mrs ishmael is on holiday again.

 

Now that the election is out of the way, I'm off to England for a couple of weeks. Sir Keir will just have to manage without me. I anticipate posting the answers to mr mongoose's crossword towards the end of July - so that's lots of time to solve it.

Oh Brave new world that has such bastards in it.

 

Didn't Farage do well? More than blew the bloody doors off. Worst election results for the Tories since 1835. This is what they were wearing in 1835:

And, yes, the blokes were wearing corsets.

So, a long time ago - but not long since Boris secured for them a massive majority and they frittered it away with their sneaky little deals to subvert the Brexit settled will of the people by importing cheap labour, by their taking ways, by driving the economy into the mud, and, basically, not giving a hairy pig's arse about the working class, despite re-dubbing them "hard-working people" and conveniently forgetting about the people not able to work by reason of age, infirmity or the crashed state of the economy.

That's the wealthy wife, standing a few paces behind the defeated Sunak, pressed up against the Downing Street railings. They neither of them know how to dress themselves, but they do learn - Mrs. Sunak, clutching an umbrella firmly, is determined to avoid another wet suit disaster. I did advise him previously to employ an umbrella-wallah.

Brilliant result for the SNP. Well, maybe they don't realise it yet, but now they can stop pretending to be a serious political party, stop any pretence of government and policy and get on with doing what they do best - whinging. Really good that the peepul of Scotland didn't ignore the disgraceful sight of police vehicles parked outside Gnasher Sturgeon's home, their motor-home being impounded as profits of crime and Mr. Sturgeon being charged with embezzlement. They were wiped out and Labour is back, with a vengeance. Remember Gnasher saying this election would be a de facto referendum with the peepul of Scotland being given the opportunity to declare their desire to leave the U.K. by voting for the SNP in droves? Well, they didn't. And Alba, headed up by Big Fat Smart Aleck, got no votes seats at all. None. That's zilch. So that's it for Scottish Independence. George Osborne, commentating on the ITV election coverage, summed it up neatly: a unilateral referendum has no legal validity and the only way that Westminster would allow a legal referendum, (cos the Tories would rather stick pins in their eyes than do that again),  was if a minority Labour government joined hands with the SNP in coalition. And there's really no need for that, then, is there? Talking of ITV's commentators - they had Gnasher pontificating at the table with the grown-up politicians. Gosh, she's piled on the pounds since being a disgraced politician. And to show that we're even-handed here, and not at all misogynistic, they also had Fat Neil Kinnock, who has not only grown several chins since leaving office, but he's also developed a beard that failed the struggle to hide the chins. Mind you, I think he was drunk. Could have been a combination of the Welsh accent, extreme age and the emotion of being back on national telly being treated seriously, but I think he was drunk - it was when he talked about Tony and Cherie entering 10, Downing Street and how it should have been him and Glen. Aww, bless.

The turn-out was a statement in itself. It is said that it is not apathy, but anger, keeps voters away from the polling station - you know - the lot of you are a bunch of truffle-eating establishment stiffoes and a pox on all your houses. Forty per cent of the electorate decided not to vote. That's a lot. That means that half the population has had it with parliamentary democracy. Best be careful. Didn't Stalin say of Churchill: " I'm more of a democrat than he is, and I'm a Dictator?"

So, who's gone? Practically everyone, but the bigish beasties who will be down the dole office tomorrow are:

Grant Shapps - Defence Secretary

Gillian Keegan - Education Secretary

Penny Mordaunt - Commons Leader and Sword Bearer, with magnificent hair

Lucy Frazer - Culture Secretary

David TC Davies - Welsh Secretary

Michelle Donelan- Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary

Simon Hart - Chief Whip

Johnny Mercer- Veterans Minister

For some unfathomable reason, 23.059 people in Richmond and Northallerton voted for their boy Rishi - so I suppose that means he will become an Opposition back bencher, unless he further kicks his party by resigning and forcing a by-election immediately after the general election.

