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| The Great and the Good and Charles with his thumb in his mouth |
Well, that was embarrassing. Even for you, Dear Readers, in my role of reviewer and commentator on the indelicate and unsavoury, to which surely I am immured by now, no, even for you, Dear Ishmaelites, even after a half bot of Mad Fish Sauvignon Blanc, even so, enough was more than afuckingnough. There were some blood curdling snaps from the family album and some nonsense with Paddington Bear: “All of us were in awe of the Queen’s wit, warmth and radiant aura as she patiently engaged with a polite, clumsy but very well-intentioned bear."
Well, that'll save the monarchy - Ukraine may have a head of state who can play the piano with his penis, but our Monarch - God Bless you, ma'am, keeps marmalade sandwiches in her handbag and takes tea with an imaginary friend, and no, its not Alzheimer's, its an opportunity for our self-sacrificing very elderly monarch to radiantly exercise her legendary warmth, wit and radiant aura while avoiding the dreary, overblown bombastic pomposity of the Jubilee concert.
Unlike Charles&Camilla, who made it very clear that they would rather be anywhere else:
No, it was bad. Really bad. They made elderly Rod Stewart sing Sweet Caroline, for fuck's sake - he's 77 and he couldn't sing when he was young and now he's a stumbling parody of a geriatric pop singer who really should know better. Sweet Caroline was entirely out of his range, and all the more tragic for recalling Neil Diamond's version, when he was a pretty boy, about a hundred years ago:
And Neil can't do it anymore, on account of the Parkinson's and possibly being dead.
When Rod belted out, in his entirely tuneless voice that his hands were reaching out, "touching me, touching you", one had to suppress an urge to vomit.
I went to bed after that - I needed to lie down, so I can't report on any of the other acts. Over to mr ishmael, instead, reviewing the Buckingham Palace Concert on the 6th February 2012, commemorating Brenda's sixty year gig:
WOTSONTELLY. ROYAL JELLY. IT WAS SIXTY YEARS AGO, TODAY.
Huw Welshman here:
And we go over now to Buckingham Palace and our Royal Correspondent, Nicholas Knobcheese. Nick, what can you tell us?
Back to mr ishmael an Huw Welshman:
cut to tired old man in front of palace
Yes,
thank you, Huw, and that's right, here, as everywhere in her realm,
people are celebrating Her Majesty's sixty years on the throne. Except
not in Highgrove, obviously. It was, as Mr Ishmael says in the
headline, sixty years ago, today, that Her Majesty's father, His
Majesty, passed away, some say from the burden of office thrust on him
by his brother and that American slapper, while others say it was down
to too many Capstan Full Strength, smoked from a gold Cartier,
diamond-encrusted cigarette holder, as befits one born so highly above
us mere mortals. Whichever, Huw, it was a terrible tragedy, the Old
King dying, truly terrible but on the other hand it was a miracle, a
fairy tale miracle, which saw the beautiful young princess assume the
duties of Europe's oldest and best loved monarchy, a duty which she has
never, in these sixty years, shirked for one single moment. And for
which the entire nation is today falling to its knees and giving thanks.
Whilst other nations have had unemployment and wars and hunger and
corruption in high places here, in good old England, we have known only
peace, health and prosperity, the stability and contentment offered
only by the wise monarch truly serving the needs of her subjects......
Whaddabout all that shit with the young Spencer girl, them treating her like a brood mare?
and him,
Prince Jugears, virtually on his wedding night, riding the arse off that smoky old bagagge, Camilla,
GOD SAVE THE NEXT KING AND QUEEN OF ENGLAND
and her the wife of one of his so-called brother officers? A bit near
the despot mark that, woodenchasay, Nick, a bit mediaeval????
Well, honi soit qui mal y pense, Huw
You what?? This is the six o clock news, here, Nick, not fucking Mastermind, honi what ????.
It means, in a rough translation, Huw, death in a Paris tunnel to those who would fuck with the Firm.....
Well,
I must admit, Nick that both me and the viewers will be lost there.
