's sake, I am a fucking Duchess.

Y'know, man, that kinda thing, tripe wi' a fucking ribbon on it. Yon Princess Coke, the waitress lassie, the minute she married Prince Gormless, like, she got handed dozens a fuckin' worthy causes, to be patron of,  like, an all she 'as to do, bonny lad, is turn up at some free nosh an piss-up wi' 'er tits 'angin' oot once a year 

 and they call it reely, reely hard charity work which more'n justifies the rest of us flyin' her all over the world in the besta clothing, proper haute coo-tour, wi' no expense spared. 

Achelly, if you stop an' think aboot it fer a minute, if there weren't no rich folks, there wooden be no poor folks, neither, so mebbe, like the royals an' them lot doin' that charity thing, what they're reely doin' is just, like a function of themselves, anyway.  

You must be one of those poor children, 
how terribly sweet. And I'm a fairytale princess.
No, really, I am. 
As long as I do as I'm told.

But best not go there, norron prime time telly, anyroad. An' as a matter of fuckin' fact, like, I'm sure I'm no' the only fucker  as is  gerrin' fed up to the back chops wi' this  fuckin' bint. I mean,  a bloke cannae turn aroond wi-out seeing her fuckin' fizzog in some photo or other;  jusnoo it's the First fucking World War, everytime you look there's her and hubby and that  useless fucking ginger pisshead ponce, who cracks on like he's a full-time carer for the fuckin' disabled, instead of an idle fuckin' hooligan gabshite; I mean it's just all so fuckin' phoney, innit, does any fucker ootside a the Beeb's Nicholas Knobcheese really believe all that shite aboot them? 

And for many of us, high and low, the rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, as the lovely old hymn has it, our future King and his lovely young wife and his fine, fine upstanding and valiant brother have made real to us, just by their almost divine presence, what World War One was really all about.

I mean, I ask you, viewers, which of us could do what they are so effortlessly doing, looking at flowers in high heels and a short skirt?

No, it is often said that the slaughter of all those ordinary people, a hundred years ago, was unnecessary, in vain, even,  but let us remember and give thanks that if it wasn't Princes William and Harry in this picture it would have been some of their cousins.

And noo she's fucking pregnant again and we're all bein' told it's the best thing that ever  'appened , Nicholas near gi'in hisself a heart attack like, pissin' his fuckin' pants wi' reet servile loyalty, fuck me sideways, the Beeb'd need to pay me a fuckin' fortune to make a cunta mesen like he does.

Well, I know I'm only a loyal subject but perhaps this time I may be permitted to dip my hanky in the royal afterbirth; it would be the crowning jewel in my career of brown-nosing.

He reely is a knob, that bloke. Does he reely expect people to believe, like, that when them two was makin' the beast wi' two backs, they was concentrating solely on the  con-fuckin'-tinuance a the hoose a fuckin' Saxe-Coburg?  Away tae fuck wi' you, Nicholas, ya fuckin' lickspittlin' eejit.

 An' as fer yon bleedin' Tower a London why hasn't yon place been torn fuckin' doon, man? Does nae fucker unnerstand, like, what wen' on in that fuckin' place?

But y'ken worramean, that Kate totty,  her life's really just one huge, an Ah mean huge, benefits scam.  But fair play to the lass, like mesel', she's come up the hard way an' if ye've gorrit, keep it, like, an' get some more off the tax payer, if you can. No, 'ang on to yer brass, like, that's Sir Bob's motto. An' mines, too, if truth be telt.  Oh, I'm in't Labour Party an' all, but in the VIP encloseya, like, wi' all yon other wealthy workin' class men, people like Lord Melvyn Bragg and Lady Sir Elton John.

But Sir Bob, like I said, he doesnae do interviews because he's too important, like, but wharredoesdo, y'ken,  is issue proclamations, deep and profound ones, natcherally, him bein' deep and profound  himself. And, let's not forget, 'e were a  punk an' a great rock'n'roller,  the composer of I Dinna Like Mondays and.....and....well, that's aboot it.  But fair play to him, it was a great tune,  I doh-like Mondays, I wanna shoo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oot the whole day down.  Even if it did come back and kinda bite him in the jacksy, what with his kid, Wossermadname,  OD-ing on a Monday, like.