Shetland and Orkney returned Big Al Carmichael for the Liberal Democrats - no surprise there. There wasn't much of an opposition, as Labour and Conservatives both helicoptered in adolescents still learning the political ropes. The Reform candidate was Orkney-based fisherman Robert Smith, who knew he didn't have much of a hope, as he freely admitted on Radio Orkney. He told the listeners that Big Al was a good man, a local man, a hard working politician who knows the ropes, whereas he, Smith, was standing just to give voters somewhere to park their opposition votes. When asked for his views on the monarchy, Smith said he would rather have Fred and Rose West than Charles and Camilla. Which was a bit rude. And may account for why he only got 1,586 votes as opposed to Big Al's 11,392. He didn't want the job anyway.

mr mongoose's Election Crossword

 

tip: print off the grid and complete by hand

Across

8   Online Monet nude brewed a bitter end. (10)
9   The Tories' are so very this, and it shows. (4)
10  Bastard buzzer makes one breed. (5,3)
11  Base but playful weaver donkey. (6)
12  Stilton and Tia Maria fuse into political philosophy. (15)
15  Support and obstruct (4)
16  Further, I hear that 16 tends to be 17. (5)
17  "Hello!" You'd have to be this to vote Tory. (4)
18  Mixed mag and reach next secondhand market. (8,3,4)
19  Zero tolerance for this coloured bad man. (6)
22  Radio soft rock mock hard man. (5,3)
23  Elect even pair switch reject. (4)
24  Arrangements can be made toes regime. (10)

Down

1   Republican-made Botox treated unpopular levy. (7,3)
2   Edge transforms the Tories last chance. (8,7)
3   Same as the old country in Papua New Guinea. (3,7)
4   Current panto through which soldiers choose brass? (7,8)
5   Questions up rump. (4)
6   Tying pork horse here? (15)
7   Reject even pair switch elect. (4)
13  Slavishly wearing false gnashers? (10)
14  Honey 8 or 27 sweeteners. (5,5)
20  Port last night causes Toxteth event. (4)
21  Therefore upset monster. (4)

mrs. ishmael is taking a Big City Weekend Break - continue talking amongst yourselves. Back in time for the Election.

 

In case you missed this:

 

The Sunday Ishmael: 23/06/2024

 A couple of Sundays ago, I told you that I am a racist, and that I know this because I was taught by anti-racism trainers that I, like all white people, am/are racist.  And these were professional Black people, who should know. 

In the 40 years that have subsequently elapsed, I have dwelt on this, moving from offended, to denial, to over-compensating, to accepting, to understanding that everyone is and why should I feel guilty about it, when Diane Abbott doesn't?

I am also religiously intolerant. This gets a bit mixed up, because many of the practitioners of religions are also people of colour - but racism and religious intolerance are two separate things. For example, I subject my white, Church of Scotland friend to my intolerant abuse: "don't you find the comedy hats that bishops wear to be proof positive that there is no god?"

Or: "do any of the congregants at your church have any religious conviction at all, or do they just go for the fighting?"

Although all religions seem to have been birthed in blood, sacrifice (animal and human), war, torture, cruelty and avarice (I have a friend who, on a tour of the Vatican, became faint with horror and despair by the time she was ushered into the Sistine Chapel, and begged to be released early), some religions are undoubtedly worse than others. I was once invited to a Baha'i service. They don't seem too bad. 

The great bulk of Bahāʾī teaching is concerned with social ethics. They have no priests and do not seem to have any rituals when worshipping - other than eating. The service I attended was a bring and share lunch. There was no incense, songs, readings from old books, stand up, sit down, shake hands with your neighbour. Nope, just a range of dishes - competitive cooking. The worst thing that could happen was irritable bowel syndrome.

And I've known a few Quakers, who seem fairly inoffensive and quiet. And my Jewish friend always seems to have specialist food for specialist occasions when the ancient and biblical Jews were undergoing some fresh torment set upon them by their god.

At the other end of the religious spectrum are the wildly intolerant, creatively cruel worshippers of a god who demands the death of anyone who doesn't agree with him. 

The primary aim of jihad as warfare is the expansion and defence of the Islamic state. In classical theory, jihad should continue until "all mankind either embraced Islam or submitted to the authority of the Muslim state." There could be truces before this was achieved, but no permanent peace. One who died "on the path of God" was a martyr, whose sins were remitted and who was secured "immediate entry to paradise".

What can you do with people like that? Best thing is to leave them alone to pursue their mad, stone-age religion - which is a bit difficult when they are intent on conversion or empire and, moreover, have large populations embedded in your own, secular country, who elect  a representative who not only doesn't just not understand the culture, but actively rejects it. 

Mothin Ali was elected in May as a councillor for the Gipton and Harehills ward in Leeds after winning more than 3,000 votes. Councillor Ali said, in his victory speech: “We will not be silenced. We will raise the voice of Gaza. We will raise the voice of Palestine."

