tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post5852986174039156817..comments2024-03-18T21:17:01.996+00:00Comments on call me ishmael: NO RETREAT, BABY, NO SURRENDERcall me ishmaelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-27855188169454550152013-05-04T12:24:45.959+01:002013-05-04T12:24:45.959+01:00Thanks Mr I.
I agree with you, time is a great he...Thanks Mr I.<br /><br />I agree with you, time is a great healer, but memories do linger on.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-29243241421138415642013-05-04T01:16:16.376+01:002013-05-04T01:16:16.376+01:00Well, mr anonymous, that hole means he hasn't ...Well, mr anonymous, that hole means he hasn't really gone, doesn't it? He's just not there, in person. That, anyway, is my understanding of loss.<br /><br />Regulars here will know that the blogdog, Buster, passed away a couple of years back, for fifteen years he, along with some humans, was a huge part of my life and for a while after his death we just couldn't talk about him; now we do, and we laugh, warmly.call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-56083756773926148152013-05-03T15:47:42.801+01:002013-05-03T15:47:42.801+01:00My best pal of some 65 years died recently. We met...My best pal of some 65 years died recently. We met when we were about 6 and stayed firm friends throughout life. In our 20s I was his best man when he married his beautiful childhood sweetheart, also an old friend of mine from way back. In their 30s they agreed to be my son's godparents, a duty they took seriously, so much so that my son considers their house his natural second home. At his funeral, a large number of his friends - all impeccably turned out with the ladies all wearing hats - turned up at the crematorium to bid him farewell. The reading was Psalm 23, followed by a poignant aria beautifully sung by Maria Callas and then a suitable rousing hymn. As his casket began its final journey through the curtains, it was to the strains of his all time favourite tune "Stardust" immaculately played by the Glenn Miller Orchestra. He would have been proud and delighted at his send off. He left a huge hole in my life.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-11544510877484723982013-05-03T02:18:04.586+01:002013-05-03T02:18:04.586+01:00This comment has been removed by the author.call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-77283206997612890772013-05-03T02:17:58.818+01:002013-05-03T02:17:58.818+01:00Just as long, mr mongoose, as they don't lace...Just as long, mr mongoose, as they don't lace the holy water with Agent Orange. Or any of that other cool shit; dropping altarboys out of helicopters. For democracy.call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-64048107889218626902013-05-02T19:45:54.705+01:002013-05-02T19:45:54.705+01:00Me old mum's parish priest is Vietnamese too! ...Me old mum's parish priest is Vietnamese too! What is going on? Are they the New Irish?mongoosenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-25563837724370830242013-05-02T15:53:17.255+01:002013-05-02T15:53:17.255+01:00I had heard him, mrs woar. on some of those late-...I had heard him, mrs woar. on some of those late-night OU progtammes; he seemed to be pissed and sometimes incoherent, although his sense of self-worth did not slow him for a second.<br /><br />He was praise-singing his old Mum, bless her heart, who had brought him up to believe in Christian, socialist principles. I thought he had mentioned Methodism.<br /><br />I traced the story of the Old Wife Blues; sounds just what one would expect from Spitty He and Kinnock being the Ace in Thatcher's pack. Even by comparison with Milliband and Balls, Spitty is, in an unparallelled way, impossibly grotesque.call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-37872881738055343492013-05-02T14:41:42.026+01:002013-05-02T14:41:42.026+01:00W O A R ..."but the few I've met seemed ...W O A R ..."but the few I've met seemed to be in earnest"<br /><br />Would that be Bevan??Stannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-5791210527081439982013-05-02T10:29:23.343+01:002013-05-02T10:29:23.343+01:00WOAR, compare (Google image if you wish) Stephen K...WOAR, compare (Google image if you wish) Stephen King's "Mr Barlow" to Anne Rice's "Lestat" to show how the original archetype as depicted by King has been transformed into someone that men want to be and women want to - ahem - meet. This is but one example of the Stockholm syndrome which is being engineered by the media, normalising and glamourising shitheads and psychopaths. The gradual result is that the gut instinct which should protect us from psychopaths is being diminished. They are creating a muddy poisonous sea in which they can swim and predate with