But hang on a wee fuckin' minute, here, mebbe's time fer me t'drop this pantomime Geordie acting, like, worrado fer Andy Neil.  An' return t'me proper callin'

  Wossat, wossitcalled, me proper callin'? 
It's called, bonny lad, bein' a journalist. No, lad, no, 'snorranother word for bein' a slag, least, norralways. 

So I'm gonna give it a go like, even if it does mean that bang! there  goes me reputation down at the Sky Midnight Press Review......

Wossat? How can I work for Murdoch and still be th'editor a the Mirror? Away, bonny lad, that's easy, I do it fer t'money like.

Anyroad, 'ere goes wi' me more scholarly approach. 

Some will have read the classics, the Illiad and the Odssey, perhaps, and will be familiar with the pivotal role in ancient societies of the ritual sacrifice, the expiation of assumed collective sin, the propitiation of the Gods by  the killing  of  another creature - it may be human or animal - and its  ritual butchering, followed sometimes by roasting and consumption.  In other cultures, among  the Celts, for instance,  human sacrifice is now thought to be central to their belief systems; well preserved, ritually murdered corpses turning-up regularly in Irish peat bogs, for instance; theories exist about the henges, the cosmologically-aligned Neolithic stone rings all over Europe, that these were, inter alia, sites of human sacrifice,  that the altar, long before Christianity, served an even more grisly purpose than the ritual of transubstantiation and  given that the originators of these celestial ceremonies possessed an astonishing degree of sophisticated astronomical knowledge it is tempting, indeed unavoidable,  to ascribe to them, also, a shrewd  understanding of the absolute control over their subjects which human sacrifice would confer on them; no business, you might even say,  was, is, nor ever shall be like showbusiness.  

Other theories posit a sacrifical component to ceremonies in  the equally astronomically and mathematically sophisticated temples of South America,  where temple architects could calculate - while we were living in mud huts -  that the Earth takes precisely three-hundred and sixty-five and a quarter days to orbit the Sun and celebrating their knowledge by hacking the beating heart from a teenager.  In India, to the present day,  there exists a custom of casting a surviving widow onto the funeral pyre of her deceased husband. Up There, it seems, Beyond, in the places for which we need a guide, a shaman, an interpreter, a priest, Up There in the Other place, dwell killers, not random but selective, thirsty for the blood of the chosen, the celebrated or the plain unlucky. In the wee, small hours, the dark, shuddery times, we can hear them mouthing, at us, My Name is Death.  And the most successful branch of showbusiness in history, don't forget,  is the one which, at its centre,  has a protracted blood sacrifice, followed by a miraculous resurrection. And if you believe that, you'll believe anything.  As you do. I mean, you  believe these two specimens, don't you?

You believe that Andy is a principled, independent, fearless journalist, don't you, because he says so? Even though he's a slag, a bully and a creepy old playboy.

 In our own  time,  shamanism has largely given way to, been absorbed by  showbusiness.  Some would argue that it is cynical to suggest that the entertainment industry enriches itself and continues to mesmerise audiences by the regular self-slaying of its stars;  but, shooting,  transport accident, suicide or drug overdose, it doesn't matter, in business terms.  James Dean, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochrane, Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Amy Wotsit and now even the World's FunnyMan, Robin Williams, all dead but still tradeable commodities.  These casualties have sold  and will continue to sell far more product dead than they might ever have alive, nothing like death to burnish an entertainment product.  

But what of poor, spoiled Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof,  the issue of our subject, Sir Bob; she has left no product to be repackaged, she wasn't even a singer or an actress or a writer although many celebrity-hungry employers insisted she was all of these, the poor, poor, stupid, stupid cow.  On the contrary, Peaches' was an existence devoid of, one might even say forbidden, talent of any sort; one need only  look at the improbable and unwholesome  success of her aridly  charmless and gushingly rancid parents  

to know that her own creativity would only ever be measured  in her self-slaughter. Here's what my paper, the Mirror, had to say about her, just five short Peaches years ago.