He then triumphantly shouted "Allahu Akbar!” - which is an Islamic declaration of faith and translates to 'God is the greatest' in Arabic. It is used frequently within prayers and as a battle cry. Not bad enough being a Greenforfucksake, Ali is more concerned with Middle Eastern Islam than with the political needs of Leeds. He's under investigation, which means, of course, that nothing will come of it.

‘One of the things that’s coming up over and over again is Islamophobia,’ says Sir Keir Starmer in a campaign video, talking to Sadiq Khan. ‘We need to say over and over again that Islamophobia is intolerable… and I think there’s more we can do in government. There’s certainly stuff online that needs tackling much more robustly than it is at the moment.’

Well, that would be me, then, Sir Keir. 

Homophobia is a term that doesn't hold water - "Homo" is a Latin noun that means "human being" or "man" in the generic sense of "human being, mankind". The binomial name Homo sapiens was coined by Carl Linnaeus in 1758. In modern English, homo- is a combining form meaning "same, identical".  Like homogenous. "Phobia" means an extreme fear of or aversion to something. So homophobia as a word is nonsense. It makes no sense. 

Islamophobia, however,  is a very different kettle of fish. Having just read an article about the practice of Islam in Afghanistan, I would advise that it makes a great deal of sense, especially for women, to have an extreme fear of Islam. The Supreme Leader, Haibatullah Arkundzada, announced in his Eid message in early April that they will soon start stoning women to death for such crimes as adultery, which they define very loosely. The United Nations is currently investigating reports of rape, gang rape, sex slavery and forced abortions of women held in Afghanistan jails. A report titled ‘From Torture to Sexual Assault and Murder: What’s Happening in the Taliban’s Women’s Prisons?’ says that 90 women in prisons in Samangan, Jawzjan and Faryab provinces were raped by Islamic men who took over security at night, after female guards, cleaners and medical staff ended their day shifts.  Both senior and lower ranking military Islamic personnel are alleged to have entered the prisons at night to sexually assault the women. Women were also taken to the homes of Taliban commanders, where they were sexually assaulted and returned to prison at daybreak. Sixteen of the women became pregnant after ‘repeated sexual assault and have undergone abortions in local clinics,’ the report said. The women were taken to hospital under Taliban armed guard, and kept separate from other patients and most medical staff while abortions were performed, usually in the third or fifth month of pregnancy, it said. It attributed the information to unnamed ‘prisoners who experienced mistreatment.’

‘One released prisoner affirms that at least four female prisoners in Samangan province fell seriously ill as a result of repeated sexual assaults by Taliban members and were ultimately executed by the Taliban,’ the report said. It also quoted a female doctor at a hospital in Maymana, the provincial capital of Faryab, as saying ‘the Taliban transferred 13 female prisoners to the gynaecology department… after sexually assaulting them, and these women underwent abortions.’ Multiple women were taken to the hospital bleeding following sexual abuse, and showing signs of torture, another doctor said. Heather Barr, the associate director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, said the Taliban regarded women as chattel needing constant supervision to ensure they behave ‘decently’ and do not dishonour male relatives. Errant behaviour – such as leaving their homes alone, protesting violations of their rights, or desiring an education or career – is seen by the Taliban as rightly incurring punishment, so in the Taliban’s worldview ‘they had it coming,’ she said.

It is unlikely that there will be any consequences for the Taliban’s treatment of women. International aid, including cash deliveries of tens of millions of dollars, continues to flow into the country. 

Supreme Leader Haibatullah Arkhundzada has re-introduced execution by stoning, taunting human rights defenders: ‘You say it’s a violation of women’s rights when we stone them to death. But we will soon implement the punishment for adultery.’

All this is creepily like Margaret Attwood's The Handmaid's Tale - and as such, could be dismissed as anti-Islamic propaganda. I don't think so, though. Or you could hold the view that this sociopathic hatred of women in Afghanistan is cultural, not embedded within Islam. But, again, I don't think so - there are too many "cultural" extreme manifestations of misogyny within Islam - look at the rapes perpetrated upon Jewish young women in last October's invasion of Israel by Hamas, ably supported by Palestinian civilians. Within Britain, it is estimated that 12 to 15 women are killed each year to preserve the "honour" of their Islamic families. In the year ending March 2022, there were 2,887 honour-based abuse (HBA) -related offences recorded by the police in England and Wales. This was an increase of 6 per cent compared with the year ending March 2021 (when there were 2,725 offences). 

