The Sunday Ishmael 2/10/2022

 A Useful Idiot

On an earlier thread, we learned from a regular correspondent that Pretty-but-Dim Kwasi has a prestigious academic record, from which it might be thought that he would have realised that the optics, as we say nowadays, would not play well with the poor, hungry and cold, of attending a private champagne reception in Chelsea on the 23rd September with hedge fund managers following his mini-budget. The Sunday Times tells us that P-B-D Kwasi was "egged on" to pursue his plan of £45 billion of unfunded tax cuts. The hedge fund managers present stood to gain from the collapse of the pound. Why isn't anyone in custody for treason?

Like a Valkyrie riding the Economic Winds, the belligerent Mrs.Truss is not for turning as she swoops down upon the Tory Party Conference in Birmingham, a city described by Young Tory Daniel Grainger this week as a dump, and in April as "firmly the worst city in the UK." However, whilst holding staunchly to her principles, the Unelected Prime Minister did kind of hint that P-B-D Kwasi could make a useful scapegoat should a slight course adjustment be needed. She told Laura Kuenssberg this morning that she certainly did not manage Kwasi's diary - therefore had nowt to do with his champagne swigging with those clever fellows who manage and manipulate the nation's money to their own advantage and bugger the rest of you. And that she was certainly not a party to his decision to remove the 45% tax band for those earning over £150,000 (but not in Scotland, where the tax band of 46% will remain in place.) And neither were her Cabinet. But it is a good idea and will help Britain's growth. Probably. And if not, then it's under the bus with you, Kwasi - you're just another failed Economics Experiment.

Do any of them have the slightest idea what they are doing, as they shoulder each other aside, shouting, My Turn, My Turn? Here's mr ishmael:

 WHAT THE PAPERS SAY, THE RICH SHOULD BE OK, AS LONG AS THE POOR HELP THEM OUT, THE DAILY FILTH-O-GRAPH

Mr. Mervyn King, Governor, Bank of England (prop. People's Republic of China)

"One two is three, two twos are seven, three twos are, no, don't tell me...is it twenty-seven ?"

Families face years of pain, says Bank.

"Families must steel themselves for years of hardship even though the recession is all but over, the governor of the Bank of England has warned."  By Edmund Conway, Economics Editor Published: 10:12PM GMT 19 Jan 2010

IT IS BETTER, ONLY WORSE, EVEN THOUGH IT'S BETTER.

Families will see their standard of living fall over the next two years as salary freezes and rising inflation eat into incomes, Mervyn King said.

“The patience of UK households is likely to be sorely tried over the next couple of years,” Mr King said, dashing hopes that Britain could recover quickly from the deepest slump in post-war history. "But not as much as mine has been sorely tried by this cunt-lunatic of a prime minister and his chum, Badgerman."

His comments are likely to infuriate Downing Street, which had hoped to campaign in the election on having set Britain back on the road to prosperity. Downing Street has been in a state of constant infuriation for, oh, ages. The remarks also included a warning of interest rate rises. Hours before the governor’s speech, official statistics showed that the annual rate of inflation had surged by an unprecedented 1 per cent last month, pushing the Consumer Price Index up to 2.9 per cent."If inflation went up by one per cent every month that wouldn't just mean fifteen per cent by the end of the year, fuck me, no, but by lots more because it's compound, you see, no, I can't explain it, it takes arithmetic and I don't do that."

"The, uh, the uh, the uh, rise, the rise in inflation proves that I know exactly what I am, I am, I am uh,uh doing and it is the right thing for the uh, country." said the prime minister, Mr Gordon Snot, the horrible fucking bastard. "We have, uh, successfully, uh burnt, burnt, burnt, burnt all the money, given away all the gold, fucked up the roads and the trains, turned the hospitals into death camps, the schools into killing grounds, the streets into no-go areas peopled with half-naked, drink-crazed totties in high heels and sent the armed forces to certain death in a war which cannot be won, even though they get a right good send-off down in Wootton Bassett, all that remains for the complete success of my project to destroy the country is for inflation to reach double and preferably triple figures. It is the right thing for the country and I will now start getting up at two-thirty in the morning, thinking of even better ways to bring total Ruin to this nation which no-one elected me to be in charge of, much less bugger and bankrupt. I might not have much time left"

Inflation is now rising almost twice as quickly as average earnings and the figures do not reflect the recent end to the VAT tax cut. With consumers facing even higher prices as a result of rising VAT in January, CPI is likely to go well above 3 per cent in the coming months, Mr King suggested.

