The Sunday Ishmael: 16/02/2025

 Hardly bothering to hide her contempt, 

the Right Honourable Dame Priti Patel, wrapped up nice and warm in Munich, was deeply unpleasant this morning, when interviewed by Victoria Derbyshire, one of the Beeb's newstotties. It is her default position, of course. Contemptuous, disdainful, elitist, arrogant, howverydareyou, don't you know I'm a former Home Secretary. That's the key word, Priti - former. One of the many formers. And a Conservative former at that. Spaffed a lot of my money on the doomed Rwandaforfuck'ssake deportation plan. 

Victoria was prodding her on President Trump's assumption of the World's Peace Maker role in relation to the Ukraine situation. Doing Nastyface, DamePriti stuck to the establishment line and the forlorn hope that Britain had a place at the negotiating table. Fat chance, DamePriti. If they won't let Europe in, let alone Ukraine, poor wee bankrupt Britain has no chance. Despite their best efforts to deny it, it is beginning to sink in to the High Heidyins that the whole last 3 years has been a monumental waste of money, armament and human life. For what? Russia will keep its seized territories (well, they're really Russian, anyway, by the indicators of language, religion, history and cultural alignment), the Dwarf Zelensky will be off to the circus, Ukraine will not join NATO, no, no, they will not let it join, and Europe and Britain can go piss up a rope. (see? I'm getting the hang of Trumpian diplomatic language.) And Vice President Vance

has been telling Europe a few home truths: we won't pay for your defence anymore - if you want to defend yourselves, you'll need to find the money. So politicians, Labour and Conservative, have been perjuring themselves - yes, but, yes, but - we had/have a plan to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP. 

That's a lie, Tony Radakin would say - or being polite, he'd probably have an appropriate circumlocution at his tongue's end - I've been telling you for ever that the armed Forces are not fit for purpose and you've got to buy me some more boats and aircraft to go on the aircraft carrier. And some submarines ( that's bottom-bottom wata waka in creole) to help out mrs ishmael who's worried about the subsea cables up in Northern. 

Not just me, Tony, my MP, Big Al Carmichael, he's worried too -

speaking in the House in January he said: "me and mrs ishmael, we're worried. Russian spy vessel Yantar was round by us, and the Nikolay Chiker was round by Shetland in 2023.It's almost two years now since I first raised concerns about the activities of Russian vessels. This is a strategic threat for the United Kingdom as a whole, but it is particularly acute for our island communities that rely on cables for digital and energy connectivity, quite apart from the pipelines serving the oil and gas business. So when the fuck is the minister going to do something about it?" Responding for the Government, defence secretary Mr. Healey said: "Big Al is certainly right; this is not the first instance, and indeed the total loss of digital connection that Shetland suffered in 2022 demonstrated most vividly both the daily life dependence on this infrastructure and how vulnerable this can be to damage or sabotage. I give the Right Honourable Gentleman the assurance he is seeking in the consideration and implementation of the strategic defence review."

After the exchange, Big Al said: "Good-oh! A Review. Glad they're taking it seriously. When the Review reports, assuming that all hell has not broken loose in the meantime, we will rightly expect clear answers"

Big Al Carmichael - bottom-bottom waka .

Never mind 2.5%, howls President Trump,

not that you did - mind, that is; you'll need to scrape together 5% if you don't stop calling my bro, Vlad, names. It's a great thing, a beautiful thing, that you've got me to sort all this out.

That's right, echoes Vice President Robin, 

"You Europeans have got to wake up and smell the custard. Your enemy is not Vlad the Impaler, you are your own enemy, what with turning Muslim every day, revoking Freedom of Speech, all the man ladies using the lady ladies bathrooms, arresting and prosecuting a simple man, a veteran, no less, for prayering silently outside an abortionattoir for his son. Godless, heathen, murdering bastards."

"Thank you, J.D., that's a beautiful thing you just said there. And you folks need to learn that you are not sitting at the negotiating table with the big boys because you got it all wrong for three years. It would be dangerous to let you anywhere near that table. Especially that nasty little former secretary woman. Egging on the dwarf clown from the circus, giving him weapons and money and training his soldiery, when the sensible thing, the business thing, the deal thing to do was to say, look, Shortie, take off that stinky old T shirt, put on a suit and say, Vlad, sir, how can we talk money here, you have the eastern bit with the Russians and the rare minerals in it and I'll stay in power for the next three hundred years and maybe take a little cut, a little side hustle from all those minerals. As it is, Shortie has to go back to the circus,  six died during the 2014 Crimea operation, 14,400 military and civilians died in Donbas, 1,000,000 died during the special military operation in Ukraine and no-one made any money, apart from me, of course, because I'll tariff the fuck out of your asses. Or we can do the truly beautiful thing and move all these Ukies to a much better place. And you'd better give back all that money you people stole from Russian business men, sitting in bank accounts with you threatening to use it to employ your chums to build back Ukraine. If there's any of that going forward, I'll be the one to do it. And just someone please stop that dwarf former secretary from biting my ankles."

"That's right, Sawyer, you the husband? Just drag her off. But in a beautiful way."

Don't forget your copy of one of the four splendid anthologies of the writings of mr ishmael and stanislav, the young Polish Plumber. Or buy the set as a luxurious indulgence for yourself or as a gift for a broad-minded friend. The anthologies have been compiled and produced by editor mr verge, the house filthster, in answer to the appalled and bereft reaction of ishmaelites to the passing of mr ishmael in January 2020.  

You can buy the Quartet from Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

IIshmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps 

please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.

Link for Hardcover : https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr

Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux

https://www.lulu.com/shop/ishmael-smith/flush-test/paperback/product-9yjvn7.html?q=Flush+Test&page=1&pageSize=4

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.

With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.

Don't mock. It might just save the world.