Banaz Mahmod, a 20-year-old who left an abusive arranged marriage was murdered by order of her Islamic uncle Ari Mahmod and father Mahmod Mahmod because she had a romantic relationship.  In an amazing bitter irony, that you really couldn't make up, Ari Mahmod is suing ITV, claiming a crime drama based on his “honour” killing of his niece has blackened his name.

I am seriously beginning  to think that we need to turn to Nigel Farage to tell the bloody truth. He was rather splendid about not backing down on his statement in his BBC Panorama interview that the West provoked Vladimir Putin into invading Ukraine, through Nato and European Union expansion , stating, “we provoked this war.” Despite criticism from Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer, Farage maintains he won’t apologize for telling the truth about Russia’s actions. So that's it with me and Starmer. The man's a Remainer, in hock to the Islamic community and determined to provoke Russia into declaring war on Britain.

Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there will be no more cakes and ale?

It'll just have to be Farage and Reform. I do hope that his re-immersion in British politics won't affect his support for Trump's Presidential campaign.

Conservative Lord Philip Hammond, Baron Hammond of Runnymede P.C.), British politician and life peer, former Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2016 to 2019, former Foreign Secretary from 2014 to 2016, former Defence Secretary from 2011 to 2014 and former MP for Runnymede and Weybridge from 1997 to 2019 really doesn't like Nigel Farage at all. He solemnly declared on Laura's politics show this morning that: "We should have no truck with this right wing populism .... there are no quick fixes, no free lunches and the snake oil that Farage is peddling has no place in British politics."

Shame. Bring on the free lunches.

• John Swinney has been let down again by the Scottish National Party's apparatchiks, who have been stealing the stamps. The apparatchiks refer to the Scottish Government's stamps as the Stamp Fairy.  It's a bit like when the SNP disappeared the £630,000. What's his is mine, because we is the government. Swiney says he's been assured that his campaign did not use stamps paid for with public money - a parliamentary investigation into the matter is ongoing. 
• So we'll hear no more about that, then.
• If  you would like to read some original ishmael or stanislav, then the four-volume Call Me Ishmael oeuvre, collected and curated by editor mr verge, is available on Lulu and Amazon.

  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.

Another incredibly old bugger dies

 

As they said on the radio this morning, (honest, not invent) he was handsome in a handsome way that the ordinary man could relate to, was sexy in an intelligent way - indeed he invented the intellectual sex scene with Julie Christie in Don't Look Now, he was just that guy - laid back, funny, approachable, long-limbed and louche in a thoroughly nice way, could play second banana, heroes and villains, everyone adored him, even when they spent 9 months on the steppes filming Kelly's Heroes and he was just like his character, or the character from Mash, did I mention that everyone adored him and would do anything for him but he never took advantage and he was such a workaholic, his vocation meant everything to him, he was just going to work forever, because he enjoyed acting and the travel and the people he met.

Donald Sutherland, 17 July 1935 – 20 June 2024, entertainer.

The Sunday Ishmael: 16/06/2024

 For our readers on Continents other than Europe, and for those who haven't been paying much attention, (and, as usual, who can blame you) Europe is in the grip of a war involving all the European nations. There were preliminary skirmishes, which eliminated the lesser countries, leaving the giants to battle it out. For some reason lost in the mists of history, Britain is allowed to pretend it is four countries. All the other countries are required to be just the one country, but not Britain. 

It would have been better for Scotland if it had thrown in its lot with England - but no, ancient enmity, spite, Braveheart, independence and the kilt, would never allow such an outcome. So Scotland, which most of the time resembles a tiny male spider, riding on the back of its English spider wife, looking for an opportunity to inseminate her without being eaten as a nutritious snack, shrugged off its utter financial, economic, political, defensive, health and social care dependence on England, to swagger into the fray with its own Army. They flooded into Munich last week, two hundred thousand of them, brash, drunken and incomprehensible, singing strange battle songs and swinging their skirts. Even little Orkney sent its small battalion to join the Tartan Army.

The local newspaper was full of it: "For an entire generation, this will be the first time Scots have witnessed their country taking part in a major tournament" . There's a reason for that. ed. "So the anticipation and excitement has reached fever-pitch this week, as Orkney's Tartan Army head out in force to support the country." One supporter was quoted as saying: "I haven't booked a flight home yet! I'm intending on staying until Scotland is out of the tournament." 

Aww, bless. 