"As, uh, uh, as, uh prices rise this is exactly the right time for us to cut wages" said Mr Snot " For it is only by fucking the people at both ends as it were, what the footballers call spit-roasting, that we can be certain of wrecking their lives completely. By, uh, by, uh allowing prices to rise and uh,uh,uh cutting wages and of course encouraging employers to send jobs overseas we or rather I can hasten the day, the day, the day of ArmaGordon."

Meanwhile, workers have seen salaries contract at an unprecedented rate. Although unemployment has not risen as high as in previous slumps, this has been at the cost of a significant reduction in household pay, with many staff accepting pay cuts, or voluntarily working part-time, to hang on to their jobs.

Mr King said that, although the recession was soon likely to be over in technical terms “there is little scope for growth in real take-home pay, which may remain weak even as output recovers”.

“It is clear that inflation is likely to pick up markedly in the first half of this year, a message reinforced by this morning’s news that CPI inflation reached 2.9 per cent in December . . . the rise in VAT back to 17.5 per cent means that CPI inflation is likely to rise to over 3 per cent for a while, or even higher for even longer were energy prices or indirect taxes to increase further.”

Although he said that inflation should eventually come back down, it might also just keep on going up, like in Zimbabwe. The increase prompted speculation that the Bank will start to raise interest rates in months.

 SEPTEMBER 2022. U.K.

1st  -  Boris Johnson confirms that the government will provide £700 million in funding for the Sizewell C nuclear power station
2nd - A Cabinet minister and a senior Downing Street aide in the Johnson Government face allegations of sexual misconduct following claims made by two women at Westminster.  Buckingham Palace confirms the Queen will miss the 2022 Braemar Games, which she was scheduled to attend the following day. Prince Charles will attend instead. Extinction Rebellion stage a protest in the House of Commons, with three people gluing themselves together next to the Speaker's chair and demanding a "citizens' assembly" to discuss the climate crisis
5th  - Liz Truss is elected as the leader of the Conservative Party, winning 57.4% of the final vote to Rishi Sunak's 42.6%.
6th - Liz Truss becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and forms the Truss ministry. For the first time in British political history, no white men hold positions in the Great Offices of State.
8th - The Queen dies “of old age”. Charles becomes King of the United Kingdom and head of the Commonwealth. The RMT and ASLEF rail unions suspend strikes planned for 15 and 17 September. A Royal Mail strike planned for the following day is also suspended.
9th - A man is arrested at Birmingham Airport in connection with the 1996 Manchester IRA bombing.
10th – King Charles III loses his temper.  Senior MPs, including Prime Minister Liz Truss, and First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, swear an Oath of Allegiance to Charles III in a special session of Parliament. Cases of COVID-19 are at their lowest since October 2021, with fewer than a million people (about one in 70) with the virus in the last week of August
13th - A 22-year-old man is charged with a breach of the peace after the Duke of York was heckled as he walked behind the Queen's coffin in Edinburgh the previous day. Margaret Ferrier, the MP who travelled by train from London to Scotland after receiving a positive COVID test in September 2020, is given 270 hours of community service after previously pleading guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court to culpably and recklessly exposing the public to the virus.
14th Inflation falls slightly, from 10.1% the previous month to 9.9%. Food price inflation continues to be rapid, reaching a 14-year high of 13.1%, but is outweighed in the annual index by a drop in the cost of motor fuels.
16th - A man is arrested under the Public Order Act after running up the steps to the catafalque and touching the Queen's coffin. The pound falls more than 1% against the U.S. dollar and reaches a new 37-year low of $1.13.
18th - Large-scale disorder breaks out in Leicester, amid tensions involving mainly young men from sections of the Muslim and Hindu communities.
19th – State funeral of Elizabeth II. Bank Holiday.
21st – The government announces it will freeze wholesale gas and electricity prices for businesses for six months from 1 October.
22nd - The government reverses the ban on fracking in England. UK interest rates rise from 1.75 to 2.25%, the biggest increase in 27 years, as the Bank of England attempts to curb inflation. The Government announces the scrapping of the1.25% rise in National Insurance contributions and the Health and Social Care Levy.