somewhat more safety than they could do in the past. Good example is the policy that young school children receive explicit sex education - they even want to show them pornography now, as the current system is deemed to be too "mechanical." (On BBC news website yesterday) <br />If a private citizen took porn onto a school bus to show children he would be swiftly and quite rightly arrested, but the Government can take it to the very classroom. You could argue that this is a form of paedophilia which is hiding in plain sight. If this is so, it proves my point. <br />-richard <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-87775997464895315742013-05-02T07:34:40.485+01:002013-05-02T07:34:40.485+01:00Say what else you like about vampires but they kno...Say what else you like about vampires but they know how to dress for a funeral. It's sportswear they have the problem with, hence they invented smart/casual and dress-down Friday. They slip in to something less comfortable when they get home. <br /><br />On the subject of Hatterjee, are you sure? I don't know much about Methodists but the few I've met seemed to be in earnest and he isn't and never was. It transpired last month that he forcibly divorced his ancient wife using the I-divorce-thee process whereby an old lady is abandoned in favour of the new love.<br /><br />The new love isn't all that new; apparently it has been going on since the 1980s but he kept it quiet. The implication is that the papers knew but since she is a leading literary agent specializing in political memoir i.e. just the person the political hacks want on their side when trying to get a book deal, they decided not to annoy her. <br /><br />How's that for a vampire; they aren't even reflected in the newsmedia.Woman on a Rafthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08897415591130901416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-694871106775362012013-05-02T01:50:22.447+01:002013-05-02T01:50:22.447+01:00My childhood molestation - I put it no stronger th...My childhood molestation - I put it no stronger than that, although that's bad enough - mr dtp, was at the hands of Methodist clergymen so you'll get no argument from me.<br /><br />Their evangelical highwater mark was in the fifties and sixties with some dreadful old git, Donald Soper, Doctor Donald Soper, gobbing off on the telly and of course they had connections with Old Labour. I may be wrong but isn't Lord Hatterjee of Spit one of that gang.<br /><br />And yes, the buildings are fucking awful.call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-1059036176898354662013-05-02T01:39:25.848+01:002013-05-02T01:39:25.848+01:00"Hence a Bic razor and a tie don't regist..."Hence a Bic razor and a tie don't register as an option when you can't see yourself in a mirror."<br /><br />I love that. That's the thing, isn't it, these people don't see themselves, how can they? They wouldn't leave the house if they could see how frightful they looked. There is a sermon, there, or a thesis, or a philosophy.<br /><br />I had a gay uncle, Jackie,lived in Wellesley Avenue; although in those days he was just a bachelor. maybe in truth, that's all he was, unmarried, and I misattribute his preferences posthumously. But it was in the Wellington Park Hotel, down, I think, on the Malone Road that in 1965, my Father told me in all seriousness that everybody in show business was a NancyBoy. If he had had my education he might have used the adjectival terms terms degenrate and sexually predatory. I think, nevertheless, that he was probably right.call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-518053651888090852013-05-02T01:31:14.154+01:002013-05-02T01:31:14.154+01:00Methodists were always the scariest bastards. Ther...Methodists were always the scariest bastards. There's loads round here. Lost count of the denominations. Architecture's shite as well. Have to look close up to check it's not Baptist. Fucking 100's of them. Used to be showbuziness for fire 'n' brimstone preachers - wandered 10 miles and did 4 gigs on Sunday mornings, lovely jubbly! Put the fear of damnation in their souls!<br /><br /> In Todmorden, suicide is always in the cupboard - bastard's preaching to vulnerable folk here, it ain't right!DtPnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-20400645825619034642013-05-02T01:22:32.725+01:002013-05-02T01:22:32.725+01:00It was the disservice to the rite which annoyed me...It was the disservice to the rite which annoyed me, at the christening, mr jgm2, and not to the faith. Most of the time I don't believe in any of them but some of the time I see how - particularly in Anglo-Catholocism - the ritual and the theatre of it all do perform a socially beneficial function, a series of punctuation marks, worth putting on a tie for or covering your head. worth some special gesticulation. In Warley, too, the celebrant is now Oriental, an episcopal stone's throw from Northfield and the Bristol Road.