"Peaches Geldof is as obnoxious and vile as we thought she was"

"We’re not sure whether to feel sorry for Bob Geldof or blame him for rearing the twat of a daughter that is Peaches.

At one point during an interview with Fearne can-I-have-a-chat-show Cotton, the middle Geldof brat, who thinks nothing of making the camera crew feel uncomfortable with her in-your face rudeness, does make reference to her dad pulling her up on being: “like, Sloaney and hanging out on the King’s Road” with “like white highlighted hair over on one side”.

But we don’t think his idea of parenting (giving her a box of vinyl rock albums to listen to) quite did the trick when it came to changing her outlook on life and moulding her into a likeable, rounded, young woman.

Bob was obviously a little too preoccupied trying to save the third world from starvation to notice the vile, self-centred monster in his front room, who had also started talking like Kelly Osbourne… we presume that’s why she went to live in a London hotel.

Still, at least she’s had guidance from the likes of Nanny Kirsty… whose name she’s had tattooed on her arse. Oh, just watch it and try not to punch yourself in the head. If you feel like self-harming, watch Fearne and Peaches on ITV2 tonight at 10pm."

As you can see, this fine writing demonstrates why a distinguished journalist such as myself would be and is proud to be associated, in fact edits this fucking spiteful rubbish but I digress from my thesis.

Not exactly a glowing encomium, there, for Peaches'  myriad talents but we'll leave her just for a moment and look at other showbiz casualties, consider their postmortem deification, how their rebranding after death, well, how it almost taketh away the sins of the world, like a slaughtered calf or hapless teenager.

 Those of a certain age will ever recall their own  whereabouts upon hearing of the shooting of  the repulsive Mr John Lennon, in his adopted home of New York City.  Smackhead, drunk and wifebeater, Lennon, through shrewd PR work, had somehow convinced his idiot worshippers that he was a Scouse Ghandi, a pacifist to whom materialism was irrelevant; imagine, he whined, no possessions, as he and his second wife invested heavily in real estate, agriculture and publishing;  all you need is love, he chanted, spewing hatred over friends, fans and former bandmates alike.  Lennon, confected saint-guru-icon-genius,  brusquely paid-off first wife, bullied and betrayed Cynthia, his sweetheart and the mother of his son, Jude, of Hey Jude, with a hundred thousand pounds, even then, a hundred grand was a derisory pittance, a benchmark of tightfisted cuntishness, if he'd had any friends they would have kicked his arse up and down Abbey Road. A proper artist,  a true revolutionary would have foreseen a Karmic reassessment of such stinginess;  Lennon, though, merely continued his trite, kitsch, domestic reportage,  a down-market, three-chording Alan Bennett, composing dreary domestic songs about how he so loved his poisonous bitch of Nippon,  her screeching noises,  her pretend art, their ugly son and their simple, billionaire lifestyle. Inexplicably, people adored this ghastly arsehole of a man, his vile, bullying drunkenness, his addictions, his violence and his undeniable but long-since-spent pop artistry. And  Oh, what a falling off was there, when one of the besotted actually shot poor John to death.  

Baby boomers were accustomed to their rancid darlings killing themselves but this was seriously bad shit, why, the murderer had even read Catcher In The Rye, what passed for literature among week-end Beat-Bohemian-Hippies like themselves. Oh no, not John, they wept, as though he was a loss to anything. Bigger than Jesus, he had said of himself and for a time, but only for a time, that seemed to be true;  flower-strewn vigils, corners of municipal parks renamed Strawberry Fields, even Liverpool Airport, with Yoko's grudging permission, was dedicated to Lennon;  not quite Saint Peter's basilica or Canterbury Cathedral, Liverpool Airport. Despite there being a rush of dedications - postage stamps, buildings, even a minor planet - and regardless of singalong tracks - perhaps penned as karmic insurance  - by Queen and David Gilmour and Paul Simon  and David Bowie and Lady Sir Elton John, the Lennon flush, in reality, is busted and there is little trace of deification  in Lennon post mortem. Beatles music sells, still, fiercely copyrighted by Sir Paul, Yoko and the mutant on the drums but Lennon's mawkish, angry, solitary ouevre, although sanctified by the industry press, Rolling Stone and so on, will not survive the death of the last I-Was-There Beatles fan, and why would it: Oh Yoko, Crippled Inside, Woman, Jealous Guy, How Do You Sleep: garbage,  all of it. If he'd never met McCartney or McCartney him both of their fortunes would have been minimal.  Lennon, fuelled by the Nasty Nip in the air, always resisted the idea of genius through collision, abrasion, his, he foolishly claimed, had been ruined through collaboration;  he was an obnoxious arsehole, as stupid as he was vain; a mean, scrawny, whining junky, what sort of world could worship John Lennon?