23rd - Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng delivers an emergency mini-budget, announcing the biggest tax cuts in the UK since 1972. The 45% top rate of income tax, paid by only the highest earners in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, will be scrapped, while the basic rate in England, Wales and Northern Ireland will be reduced from 20% to 19%. The cap on bankers' bonuses and a planned rise in corporation tax are scrapped. An increase in National Insurance is reversed, while the threshold before stamp duty is paid in England and Northern Ireland is raised to £425,000 for first time buyers and £250,000 for everyone else. Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, describes the mini-budget as "reckless". Pound sterling falls sharply in response to the government's planned tax cuts, losing 3% against the dollar and dropping below $1.09.
Data for the week up to 14 September indicates the first rise in COVID-19 infections since mid-July
26th -  Pound sterling falls again, briefly hitting an all-time low against the dollar of $1.03, before recovering slightly to $1.27
28th - The International Monetary Fund criticises UK fiscal policy, urging the government to re-evaluate the mini-budget. In a bid to prevent the collapse of the country's pension funds, whose investments are in government bonds that have become volatile since the announcement of the mini-budget, the Bank of England announces that it will purchase £65 billion of government bonds in order to restore their stability. More than 1,000 mortgage products are withdrawn from the market, the highest figure ever recorded by Moneyfacts Group, with many borrowers unable to secure loans or having provisional offers declined.
30th – Human remains are discovered on Saddleworth Moor, which Greater Manchester Police believe could be the body of Moors murderers victim Keith Bennett, killed by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley in 1964.

So, a busy month in the United Kingdom. In International News, we're doomed. A purported FSB whistleblower called "Wind of Change" has been advising the West that Putin never has had any intention of deploying nuclear weapons against Ukraine, and, upon this intelligence, NATO has felt pretty secure in pumping conventional weaponry into Ukraine and training Ukrainian soldiery. We'll see how that turns out. Let's hope that Kwasi and his money-chums have left us enough champagne to toast the nuclear sunset.

  

Now Available

Should you need something  to cheer you up, look no further than  Ishmael’s Blues - which is now published, in both paperback and hardback editions; both editions are immediately available from lulu.com.  The paperback is also listed on amazon. Honest Not Invent and Vent Stack, the first two books in the sequence are also available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.
Ishmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps :
 Unless you’ve done this already, 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.
The book’s full title is "Ishmael’s Blues – further Chronicles of Ruin", and the cover you'll see is red with white titles and a picture of blogdog Buster retiring from the fray, cat gloating from a safe distance. The cover is the same for both editions.
Link for Hardcover :  https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr

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

 

What d'you think? Back by Christmas?

Tropical goodness

 

D'you remember the story of a visiting dignitary's wife attending a military review of the Rhodesian Army?

"Could you tell me, my good man," she inquired of her escort,  "What is the racial composition of your Army?"

"Ma'am," he responded: " White officers, black privates."

"How exotic", murmured the distinguished guest.

I think I came across that one in a Rag Mag from before we were all racially aware. Now, of course, it seems that all that racial awareness training simply laid an appreciation of what was likely to get you in trouble over the seething mass of tribal loyalties and affiliations that we call racism. Like skin on a custard. Like a scab on a suppurating wound - give it a little poke and the pus and custard comes boiling out. 

These Labour Totties - what are they like? Last May we had Ange and her Ginger Growler. And now we have the Labour MP for Ealing Central and Acton, Rupa Huq, Newnham College, Cambridge, presumably a properblackperson, black through and through,

not superficially black at all. Her remarks have given the media the opportunity to do a Lenny Bruce all over the shop. She said what? She said blah blah blah. She didn't say blah blah blah? Yes, she said blah blah blah. And then she said blah blah blah. What? Blah blah blah?  “He went to Eton I think he went to a very expensive prep school... if you hear him on the Today programme you wouldn’t know he is black.”
And there's the rub. Black people are supposed to sound like black people, massa.

 

The Sunday Ishmael; 25/09/2022

What fun to be part of an Economics Experiment! Out of the text books and into Life as We Know it.  Unelected Prime Minster Truss and Handsome-but-Dim Kwasi, have decided to gamble the nation's future on a fairly debatable concept - give rich people more money and they will spend it on making us all rich. As if. 

Madam Truss, in her hustings pronouncements, dressed up her nonsense by telling us that letting people keep more of the money they earn would be the best way to lift ordinary Britons out of the fucking mire that Boris inflicted by closing down business, retail, catering  and leisure, destroying jobs, shovelling huge slabs of cash at Covid profiteers, then topping off his success as a Covid leader by taking us into war in support of the Dwarf Zelensky, provoking Russia into fighting back by starving Europe of fuel. (Who'd have thought Russia would do a dastardly thing like that? It's not part of the Rules Of War - which state, as every fule knos, we can do what we want and the enemy must just suck it up and then turn up to the War Crimes Tribunal to take their punishment.)