But what about that other fucking idle bastard gabshite, Andrew, the one
who hangs out with Jetset nonces and hand-cutting, head-chopping,
wimmin-stoning Ayrabs....what about him, what's he good for?
Well His Royal Highness, the Duke of York, is the Queen's favourite son........
What,
you are fucking joking, aren't you, that bastard, the one who goes
around the world slagging off the govament and the press and the people,
generally, worse than his fucking Dad, that one.....
Yes, Huw, but no worse than his brother, the heir to the throne....
Well,
Nick, I do see what you mean, he is a right arsehole, isn't he,
Charlie, good for fuck all, can't even squeeze his own toothpaste, the
worthless fucking tosser. And is it true that when silly fuckers in the
public send him presents he's no sooner unwrapped 'em than he's
sending some flunkey down to CashConverters with 'em and trousering the
money and doesn't even pay no fucking tax on it, the cheeky cunt, is
that right???
Huw,
viewers will know that because of the very great service they render
the nation that highly placed royals - not that there are any low royals
and if there are then it's down to the aforementioned Solution Parisienne
- Her Majesty has seen fit to set her hard-working family outside the
normal legal requirements of we, her loyal arselicking subjects......
So, he does what he wants, then, this knobhead......
Yes,
Huw, very much so, apart from sitting, himself, with his doxy, on the
Great Throne of State, that must await events, perhaps the death of his
father, the gobby Greek fucker, will prompt an abdication*. But who
knows, Huw, who, in this world of cut-out cardboard princes and dukes,
all togged-up in Ruritanian uniforms, bristling with medals awarded by
Granny, who knows what may happen. I for one, as a seasoned observer of
these things simply hope that Her Majesty goes on for another sixty
years. And another, after that.
And
as long as good Queen Brenda is in the throne all will be as it should
be. The nation can enter this Joyous Year of SpivCuts, Privatisation,
Unemployment and Hunger completely distracted by her Majesty's Jubilee.
It is, after all, what she's for. And now back to you, Huw, in the
studio.
That
was Nicholas Knobcheese there for us, outside the Palace of Thieves,
where the Royals spend part of their yearly six months' holiday, safe
from the Press and from the benefits fraud enquiry officers, who,
strangely, never go near them.
* it didn't.(mrs ishmael)
So - not much change in ten years, apart from the quality of the acts, which has deteriorated, whilst the quality and quantity of the arse-licking sycophancy has ramped up a notch or two. And Dr May, C.B.E., links the events - he's pretty much a National Treasure now:
More embarrassment, as another inappropriately dressed elderly gentleman makes a show of himself on a public monument. Again. You'd think he'd have learned from the last time,when the Queen wasn't fulsome about his appearance on the roof of Buck House.
And
it's over now to the roof of Buckingham Palace, where Doctor Sir Brian
May, OBE and Astronomer Royal, stargazing's true WildChild, is about to
celebrate Her Majesty's reign as only he can, you know, that riff, that
whining tone, the only one he knows, for fuck's sake. He's made a fucking
fortune, playing the same thing for forty fucking years. At least
Freddie Mercury could shake his arse a bit. Jimi Hendrix's Star Spangled
Banner, now, look you, there was a national anthem for you, not like
this tripe, isn't it.
But mr ishmael seems to have had a reluctant respect for Dr May, maybe not for his guitar skills, but for his views on animal rights, expressed on the Daily Politics:
Today, or yesterday, it was Mr Brian May, guitarist with the Rock-Bombast ensemble, Queen, more accurately Dead Queen.