The thing is, Scotland is not very good at playing football. Even I can see that, and I have no interest, experience or knowledge of what they laughingly call the beautiful game. On Friday evening, the German team, sleek and nimble in white costumes, ran rings around the lumpen, black-clad, cheating Scots. The German passing was balletic - always in the right place at the right time, with the Scots puffing along, getting it wrong, getting in each other's way, tripping up their opponents, illegally tackling them, scoring an own goal, getting sent off in disgrace and ultimately losing 5:1. Talk about embarrassing. Mind you, that Florian Wirtz is a dirty little bastard. Did you see him spitting all over the place? When I was a child, there were notices up on the buses, saying "Spitting is forbidden". When I entrained across Europe, there were signs all over the train: "Spucken ist verboten", "E' vietato sputare", "interdiction de cracher" and "e pericoloso sporgersi,"  which latter means don't lean out, but I always thought it meant don't spit. Spitting was associated with TB, dirty old men and chewing tobacco. Now it seems all the footballers spit because they seem to have some strange throat malformation that prevents them from swallowing their own saliva. I daresay the football pitch is spongy with spit, then they go and roll in it, do triumphant victory knee slides (although not the Scots, for obvious reasons), and lie down in it behind their team mates,  forming a wall to frustrate free kicks (and that didn't work, either. Just got covered in spit.)

Useful German phrases for next time you are in Munich:

Deine Mutter geht in der Stadt huren – Your mother goes whoring in the city
Deine Mutter schwitzt beim Kacken – Your mother sweats when she shits
Deine Oma masturbiert im stehen! – Your grandma masturbates standing up!
Klugscheißer – bogmouth/know-all/smart aleck
Ich ficke Katzen – I fuck cats

Here's a photo of a silly old man:

Yep, yep yep, John Swinney, cosplaying, backed the wrong side again.

Politicians have always pretended to like football, hoping to increase their populist appeal. Tony Blair was renowned for it. He was mocked over the years about his apparent claim in a BBC interview that he watched Jackie Milburn play at St. James Park in the late 1950s, despite being only 4 years old and living in Australia. He was also reported as saying that he had sat in the Gallowgate End of the club's stadium, even though there were no seats in that part of the ground at that time. Fortunately, Blair was able to clear up the misapprehension: he said that "People asked two completely separate questions. One, when I used to go and watch Newcastle. Then someone asked me who was the greatest ever footballer so I said Jackie Milburn."

That's alright, then. This is probably not true, either. mr. ishmael writing in 2015. Huw Welshman is also sadly not with us, being disgraced and resigned over his strange proclivities.

SPORTS NEWS. BLAIR TO HEAD THIEFA (2015)

This is Huw Welshman with the Six o Clock News from the PBC, where the top story is that former prime minister,

 

 Tony and Imelda Blair,  
is to step down from his role as Peacemaker to the World and assume the presidency of THIEFA,  the governing body of the world's organised crime syndicate of  bullies, crooks, knucklehead morons and gang rapists, other wise known as football.  Here's what he had to say.

Peepul of football. I simply say. My role as peacemaker is done. The world has never had.  So much peace. Especially in   Iraq.  Where I have succeeded.  Beyond my wildest. Expectations.  Syria, too.  Thanks to my efforts. Is now at peace.  The Palestinian question. Is now resolved.  

 

And where one Israeli is killed, then quite rightly five hundred Palestinian children forfeit their lives, under masonry or tank tracks, doesn't matter, it's their  way of contributing  to Peace and stability in the region. And who would deny them that?

As it says in the scriptures, five hundred eyes for an eye. Fair's fair. And I'm known as a fair man, Oi Vay. 
And  Have a Negilah Day.
 My friend Benjamin Netanyahu. And my other friend. Wotsisname, the raghead bloke?   They enjoy a warm and constructive peaceful war.  Which sees their respective one and one-not  nation states not co-operating like never before.  

Thanks to my efforts with the late Mr Gadaffi, is it Gadaffi, Gaddafffi,  fucked if I know, but you know who I mean.  The gentleman who, as a result of my global statesmanship, had a scaffold pole rammed up his jacksie and his corpse violated by nig-nogs.  Gosh, I hope that doesn't  happen to anyone close to me. Like myself.  Better double my security guard. 'Sokay, the British taxpayer foots that bill. Quite right, too.

 

 Don't get much more peaceful transitions than that. Thanks to that, my initiative, things can only get better. My Gaddafi intervention. And I think it speaks for itself. People. Many thousands of people. Are leaving Libya daily. To seek a new life.

 

  At the bottom of the Mediterranean.  