Trussian Economics, however, seems to have ignored the fact that in order to keep more of the money they earn, Britons need to be earning enough money in the first place to be paying much tax.  Under the measures announced by Pretty-but-Dim Kwasi, to derive any benefit, you'd need to be earning £155,000 per year. I suspect that the game plan is not that which Kwasi stammeringly unfolded under close questioning this morning by Laura the Nose on the Kuenssberg Show. 

She had to shout a bit. 

Nope, what is really going on is that Truss knows they have only two years left in government, so those two years should be employed in stuffing money at those best placed to reward them handsomely during the wilderness years. The economic theory is Self-Interested Short Termism, or doing what Tories do.

Go, Kwasi!

 

Seems that the Russians, or at least those with a bob or two, are fucking off out of it, rather than be called up to fight Mother Russia's war. Miserable lot. Mind, I’d be miserable if I’d been born in Russia. It always was a horrid place. Just nasty. Nastier than Western European countries, which were pretty damn nasty. The western bits of Russia considered themselves genetically and culturally superior to the eastern bits. Until the Russian Revolution, the Tsars fancied themselves to be European, indulged their every lavish and expensive whim, lived in luxury and didn’t even speak Russian. They derived their wealth from draining every rouble from their vast farms in the countryside, so they could live in St Petersburg or Moscow. The people of Russia were serfs. Minimal education, often literally starving, no health care, inadequate clothing and housing. No freedom - couldn't leave the farm, let alone the Cherry Orchard. Just a big mess of a country. The final straw was the requirement to fight the European First World War for their rulers, who were, of course, related to  Queen Victoria the Fertile. Since the Revolution and the execution of their Royal Family, they have been trying to build a country that is a decent place to live, much hampered by the rest of Europe, who didn't think they should be allowed to make a go of it, having offed their God-appointed Tsar and aristocracy. It really is a very new country – only a hundred years old – nothing in the time span of nations. And it is huge, disparate, multi-lingual, multi-cultural, multi-religious, despite the best efforts of the Communist regime to abolish religion, which is, as we know, the opium of the masses, whilst the patriarchal structures of religion are bloated predatory spiders sucking up the energy and spare cash of the people they allegedly serve.

So the westernised intellectual classes are off, rather than stay and build a nation. It’ll be down to the peasant army to unseat the current controlling group in Moscow, just as in the Russian Revolution. And, in the meantime, European countries must host melancholy, dispossessed, self-exiled Russians, just as they hosted the White Russians after the Russian Revolution.

The  First Russian Revolution started on 22nd January 1905, and was a wave of mass political and social unrest throughout vast areas of the Russian Empire, directed against Tsar Nicholas II, the nobility and ruling class, and included worker strikes, peasant unrest and military mutinies. Seven years later, the Russian Revolution completed the work begun in 1905. Over the ensuing bloody six years, Russia abolished its monarchy and adopted a socialist form of government.

Whilst these great events were happening in Russia, over in Britain the King, Edward VII,  was very angry about the loss of his jewelry. He had intended to wear the jewels of the Most Illustrious Order of St. Patrick  to an  event at the 1907 Irish International Exhibition but had to cancel the ceremony when the theft was discovered.  A member of the royal household staff later recalled that he had "never seen King Edward so angry. His rage was something terrible and fearful... I am sure the officials he lectured never forgot his words."

You see where King Charles the Unpleasant gets it from?

Edward VII and Queen Alexandra

The Irish Crown Jewels, originally created from 394 precious stones taken from the English Crown Jewels, and with an estimated modern value of £4.3 million, had been stored in a safe in the library of the Bedford Tower in Dublin Castle, under the custodianship of Sir Arthur Vicars, Ulster King of Arms.

A notorious party animal, Vicars enjoyed showing off the jewels and regularly misplaced the keys to the safe. Once, his chum, Lord Haddo, took the keys from the drunken Vicars, stole the jewels and later returned them by post - as a bit of a jape. On the 6th July 1907, when a repaired gold collar was returned to the safe, officials realised that the jewels were again missing. The thief had used a key to enter the safe.

The subsequent investigation by Scotland Yard sparked theories that the jewels were stolen by political activists who smuggled them to the USA, that Vicars' mistress had stolen them and taken them to Paris, that Unionist criminals had stolen them, or that they had been stolen in a plot to embarrass the Liberal Government and that they were secretly returned to the Royal Family. Whatever, they were never seen again by officialdom and were likely broken up and the jewels sold piecemeal. Maybe there's one of them in your engagement ring.