 

Lennon's murder, though, was an event which almost, in terms of hysteria,  outgrossed the Beatles. There were three fan suicides, no, really, three fuckwits felt they could not live without him.  A quarter of a million Lennonites descended on Central Park, chanting and singing and praying and weeping, until Yoko complained that they were keeping her awake and would they all just fuck off; 

Yok-ho, too, is artist, an' pwophet an' genius, lhike Joh', only more. Look a' lightbulb, an' breathe, see, is art; screech-screech-screech, bang-bang-bang, see, is roch-ah-roh symphony. Yok-ho is work of art. Joh' was quite good but Yok-ho is real McHoy. Is like Joh' say, evewybody go' somethin' to hide, cep' for me a' my mohn-key. 

For a picture - another one - of a naked Lennon and Ono, commemorating his killing, Rolling Stone magazine won the coveted Best Magazine Cover In Forty Years, awarded by the other trade ghouls. It did seem huge but the mourners - in this country, at any rate - were of a generation which had never seen or been to war,  never been hungry; the killing of a once-favoured, morose and pampered  popsinger must have seemed like being on the Western Front, in the London Blitz;  no sense of proportion, we Baby Boomers.

But if we thought the murder of JunkyJohn was bad shit, we hadn't seen nothing. Far and away our most striking recent sacrifice was the seemingly inevitable sudden death, in mysterious circumstances, of  the Goddess Diana, formerly Her Royal Highness, nee Spencer.  The planet, the media-developed part of it, came to a standstill in which commerce and industry gave way to breast-beating and eulogy, the veneer of maturity and sophistication which normally pinned down entire, continental populations exploded in a month-long, mediaeval  convulsion, a ricocheting  of hysteria;  the sacred cow had been slain, surely the sky must fall, the Sun turn black;  surely we must be delivered, by her death,  to a heightened plane of sensitivity; surely we must round upon those who hounded her to death; could we not be comforted by Mr War, himself, 

She was the People's Soundbite

 
intoning Campbellwords, about the People's tart or was it the People's princess, it could so easily have been both, Muslim whore/Windsor Madonna.

Such a time it was, the sacrificial death of Diana, loved and envied by half the world, lusted after by the rest, continually renewing and refreshing herself, charitably permitting the HIV leper to touch her hem, the landmine-maimed to feel her embrace, the super-wealthy to feel her tits. And now the slut-bitch-princess was dead, across the globe, editorial conferences were urgently convened, newscasters wept, garage floristas became rich overnight, their maddened customers desperate for something to lay or to strew.  Not since the Moon landings,  not since the Death of Elvis had there been such a convulsion of product-shifting celebrity news.
We had seen nothing like it, the national conversation featured only Diana, who she was, what she meant and most importantly Whodunnit?  

We were never to know the answer to the last question, save for such illumination as was furnished by considering the lingering, further enquiry, qui bono and the instinct to Follow the Money. 

 Prince Brian, of course, was now spared any embarrassing marital revelations and swiftly established, at my expense,  a PR division to promote and legitimise his life-long adultery with a fellow army officer's wife - when in doubt, deploy barefaced McCannism and hire, at taxpayer expense, a brutally efficient and entirely unprincipled  gang of liars -  this has been entirely successful and one would wager that we, regardless of now ancient, categorical denials, will see Queen Camilla enthroned alongside King Brian the First, come the passing of Old Queen Brenda, an event which will not compete in terms of hysteria and mass delusion, with the loss of the beforehertimely,  oneandonly  Princess of Tarts.