<br /><br />The psalms of King David and others, shouted out or read quietly are, incidentally, since you mention them, in my judgement, the birth of the blues - Yea, (even) though I walk through the shadow of the valley of Death, I will fear no sonofafuckingbitch...by the waters of Babylon, there I sat down, yea, and I wept, when I remembered Zion. I often ask myself, Who will know, let alone sing the psalms (and hymns,) when we are dead and gone?<br /><br />Shame mr ptb is absent, he was good on this stuff.<br /><br />Anyway, to mr richard....call me ishmaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14369028864168461729noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-32904074768822217682013-05-02T01:00:48.560+01:002013-05-02T01:00:48.560+01:00The legends of vampires were warning us about shal...The legends of vampires were warning us about shallow, inhuman parasites. Hence a Bic razor and a tie don't register as an option when you can't see yourself in a mirror. Of course vampires are now cool, sexy anti-heroes instead of blood-soaked stinking corpses animated by the devil. This flipping of the coin helps one realise how many psychopaths must exist within the entertainment industry, and might have something to do with this terrible lack in some people. The chicks cheep as the rooster crows.<br />NB I lived just off the Lisburn road too, Wellesly Avenue. Orangemen reminded me of the people in Titus Groan, who were allowed to walk the battlements every other full moon as a prize for wood-carving. Mad.<br />-richard<br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-52635759568915239082013-05-02T00:20:18.813+01:002013-05-02T00:20:18.813+01:00I am 47 this month but God, in his mercy, has spar...I am 47 this month but God, in his mercy, has spared me from too many funerals. To date, I have been to three. My dad's. My mum's. And my brother's mother-in-law. And only her because it was mid-week and I was worried, on behalf of my brother, that there might be a low turn-out.<br /><br />In that, mercifully, I have been in control of the hymns for two out of three and my brother for the third. There was none of this 'My Way' CD shit. <br /><br />No harm at all in choking back the tears and belting out 'The Lord's My Shepherd', 'Abide With Me' or 'Lord of All Hopefulness' one more time.<br /><br />That said, the times they are a-changing. For the same reason you had some black priest instead of an Irish priest (which is what I had growing up in Birmingham PLUS his two deputies and six masses of a weekend) my brother, who still lives in Birmingstan, like the Copts in Egypt, surrounded on all sides by Islamist interlopers, the parish I grew up in now has one mass a week with a Vietnamese priest.<br /><br />We have moved on from this superstitious shite. It is fervently to be hoped that Mohammed's little helpers make the same mental leap that I have seen in Birmingham Catholicism in my lifetime.<br /><br />The sooner the better.<br /><br />Of course the down-side of that is the old cliche. If you don't believe in something, you'll believe in anything. Which, in the present day, would be 'perpetual growth funded by perpetual borrowing'. What could possibly go wrong.<br /><br />Amen.jgm2noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-44792176114814145952013-05-01T23:22:24.501+01:002013-05-01T23:22:24.501+01:00I'm sure that the Warholism about fifteen minu...I'm sure that the Warholism about fifteen minutes of fame would more accurately be framed as fifteen minutes of infamy - for this gang in Prestatyn, though, as with so many others, mr verge, the two forms of fleeting celebrity are indistinguishable. I watched them with a little more attention but with the same disbelief as yourself.Callmeishmaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6065998731267025499.post-87432439479699495222013-05-01T22:58:38.313+01:002013-05-01T22:58:38.313+01:00God (or Kali, with this shit) help me but when I s...God (or Kali, with this shit) help me but when I saw the Prestatyn crew on a news summary I was only half-watching I first thought it was a lottery syndicate, tripping out shiny-eyed to gloat over good fortune.<br /><br />Autoparanoia made me check this really happened and it did: copy/paste this link and watch for yourselves - <br /> <br />http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22358481<br /><br />"The angels" are charcoal but cameras are coming, so it's an ill wind, innit?<br /><br />Vergehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16651753975933628764noreply@blogger.com