Vicars maintained his innocence, refused to resign, and claimed that the thief was Frank Shackleton, brother of Ernest, the Antarctic explorer. Frank also had a key to the Tower, was perennially in debt, and was a homosexual - thus being a target for blackmail as homosexual acts were not legalised in Britain until 1967. It is plausible that Frank and his lover, Captain Richard Gorges, got Vicars drunk - not difficult, given his predilections in that line, and helped themselves to the safe keys and its contents. Frank was clearly a wrong 'un - he was imprisoned in 1914 for handling a stolen cheque, but was never prosecuted for the jewel theft.

 

In 1908 King Edward Lack-Jewel VII dismissed Vicars, who moved to County Kerry and married. In May, 1920, up to a hundred armed men broke into their home, Kilmorna House, holding Vicars at gunpoint while they attempted to break into the house's strongroom.  The following year, he was taken from Kilmorna House, which was set alight, and shot dead in front of his wife. According to the communiqué issued from Dublin Castle, thirty armed men took him from his bed and shot him, leaving a placard around his neck denouncing him as an informer. 

On 27 April 1921, as an official reprisal, four shops were destroyed by British Forces in the town of Listowel. The proclamation given under Martial Law and ordering their demolition stated:

"For any outrage carried out in future against the lives or property of loyalist officials, reprisals will be taken against selected persons known to have rebel sympathies, although their implication has not been proved".

 

The last will and testament of Sir Arthur Vicars accused "the real culprit" Shackleton and criticised the Irish government and King Edward for making him a scapegoat.

The following little piece by stanislav was addressed to blog commentator, mr. forty red, white and blue shoestrings, presumably a man of Irish origin, who appears to have committed a grammatical solecism. 

 

Knock, Knock, Knockin' on Heaven's Door

 

forty red white and blue shoestrings said…

 

“Hopefully the platform change blah blah blah”

 

Hopefully is an adverb, so it is. But then what do pretend Paddies know about speaking English, bog-trotting, spud-gulping, Guinness-swigging, melancholy, red-faced, mummy-loving crybaby arsebandits all married-up because the Pope tells them to breed more wee red-faced superstitious saint-worshiping lunatics all called fucking Seamus or Bridget, the girls all dancing around like electrified cripples smirking that wee I’m-a-focking-virgin-so-I-am-and-only-Jesus-can-fock-me-so-he-can-and-you-can-keep-your-big-stinking-willy-to-yourself-so-you-can smirk and banging their big fucking shoes on the floor like sledgehammers, and the big hulking men who can always come over to England and live on the dole or go and dig holes in the road in the pouring rain and eat potato sandwiches for lunch and whistle Val fucking Doonican babytunes to themselves, “Delaney had a donkey, de dum de dum de dum…” and cry homesick tears down their red faces for the Ould Country which they never should have left if it was all that good, that’s when they’re not blowing themselves up or smearing one another with shit for the struggle in an English prison and singing their stupid heads off about Kevin Barry and the bold Fenian ladymen and how everybody should lay down his life for this Godforsaken shithole full of hairy-arse dildo-wielding nuns and noncing fucking priests and bogs and bits of holy fucking rock where not only did the blessed virgin Mary appear but she came down off the fucking mountain and did break-dancing so she did as God is my witness and can you put a few euro in the tin, for the orphans, so it is, and haven’t we built a whole tourist and leisure complex here on the blessed site where the pilgrims can come and get their leukemia healed and their withered fucked-up limbs made whole again and if they don’t well sure it’s because they didn’t believe hard enough in the blessed Virgin and her son Jesus Christ and his miracles and all the saints and the Holy Nazi Father over there in Rome so they didn’t and sure all they need to be doing is saving up their money and coming back next year into this blessed green shithole that God has made His very own, so it is and a few more euro in the tin for the blessed sisters of Clare or wherever the fuck they do all that praying, so it is and no, it isn’t a shame to rob these superstitious fucking eejits of their hard-earned money so it isn’t, doesn’t God move in mysterious ways, so He does especially now as we celebrate the birth of His only son, Gordon and the joy he has brought to the whole world, even the protestantbastards but not beJaysus to anybody that isn’t signed up to His Party and His project for mankind, so it is, and isn’t it better, anyway, that the gullible cripplebastards give their money to Holy Mother Church and His Holiness Pope Nazi of the Forests than spend it on drink and child pornography when there’s a whole global army of us to be getting on with that part of God’s plan for mankind? Amen. Forty shades of green, y’know?