As for the money trail, Diana - or probably, come to think of it, her advisers -  willed the seventeen million quid which she had screwed from Brenda or more accurately from us,  every penny of it,  to the  Princes,  Gormless and  Hooligan.  Not a brass farthing, as I indicated above is the way with the idle rich,  not a brass farthing was gifted to charity, fuck Elton John and his AIDS pantomime, fuck Leprosy, fuck the landmines.  Rich people don't give to charity, unless it is  in the form of themselves. Every Diana divorcepenny went back into the Firm. Neat, that.

Oh, it's true that experts, expert experts and really expert experts have denied that there was any conspiracy to kill her naughty highness but then similar folks, scientists, jurists and police officers all insisted that the Birmingham Six were guilty, didn't they? 

It scarcely matters.  Diana's mysterious death shifted more media product than any before or since. And that's what we should remember, for, after all, isn't it showbusiness that makes the world go around? And isn't this odd, no-one in Hollywood has yet made what would be the blockbuster of all time, The Death of Diana, starring Helen Mirren and Judi Dench and Hugh Grant and Benedict Cumberpatch and Keira Knightley and Daniel Day Lewis and some suitable darky to play  Dodi Fayed, all those riff-raff; Christ, it would make a fortune, why hasn't it happened?
So fabulous was la morte de Diane that for newsfolk, showbiz and the world of celebrity almost everything since has been anti-climactic.  They keep trying; it is  an event which is now reprised at every opportunity, albeit with lesser celebrities;  I doubt that playboys and princes or even surgeons lusted after Amy Winehead but  with her Dad, Mitch,

 standing-in, albeit as commoners, for Di and her truculent, layabout brother, Charlie Spencer; the world still went into overdrive, poor Amy, so young, so stupid, poor Mitch, so old, so stupid. It is soap opera of a sort but Gosh, that bloke, Mitch, with his books and his albums and his charities, advising all who are daft enough to listen, on how to be a good parent. McCannism made flesh, Mitch Winehead.  God bless his vain, empty head, Mitch is  just a disposable media creation, a sacrifice, himself, in a way, chained to his neglected daughter's death.  Oh, he must think, Oh, if I had only put the little minx over my knee. 

But even after the most shocking of celebrity deaths - and Peaches's was certainly not one of those - the business continues; having seen-off both a wife and a daughter, not to mention a cuckolding Aussie, Sir Bob must get back to it.
As I said, he's too important to give interviews, instead, he has issued this:

 

PROCLAMATION FROM BEELZEBOB HOUSE.

Oh, hear youse, Oh, hear youse.  This is a deep and quintessentially profound proclamation issued from my desk at this very deep and profound time and Oi want youse all to pay close and profound focking attention.  Oi've heard it rumoured, cruelly and utterly and absolutely and completely and totally and profoundly  without foundation that Oi'm a bad sort of celebrity to be around, what with the old woman - as was - and the brat both dying in deeply and profoundly and quintessentially unhappy circumstances.  Junkies, in other words.

Well, that's just focking bollocks is what that is. Paula, although Oi loved her deeply and overwhelmingly and profoundly and wholeheartedly, ever since she jumped as a teenager into the back of me limo and started sucking me knob, ever since that quintessentially divine,  utterly, utterly bonkers moment Oi loved her deeply and profoundly and amazingly fervently  since the moment we met.

A Modest Little Wedding Group

but that was no fucking excuse for her to run off with that Aussie knobhead who hanged himself from a door whilst having a deeply meaningful J. Arthur as we global icons are wont to do, well, not me but yaknowwhaddamean.

  Just because dear, sweet, troubled, enigmatic, eccentric, creative and deeply profoundly melancholy  and anxious wossername, Paula, the mad slapper, OD'd on some bad shit doesn't mean that Oi was a shite husband.  

On the contrary or au contraire, - if, as a great artist, just one,  Oi moight say, in a profoundly long line of deeply inspirational Oirish artists  from Oscar Wilde to Boyzone and Sir Terry Wogan,  Oi might exhibit my literary focking flair and finesse -  on the contrary in a deeply and passionately and visceral manner, Oi was an ideal husband;  filthy rich,  narcissistic, rude, angry, irresponsible and entirely, completely and utterly and wholeheartedly and quintessentially talent-less;  what more could the silly bitch have wanted than to be married to a Knight of the Realm (les chevaliers de peat et potatoes, aka the Paddy gong) ? When she left me I was destroyed. I loved her very much. And I didn't understand why Oi never saw it coming. So Oi just floated; the pain was beyond immensity, incalculably limitless. And immeasurable, too. The grief was universes of grief. You know, with an artiste, humanitarian and activist  such as meself t'ings must, to do them justice,  be calibrated in universes.  Dat's de only way to measure me, by universes.