 In Iraq, where once there was brutality - as well as the very real threat of Weapons of Mass Destruction, made-up by my friend, Porno-Al

 Alright, it was all made-up. So fucking what?

What's a few million roasted wogs?

What? Don't you dare call me racist.

And vote Labour. You stupid cunts.

- there is now a widening sense of peace and civilised democratic governance, as the Blair Peace Revolution sweeps over the Middle East.  And Egypt, too, after the Arab Spring, is now firmly in the hands of an exceptionally peace-conscious brutal military dictatorship which executes its opponents by the hundreds.

Now is not the time for soundbites. But I feel I might pat myself on the back and say, the Middle East and North Africa, aflame, now, for decades.

 

 JobDone.

I always said that I wanted to do more with my life than promote division, greed, war and torture and so now, as I retire as WarMaker-in-Chief, I look for further challenges, further opportunities to serve the common man.
 And what, frankly, can be more common than football?

 

Here's me, pretending to play it. With some wog children.
Yes, I know, they still have all their limbs but quite frankly, expecting me to maim all the world's wog children is a bit much.
Not as though I haven't done my best.

Mr Blatter has done a fine job, these past years, in promoting the timeless values of bribery and corruption but if I might say so, I am sure that I can do better.  The decision to award the World Cup to some stinking little Hellhole does urgently need to be revisited.  In my judgement, I feel that the raghead princes paid nowhere near enough to Mr Blatter and his colleagues but you can be sure that if they want to keep the fixture they will have to reimburse me rather more generously.  I mean, world statesmen don't come cheap, do they?  I think I can show the world's football lovers how the sport can be run for the benefit of everyone. But mainly me. And Lady Imelda of course. And I look forward to being of service.

The British General Election? Well, it was a bit of a disappointment but at least we got a majority, yes, I know, only thirteen but better than nothing.

Scotland? Yes, it looks as though I am vindicated there, too; I always knew that Devolution would break-up the Union.  And now it is.  My principals in Europe will be delighted.

Chilcott Enquiry?  What's that?

That'll be twenty-five thousands pounds, please, Huw. 

Yes, cheque to Imelda, as usual.

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

No, despite all this football excitement, I haven't forgotten that we have entered the season of competitive promising.  

Here's some candidates for election:

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

If  you would like to read some original ishmael or stanislav, then the four-volume Call Me Ishmael oeuvre, collected and curated by editor mr verge, is available on Lulu and Amazon.

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.