 

Note: "On the evening of the 21st August 1879, a heavenly apparition occurred at the gable wall of the Parish Church, when Our Lady appeared, in the company of St. Joseph and St. John the Evangelist. Unique to the Knock Apparition was the presence of the Eucharistic Lamb in front of a Cross, standing upon an Altar and surrounded by Angels." extract from "The Story of Knock".

The village of Knock, in County Mayo, Ireland, possesses an international airport, which facilitates the pilgrimages of  believers.

....................................................................................

 Now Available

If you would like more from the originator of Call Me Ishmael,  look no further than  Ishmael’s Blues - which is now published, in both paperback and hardback editions; both editions are immediately available from lulu.com.  The paperback is also listed on amazon. Honest Not Invent and Vent Stack, the first two books in the sequence are also available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

Ishmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps :

 Unless you’ve done this already, 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. 

The book’s full title is "Ishmael’s Blues – further Chronicles of Ruin", and the cover you'll see is red with white titles and a picture of blogdog Buster retiring from the fray, cat gloating from a safe distance. The cover is the same for both editions.

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

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

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.

......................................................................

Look, we're through, over, I've met someone new. We've all met someone new.

 

The Sunday Ishmael 18/09/2022

 So, President Zelensky has declined to attend the Queen's funeral, instead sending the wife. He is staying home, overseeing key pieces of anti-Russian propaganda, most recently the exhumation of Ukrainian corpses from their marked graves. A more dignified response, and one more likely to have helped to foster a peace process, would have been to have landscaped the area as a memorial to the war dead, instead of pulling decomposing bodies out of the earth and saying - Look! Atrocities! 

The funeral has also been snubbed by the Chinese, as President Xi Jinping is also staying home, sending his deputy instead. 

It would have been an excellent opportunity for diplomacy, had someone in our lot had the foresight and wisdom to invite President Putin. Imagine the possibilities that would flow from Britain brokering a diplomatic solution to the present bloody stale-mate in Eastern Europe. Our U.S. masters would not have allowed it, however, and it would have upset the British public, whipped into anti-Russian loathing by those clever fellows in London, swollen with the success of their Project Covid Fear.

That chap, Tony Radakin, Chief of the Defence Staff,

is he simple? Interviewed on the Snooty Kuenssberg Show this morning, he earnestly explained that "This was an illegal invasion of Ukraine at the outset. It’s illegal to attack civilians". This concept that war has laws that aggressors will obey and that infringement will result in indictment before a War Crimes Tribunal, seems lifted from the world of The Boys Own Paper and Bulldog Drummond. Tony, history is written by the victors. Modern warfare changed those sweet old war laws that allowed the Sir Bufton-Tuftons and Generals Go-Lightly Jockstrap to know that they were morally superior, that God was on their side and that it was just fine to send millions of working class husbands, dads, fathers and sons to die agonising deaths or survive with ghastly injuries because they would never face a War Crimes Tribunal, because they obeyed the war laws.

Anyway, Simple Tony Radakin went on to carefully explain:"Putin is failing in all of his military strategic objectives. He wanted to subjugate Ukraine - that’s not going to happen. He wanted to take control of the capital - we saw that that was defeated earlier on.We saw that he wanted to weaken Nato - Nato is now much stronger, and we have Finland and Sweden joining. He wanted to break the international resolve. Well, actually, that strengthened over this period and he’s under pressure.” Despite this litany of Putin's failures, Simple Tony had to concede that: "it’s going to grind on for a long time... I think we’ve got to be very cautious.”  

Great idea. Let's stop egging on Zelensky. Invite Putin to the funeral. Let's be the grown-ups in the room. 

 

On the previous thread, I drew attention to the condition of the British mourners filing past the coffin allegedly containing the mortal remains of Queen Elizabeth the Second. Halt, lame, wheeled, grey-faced, obese, etc. Turns out they were in the special, vulnerable, fast-track queue. Not representative of the state of the nation's health, at all, just representative of the British ability to spot an opportunity - " eh, our Charisma-Chardonnay, there's an elbow crutch in the cupboard left over from your Nan before she passed over - get it out, I'm going to pay my respecs."