Or maybe by the kind of cunts I hang around with.

But Oi digress quintessentially from de locus of moy argument wid youse, not dat youse are fit to argue wid me. Moy daughter, Peaches - and isn't dat just a quintessentially illustrative wotsaname of moy love for her, dat I called her such an utterly bonkers and preposterous name as Peaches, isn't it?  I mean wot other pater familias would exhibit the quintessential courage necessary to saddle his defenceless infant wid a bewilderingly stupid fucking name loike Peaches?  Oi ask you, am Oi brave, or what? 

But moy loife is beyond mere mortal bravery.  Oi didn't understand a single thing, not in an intellectual sort of way, or indeed in terms of metawotsaname,  physicism, metaphycisism. It has been so utterly and quintessentially mad and ultimately epic in its magnificence; Shakespearean, I know that sounds grandiose but I don't think you can describe it any other way, unless it's biblically, epically, tumultuously gargantuan in its totally incredible bonkerishness.

But let's not always talk about me, Sir Bob Geldof, artiste, activiste, humanitarian, father and husband, well, maybe not quintessentially the last two. As an artist, Oi see meself as somewhere on the  existential continuum between Homer and Bob Dylan, and Oi describe meself, if Oi were to do such a thing, as an iconoclastic troubadour, tilting both heroically and tragically at the windmills of yer mind.

Paula? Well, it wasn't my fault, was it?  Oi was only her husband.  How could her OD-ing be anything to do with me? Alright, Oi made a bully album of songs slagging her off, her and that fag Australian geezer she was fucking but she topped herself before I could play it for her, so how can it be anything to do with me?  Lissen, Oi've thought about this in a quintessentially profound way, albeit from an iconoclastic purview, this tragedy which has so affected me, Oi mean, me missus left me for someone else, what could be more tragic than that? Oi mean, who's the real victim here, Oi'm the one left alive with all this money. And as for dear bonkers Peaches, if she wanted to take drugs and act like a cunt, well, no-one can say that she took her example from me, her devoted and pro-foundly, pro-foundly protective father.  Oi mean her  calling her own profoundly and inestimably, incalculably  precious children whatever she called them, what was it now Astala Dylan Willow Geldof-Cohen and Phaedra Bloom Forever Geldof-Cohen? Who the fock could cavil with that, apart from the Cohen part?

And her laying  to rest, well, it was simply Olympian in its grandeur, encyclopaedic in its celebrity presence, Oi mean, Bill Wyman, 

I can't get no satisfaction, not even with a sixteen-year-old

himself a rock icon loike meself and a  man with a profoundly, gigantically epicurean approach to young women, he was there, paying his respects, in a Godfather sort of way, not only to utterly, utterly bonkers, Peaches, but to me, because quintessentially Oi am the Godfather, the Godfather of healing and hope.  And food.  But also of making good the debts owed by pathetic savages to those saintly agents of profound, utter, utter, goodness, the International Monetary Fund.

 Old time fans hoping to hear Boomtown Rats hits like "Rat Trap" and "I Don't Like Mondays" (both No. 1 hits in the U.K.) or solo favorites like "The Great Song of Indifference" won't be disappointed. "There's 27 years of songs, so you can do all the other songs," Geldof says. "And they all have to mean something, or else I can't do them. I'm not a pantomime artist."
 No, Sir Bob, course not.

 mr ishmael's essays today are:

 

GORMLESS INBRED PRICK,                              drafted 16/11/10 

GREAT PHILANTHROPIST TO MARRY.             drafted 14/11/14                                           

There's a whole lot more from mr ishmael in the anthology: Honest Not Invent, which  is available from Lulu, Amazon, Blackwells and the Book Depository.

 

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