The Sunday Ishmael: 09/06/2024

When I was a teenager, filled with idealism, naivety and white guilt, I attended a church-organised Commonwealth disco. Churchy person in the corner, playing records. Sitting round the room on hard chairs were around 20 young black African men. Not a woman amongst them. Not much English spoken. They were there on some exchange visit. Me and my friend Hilary, who was earnest and churchy, were the only females apart from the redoubtable middle aged churchy matron with the records. I have never been so sought after as a dance partner in my life, before or since. The most exhausting thing about the experience wasn't so much the dancing - although that was enthusiastic (enthusiasm= definition: religious fervour supposedly resulting directly from divine inspiration, typically involving speaking in tongues and wild, uncoordinated movements of the body); it was the need to arch one's lower body away from the massive erections each dancer possessed and was determined to grind into one's groin, assisted by the hands on one's bum, firmly pressing said groin against said erection. Hell's teeth - I hadn't even seen an erection at that stage of my life, let alone been up close and personal with the equipment of 20 black Africans. And the white guilt - which had made me agree to Hilary's request to attend the damn disco in the first place, prevented me from giving offence to the chaps by flaunting my white privilege and saying unhand me, sir. So these unlettered young Africans obviously thought I was a bit of a goer, and I ended up in tears, sweaty and feeling I had been the victim of multiple sexual assaults. Which I had, of course, but I didn't have the language or thought frame to understand what was happening.
When I was a bit older, my white guilt had me accepting the invitation of an Asian man, who I thought was a fellow student at my University, because I met him in the Student Union, to go back to his digs, which he purportedly shared with several other students, to partake of an authentic chicken curry. You already know that was a mistake. His digs turned out to be a nasty bed sit in a dilapidated Victorian terrace house of multiple occupation. There were no other students. He wasn't a student. The curry was real, though, and very good, although served in the pan in which it had been cooked and eaten with fingers and chapattis. The table was covered with newspaper, onto which the chicken bones were dropped, when sucked clean. I was told that I was lucky to be the object of the attentions of a Prince from Pakistan. I said I was a virgin. He said all you white girls say that. Bit of a cultural clash, really, although, again, my white guilt prevented me from giving offence, and, again, I ended up in tears, feeling abused.
Years later, when I was a Probation Officer, my employers required me to go on an anti-racism training course. I wasn't singled out for being politically incorrect. We all had to go.  Here, I learned that I was racist. The two trainers were black women, and the first exercise, an ice-breaker, was that the participants had to call out names used to describe black people, which the trainers would solemnly write on a flip chart. Not unnaturally, we were extremely reluctant to do so. We were all white, professional and filled with good manners, white guilt and not wanting to give offence. However, the trainers goaded us until one participant cracked and offered up "negro". That was inscribed on the flip chart. After that, in turn, each participant had to volunteer a word. The chart was filled with very offensive words and phrases. At that, the trainer laid down her marker pen, turned to the group she was training, and said - "you see why I don't want to have children? How could I bring black children into this world where this is how people describe them?" Nasty trick, that. Day after day we were subjected to the same psychological manipulation. I learned that the definitions the nuns had taught me - that there are 5 racial groupings: caucasian, amerindian, negroid, mongaloid, australoid - were all racist bollocks. I learned that if a mum holding her baby in her arms in a lift shrinks away when a black person enters the lift, this micro-aggression will give the baby racism, like a virus. I learned that if a white person starts a statement by saying "I'm not a racist, but...." that's a sure-fire way of knowing a racist is talking to you. I learned that only white people can be racist: that discrimination may be universal, but only discrimination coupled with power equals racism. And only white people have power.
There was no nuance or subtlety. If a white person is in the room, that person has the power - even if the person is a young virginal female being required to dance with 20 black guys with erections. And white women's tears are always manipulative.
I heard more of this shite fairly recently, from an older woman who was committed to white guilt theory. She said that we are the privileged inheritors of colonialism. I'd had enough. No, not me, I said. I was looked at with curious fascination. Was I stupid? Didn't I understand the world and the role that white people have played in cornering resources and deliberately reducing to penury the non-white nations?
Not me.
Well, perhaps not, but your ancestors' actions have placed you in this privileged position.
No, they haven't. One ancestor was transported to Australia, requiring the rest of the family to move to Yorkshire in penury. I'm the inheritor of generations of northern working class poverty and discrimination. Dirt poor. First person in my family to go to University - where I was insulted by upperclass twats. One chap had the audacity to tell me to proffer my hand, upon which he gazed intently (me thinking, oh, wow, I've copped off with a public school boy), then he drawled, why yes, its true - they do have hair growing out of the backs of their hands. To which his chums responded with encouraging jeers at my expense.
Anyway, I'm a racist. I was taught that, decades ago, by the anti-racism trainers. I spent a long time trying to overcome my racism. Overcompensate, really, but that would probably be white patronage.
Nowadays, I'm proud of it. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to tell you the Commonwealth disco story nor the Asian Prince story, for fear of being called a racist. The thing is, not only am I a racist, but everybody is. It's a Darwinian evolutionary characteristic, hardwired into we survivors of Sabre Toothed tigers and marauding bands of proto-humans. Be suspicious of strangers and look after your family and you'll get to raise your offspring to carry on the racist gene.
I'm also religiously intolerant. I'm intolerant of all religions, especially since I live in a country where the monarch and the prime minister flaunt the symbols and rituals of their minority, patriarchal religions.
I'm getting round to being proud of my religious intolerance. They can all line up for rubdowns with housebricks, the imams, the pastors, bishops, rabbis, pandits, bhikhunnis and the rest of the unholy rabble with their wars, wealth, misogyny and intolerance.

Japan, like most developed Western nations, has a demographic problem. Japanese women don't want to have babies, so the population is in decline. Western nations have dealt with this by encouraging inward migration from parts of the world where our shit jobs look fabulously well-paid. These migrants bring their ethnic diversity and peculiar religions with them. Japan has no truck with such a solution because they fear it would dilute the Japanese Culture. Well, of course it would. They have no fear of having a Japanese Culture. They are proud of it, treasure it as a precious and unique thing. The Japanese solution is to encourage and bribe Japanese Womanhood into having more babies. Within a stable marriage between a biological male and a biological female. To which purpose, a Government dating app is being developed, with Elon Musk's approval, with stringent requirements including a firm intent to marry and procreate. Users undergo a “values diagnostic test” to ascertain compatibility, with an option to specify desired traits in a partner. 
Britain, it seems, does not admit to having a national culture. Nigel Farage, god bless him, has thoroughly criticised Rishi Sunak for leaving the D Day ceremonies early, allowing Baron Slab-Face to deputise for him, whilst running home to tape an interview with ITV - obviously important stuff that a Prime Minister has to prioritise over photo ops with European leaders. 
He told Laura Kuenssberg this morning that “It shows the man doesn’t understand. He is not patriotic – he doesn’t care about our history, our culture.” He added that Sunak is disconnected from the lives and concerns of the British people by his class and privilege. Fair comment, you'd have thought.
Kuennsberg, who has been criticised by viewers for her political bias on previous occasions was all over this like a rash.