   I tell you something that thoroughly annoys me about these mourners, interviewed for t'telly. They are all saying how she gave her life to serve the nation for 70 years. Oh, no, she didn’t. No giving about it. Sold it – for herself, her heirs and hangers-on – and very expensive it has been, too. This latest frolic must be costing me a pretty penny. And what’s this about service? Quite an easy job, really, compared with my jobs, that is. A bit of how are you, have you come far, what do you do, and cut the ribbon.  Terrific pay and conditions, very, very nice food and clothes, lovely houses, fabulous holidays, never lonely, lots of dogs. She’s never had a chair thrown at her head, been in and out of prisons, Nitromors’d Victorian furniture in the snow, held down a tent in the pouring rain and howling gales, got lost in Bloody Birmingham, etcetera, etcetera. Mind you, I'm prepared to concede that my career path has not been that of Most People. I still have nightmares about getting lost in Birmingham, trying to find Winson Green, but the exam nightmares wore off a few years ago.

Talking of clothes, which I often do, being an amateur textile artist, didn't you love the Ruritanean outfit they dressed Princess Anne up in? 

Those white trousers were a huge mistake. As were the Wellington boots. And the hat. And the Cockade. Thought I was watching an episode of Sharpe, so I did. Couldn't they have found her a nice skirt and black fascinator? It's not as if we don't know she's a girl.

Oh yes, you'll say, it's easy to mock. Yes, that's right, it is. But while we laugh (or I do) the barbarian gazes from the shadows, and on his face there is no smile. 

 

 The PR adage: it's a good day to bury bad news seems to have dictated the timing of the release of the decision by the Prudential Regulation Authority and the Financial Conduct Authority, without explanation for the decision, nor apology for the delay, that no action will be taken against directors and senior managers of HBOS, which collapsed in 2008, wiping out shareholders, costing thousands of jobs and forcing a £20.5bn taxpayer bailout. The HBOS Ten, headed by former chairman, Lord Stevenson and Chief Executive, Andy Hornby, remain absolutely "fit and proper" to hold senior roles in the financial service industry. So, out of 63 Directors and 27 Executives across the four bailed-out banks, only 6  executive directors have been banned or fined. Nothing to see, here. Move along.

We've had many monarchs remembered for their defining characteristics: Alfred the Great, Ethelred the Unready, Richard the Lionheart, Edward Longshanks. Now we have Charles the Unpleasant:

King Charles the Unpleasant and the Intrusive Pen Tray

King Charles the Unpleasant and the Leaky Pen

No, it's not because he's upset about his "darling mama", it's just the way he is. Remember his description of Nicholas Witchell to Wills and Harry back in 2005, during a photo opportunity in Klosters: "I can't bear that man. I mean, he's so awful, he really is".

What a thing to say to your sons about a poor old man. 

And, as head of the Royal Hypocrisy and Sycophancy Unit, BBC's Royal Correspondent, Nicholas is wheeled out to say suitably solemn and reverential things about the royal shower at every event of state, knowing all the time exactly what Charles thinks about him and remembering the three of them snickering about him. 

 

Apparently, the late Queen's greatest achievement, according to petite, retired Archbishop John Sentamu,*

Still got a weakness for a purple shirt, even though he's retired and everyone's wearing black.

 

was to seamlessly transition the British Empire into the British Commonwealth, with nations queuing up to get in. Peaceful, co-existing, linked in a great family, commonality of purpose, just like India and Pakistan. 

police pelted with bottles as they try to keep Hindu and Moslem men apart

 

Large-scale disorder broke out in Leicester on Saturday, with  fighting on the streets between men from sections of the Muslim and Hindu communities. Seems it started with a cricket match, on the 28th August and shows no signs of ending. Men eager to participate are travelling to Leicester for a good ruck.
A Hindu man said: "The police are allowing Muslims to march in our area chanting anti-Kuffar slogans."
Definition: Kuffar is a highly derogatory Arabic term used to refer to non-Muslims, though it is usually directed less against "People of the Book" (Christians and Jews) and more against others (Hindus, Buddhists, Shintoists, etc).
A community spokesman said "We need calm - the disorder has to stop and it has to stop now. There are some very dissatisfied young men who have been causing havoc". 

"Against kuffars make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war to strike terror into the (hearts of) the Enemy of Allah and your enemy, and others beside, whom you may not know, but whom Allah does know. Whatever you shall spend in the Cause of Allah, shall be repaid to you, and you shall not be treated unjustly." (Qur'an: 8:60)

If you haven't heard much about this running battle in Leicester, it's because there's a funeral on. For a Queen who presided over the Commonwealth.

Whilst mentioning the difficulties of policing civil wars in the streets of our cities between men who identify with the conflicts of the South Asian subcontinent rather than with their own British homes, in this most perfect of Commonwealths; in London they have a new Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, who, we are told, is "tougher than he looks".