Dr May has a PhD in astro-something and is a regular on BBC's The Sky At Night, with the oldest, angriest fairy in the world, Sir Patrick Moore. As RockGods
go May's not so bad. He has far too much money, of course, his group
dusted in the golden fairy glitter brought by the death of its frontman, the distraughtly
promiscuous, exhibitionist Freddie Mercury and although his playing -
on his home-made guitar - is both trademarked bitter-sweet elegiacal
and manic, full-on stadium rock bluster at virtuoso standard, it doesn't
seem to have changed much, these last thirty five years. And nor does
he. Trainers and long curly hair. And bags under the eyes. I have no
time at all for Queen's canon and one of my Visions of Hell is of being
locked in a Seventies bar, with only two songs on the juke
box - Bohemian Rhapsody and All Right Now - and them alternately
playing, loudly, throughout Eternity. But May seems together and
thoughtful. No scandal attaches to his name, if he does or did drugs he
did or does them privately, none of Keef Richards' toxic, bad-example, millionaire junky chic and he seems to have remained with his wife, Wotsername, the actress, rather than grossing-out, nonce-ish, with impressionable teenagers. Unlike fellow showbiz giants, such as Fab Macca, May seems able to be Off, not forever playing, thumbs-up, the rock hero, and to engage in other things. Today's isshoo was fox-hunting. May is dead agin
it and pissed off at the Tories, for whom he has always voted, seeking
to reverse the ban. He was quite straightforward, using dogs to tear
apart other creatures isn't by any stretch of the imagination, sport,
degrades all concerned, is cruel, sadistic and repellent and should stay
banned. Culling badgers instead of inoculating cattle against TB was
nearly as bad. The recent fox attack on children was a ten billion to
one event, foxes don't do this unless frightened by something or
cornered, it was the careless disposal of food waste, together with the
vicissitudes of the Hunt which drove rural animals into urban settings,
leave 'em alone, he said, normal, sensible farmers would rather keep the
foxes down themselves than have the Hoorays galloping all over their
land.
May
runs a charity, establishing shelters for wild animals orphaned by
human cruelty, caring for them until they are fit to be released into
their natural environment, Save Me, it's called. On the odd occasion
that I hit a rabbit or a hare, very, very rarely, Watership Down's
chilly anthropomorphic horror floods my mind and that's what I think,
too - Orphans, frightened, hungry and defenceless. It is not, I know,
very manly, but there it is. We are what we are.
May would be better using his money and his energy to damn WarCorp, Guantanamo, Sri Lanka,
China, the live incineration of young widows in the Ancient
Civilisation, Aye, right, of India; the Israelis' Nazi torments in
Palestine. Fuck, you could talk for a month about violated humanity,
why worry about foxes? Well, maybe, like most people, maybe more so,
May is aware of his impotence in the face of global brutality and
therefore turns to something at which he might succeed, something in
which small acts of kindness, of mutuality, have a knowable benefit.
On
the Daily Politics, May was flanked by the odious, twisting and turning every
which way but truthfully Hillary Benn, a grotesque, camp caricature of
his Dad, the wretched old phony, and by some loathsome braying Toryboy, up his own arse at being a junior minister in the coalition of the unwholesome and playing to the huntin' an' fishin' - and probably hangin' an' floggin' - dark hinterlands of RightWing Filth-O-Graph cruelty.
Against
these two worthless ciphers, Benn pro-ban, the other tosser pro a
revisiting, as we call these things, Brian May, forever young, really
shone, sparkling not for his celebrity but for his spontaneous, honest,
angry compassion for the Others, with whom we share this place, without
whom, we are nothing.
The blogging farmers are up in arms, of course, because, subsidised, supported and infrastructured by the rest of us, they own the country and detest townies having an opinion on matters agricultural, the fisherfolk
are the same, would fish the oceans empty if they could, and then bleat
at everybody else; there are no trees or hedges where I live, apart
from my own, those clever farmers grubbed 'em up, so that, behind barbed
wire, they could grow a few extra turnips, fuck 'em. C'mon the foxes.
May was, on that dismal show, a breath of fresh air. Catch him if you can.
......................................................................................
THE JUBILEE CROSSWORD
How are you getting on with it? I understand you may have been busy, what with all the jubilating, and so I'll give you a few more days before posting the solutions.
Ishmael's Blues is not yet available for purchase, but Honest Not Invent
and Vent Stack, anthologies of the work of mr ishmael and stanislav, the young Polish plumber - can be purchased from
Amazon or from Lulu.
Lulu Link for Vent Stack:
Lulu Link for Honest, Not Invent
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 PROWRITINGAID15, WELCOME15 or TREAT15 in the coupon box,
which takes 15% off the price before postage. If this
code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for
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| Is it nearly over? |