What do you mean, she snarled, what are you implying? I don't like you and your nasty made-up policies and your Brexit shite, bankrupting the country and your anti-immigration racism. Or, at least, she wanted to say that, but confined herself to enquiring what
he meant by “our culture”, he replied: “I know what your question is leading at. I’d just make the point that 40 per cent of our contribution in two wars came from the Commonwealth. Clearly Mr Sunak doesn’t understand that."
Thwarted, Laura Nose (clearly not a Faragista) then cross examined her other interviewees as to what Farage could possibly have meant.

She got Mel Stride to admit that he was "uncomfortable" with Nigel Farage's remark. He said that the comments were ill-advised and deeply regrettable:  “I feel very uncomfortable with that... I’ve sat around a Cabinet table that’s the most diverse in history. I’m very proud of the fact that we have a British Asian who is right at the top of our government.”
You see what she did there? Turned a comment about British culture into a racist attack. I don't know what British culture means: used to be warm beer, cricket and old ladies riding bikes. To some, it is afternoon tea, to others, fish and chips. Maybe it is the WEA or the WRVS. Maybe it is Balti night, or dreadful TV reality shows. Maybe it is that thing I haven't got - religious tolerance. Or the last night of the Proms, with its outpouring of all that joyful patriotism. But it would be good to have a national culture, and be proud of it, and feel British. And not feel uncomfortable when the word culture is used. God'sake, Mel Stride, Tory MP for Central Devon, Secretary for Work and Pensions (for the time being), culture does not mean white supremacy.

Here's a line or two by mr ishmael on the glorious Nigel Farage:

Well, yes -  applause, cheers - no, no need, I haven't said anything yet . Not -  chuckle-chuckle - that I won't. You all know me by now - cheers applause, shouts of nigger-nigger-nigger, out-out-out - you all know me, I tell it like it is. Seig Heil.

 

 There was an Englishman -  cheers, applause - an Englishman - more cheers and more applause - and another Englishman, and they all went into this pub. 

 

Those were the days, weren't they, when a group of Englishmen could go into a pub, if there was a pub left that the EU hadn't destroyed, sit down together, drink six or eight pints, splash piss down their trousers and not, definitely NOT wash their hands, as.....cheers... as....cheers... as,  I might say, we are continually being told to by the health and safety police in Brussels -  loud cheers, footstamping and whistling -   in the good old days, back to which I will, if you'll allow me, lead you, do you know what, we could all sit, trousers damp with beery urine, hands unwashed, sharing the fellowship of a packet of cheese'n'onion crisps,  pissed as fucking rats and  enjoying a few Bee'n'Aitches without having to go outside and - eyes bulge, veins throb on forehead - catch fucking cold, yes, catch fucking cold,  whilst enjoying a healthy, freedom of choice cigarette,

 

 which, quite frankly, never did me any harm, apart from that it'll kill me, like it kills everybody.  I mean, how dare they, the unelected EU, how dare they ban smoking in English pubs? Back in the good old days we could sit in our pub  OUR pubs, mind and discuss the latest hanging - cheers, applause, whistling -  and quite frankly which of us wouldn't like to see the return of hanging for, well let's just say for those who have overstayed their welcome.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with immigrants. But they need to be the right sort,  they need to be OUR sort, not foreign immigrants.  Wossat? Why were there no Englishwimmen in the pub story? Well, that's a good question and quite frankly, do you know what, I'm glad you asked it.  There weren't any Englishwimmen in the pub because she was busy winning a parliamentary by-election for UKIP.

Well, if you want to split hairs like the old parties do, she may not have won in the narrow sense of winning but she certainly won a terrific victory in the sense of not winning.  So there.

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If  you would like to read some original ishmael or stanislav, then the four-volume Call Me Ishmael oeuvre, collected and curated by editor mr verge, is available on Lulu and Amazon.

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 

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