Which is alarming, because he looks as if he wants to bite your face off.

Editor mr verge has found a little exchange between a former police officer and stanislav from November 6, 2008:

Retired Old Bill said “…The current De Menenzes enquiry is exposing this, with revelations of incompetence, corruption and deceit so outrageous that in the past there would have been wholesale sackings and resignations in the police, Home Office and government. How is it that we have become so accepting and unresponsive to such travesties of justice?”

stanislav said…  When was that, then? Birmingham Six? Guildford Four? Barry George? Lockerbie? Met Vice Squad? West Mids Regional Crime Squad? Bent coppers have always been permitted to retire “on health grounds” and keep their pensions, thieving fucking bastards, a deal between them and the politicos, also thieving fucking bastards.

Do fuck off with your old bollocks, Old Bill has always done government’s bidding and shoved some poor bastard in the frame, guilty or innocent. Cunts, all of you.

That the new media makes it a little more difficult for Old Bill to cover his tracks does not make your case that this shit never went on before. You should fuck off to the Costa del Crime with your bank robbing chums and leave justice to people who understand it. Nobody ever got to be a senior police officer without walking past a cell where some poor bastard was getting a kicking, without verballing someone up, doctoring evidence and telling barefaced lies in court. Off down the Lodge with you now, nothing for you here, pompous hypocritical cunt. Evening all.

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*And this piece on Sentamu by mr ishmael is worth re-posting:

 

EASTER MATINS AT YORKMINSTER 27/04/2011

I was in York Minster on Easter Sunday and his grace, Archbishop John, was glad-handing the pilgrims on their way out. Acting in my capacity as a member of the counter-press, I asked him if he was sticking to his pledge of not changing his underpants until Bob Mugabe had been lynched, boiled-up and eaten. Bless you, my son, he grinned.  I couldn't smell his underpants, even though it was a hot day and he was well wrapped up in archbishop clothes, so who knows, him and his Saviour, I guess. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he was wearing underpants made of cloth of gold, handsewn by some scrubbed and shrivelled Anglican nuns, especially for him, fringed with diamonds, and had been bullshitting the Faithful all along, about him and Uncle Bob and his self-denial of bodily hygiene.  I mean, being an archbishop, he wouldn't expect to be walking around York, all greasy and shitty in the down below department. He certainly didn't look as though he hadn't changed his underpants for five years.  I missed his sermon but saw, instead, right afterwards, the Choral Matins, locked behind iron gates in the  Quire;  there were only about a hundred of us, virtually outnumbered by choristers and deans and precentors and crippled, old sidesmen demanding money.  I gave them a tenner, what his late revoltingness, the phoney reverend, Ian Syphillis Paisley, used to call a silent donation, and was glad to get out of there alive.  But the music was fantastic, I had never heard any of it, psalms and anthems in settings by Victorian devouts, as it was happening in the beginning, is happening now and will carry on happening, alleluia, amen. And there were only a couple of readings by the dean and some other dude, short and to the point - Do as God fucking tells you. That'll do until Christmas, save to reflect that a life ordered by the Church calendar obviously has its leisurely attractions, its comforts, especially when the regular rituals are performed in such a setting, glass and wood and stone, its shapers' hands long coffin dust, its restoration and repair as constant as Time.

Note: 2017
The archbishop of York, John Sentamu, has put his dog collar back on live on air, a decade after he removed it in protest at the regime of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe.
Sentamu cut up his collar on The Andrew Marr Show in 2007 in protest against the rule of the then president, who was forced to resign earlier this week after 37 years in power. He said at the time that Mugabe had taken people’s identity and “cut it to pieces”, so he would do the same with his collar.
Back on the Sunday morning BBC One show 10 years later, Marr handed him the pieces of his original collar: “Nearly 10 years on, I’ve got them for you, they’ve been sitting in my desk. They’re in a slightly crumpled old envelope, but here they all are. I said I would give them back, so I’ll give them back.”

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 Now Available

If you would like more from the originator of Call Me Ishmael,  look no further than  Ishmael’s Blues - which is now published, in both paperback and hardback editions; both editions are immediately available from lulu.com.  The paperback is also listed on amazon. Honest Not Invent and Vent Stack, the first two books in the sequence are also available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

Ishmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps :

 Unless you’ve done this already, 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. 

The book’s full title is "Ishmael’s Blues – further Chronicles of Ruin", and the cover you'll see is red with white titles and a picture of blogdog Buster retiring from the fray, cat gloating from a safe distance. The cover is the same for both editions.

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

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

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.