The Sunday Ishmael: 01/11/2026

Another Incredibly Old National Treasure drops off the twig.

Good evening, and this is Huw Welshman, with the Ten o'clock News from the British Paedo News Corporation, with the news of another sad loss to the world of the Arts, well, strictly speaking, look you, it's showbusiness, isn't it, or light entertainment as we called it when I was growing up in the Valleys, listening to Workers Playtime, on the Light Programme, before it became Radio One, and Pick of the Pops, with Jack Jackson; those were the days, viewers, let me tell you, we'd listen to Family Favourites with Cliff Michelmore, great tunes by proper singers, like Mario Lanza, Perry Homo, I mean Como, no, he was never a poof, Maestro Como, although Bing Crosby was a bit of a sadist towards his children, and there was Saturday Club with Brian Matthew and most of the pop music we heard was cover versions, on the Billy Cotton Band Show. Billy Cotton? Fucked if I know, he was a big, bald, fat fucker,

with a small orchestra and he used to shout Wakey-Wakey, 

like a cunt, he did;  it was his catch phrase; fucking awful it was. 
Anyway, at times like these, of national tragedy, we generally hear from a colleague of the deceased, telling us how wonderful they were, even if, as they usually were, they were utter cunts, and tonight, as a mark of special tribute to a national treasure, yes, another one, we are truly blessed in this country, aren't we, with national treasures,  we celebrate the work of my dear, dear friend, Dame Patrick Stewart, in his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, 

in that great, uplifting drama, Star Trek. We great Shakespearian actors, we work all our lives in order to play comic book heroes, and this is why taxpayer funding for the arts is so very, very important, yes, so that boring, clapped-out  old  luvvies like Dame Patrick can go to Hollywood and earn millions of dollars.  

Yes, and Family Guy, too,
 
Alas, poor Peter Griffin, I knew him, Stewie, a man of no wit and less wisdom...

 Dame Paddy appears in that most relevant and out-there satirical cartoon show, so brave, so very, very brave of him. One could weep for Dame Paddy's courage.  I mean, it takes literally decades of training and self-discipline and no little creative intelligence and artistry to voice-over oneself in a cartoon show.

And that was Huw Welshman bringing you the sad news of the death at the age of only 86 of  Sir Patrick Stewart, as Tributes pour in for  "the most respected and beloved actor of his generation". Sir Ian McKellen, Sir Patrick's X-Men co-star, said: "He wore his heart on his sleeve, which made him a man to rely on, to admire and, in my case, love."  

Tributes to the renowned British actor have poured in since his death at his Los Angeles home after "a brief and poignant journey" with Alzheimer's disease and Lewy Body Dementia was announced on Thursday.

The BBC said: "Famous for his role as Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek, Sir Patrick was a versatile actor who won multiple awards, balancing Hollywood roles and a career in classical theatre". 

Yere I am, again, reporting on the revolting French. 
 

Terror in France

Islamist violence and the transformation of French politics.

Back to the Studio now for the news that a celebrity has asked the High Court to prevent two news organisations from publishing his identity and allegations that he abused his status for many years to engage, or attempt to engage, in "inappropriate sexual activities with a large number of girls and young women". The unnamed celebrity is seeking an injunction, and his legal team told the first day of a trial on Tuesday that any publication would be "highly likely" to lead him to kill himself.  The judge, Mr Justice Nicklin, said there was "significant public interest" in the proceedings and that "this is a difficult and important case". Speaking as the former Huw Welshman, I feel for the unnamed celebrity. Look what they put me through, up to and including Doc Martin Clunes impersonating me in a mockumentary.

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

All well and good, mrs ishmael, but what about the Budget?

Ah yes, that's Captain Picard of the Starship Enterprise holding out a red brief case. 

Not quite, mrs ishmael. Keep up.

Chancellor Healey being comforted by the Prime Minister while his Cabinet Colleagues struggle to hide their boredom.

Interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg this morning, All Saints Day,  Chancellor Healey felt the unmistakeable sundering agony of a new arsehole being torn. 

"You've raided the country's rainy day money, what are called the reserves, " Laura accused him. "The IFS [Independent Financial Services Ltd], a well-respected independent number cruncher, has said that is categorically not what the reserves are for. You've spent 40% of the day-to-day reserves, 25% of what is known as the capital reserves. At a time like this, with so much uncertainty in the world, what are you doing spending the country's rainy-day money?" she fumed. 

Squirming, Healey replied: "Look, the reserves are for the most important things for the Government. I've just used a bit of the reserves -"

Laura interrupted-: "It's 40% of the day-to-day reserves. That's not a bit, that's a lot." 

This is the man who resigned his post of Defence Secretary from the Starmer government because Starmer would not commit to increasing defence spending to 3% of GDP. Not because there were better career opportunities in the Burnham camp. Oh, no. And now he is in the position to achieve the 3%, he is equivocating. And using the rainy day money on welfare.

I have finally understood why successive governments are so keen on encouraging immigration and why they insist it is good for the economy, whilst all the observable indicators demonstrate it isn't.

A country's total GDP  grows simply because the population grows.  This is  a little economic trick politicians use to allow them to claim that they are achieving growth, which, of course, allows them to borrow even more.

Does it ever occur to you that we are being led by donkeys?

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

Days Out in the English Countryside: Castle Howard

No complaints at all - perfect day, trees in their autumn dresses, clean toilets and a pleasant café. And red squirrels. The Castle Howard Arboretum Trust has successfully established a breeding program for red squirrels, with 15 kits born in 2023 and successfully released into the wild in Wales. The Red Squirrel Enclosure, designed and built by Arboretum staff and volunteers, allows visitors to observe these endangered creatures in their natural habitat. The enclosure covers 2,500 square metres and includes a grove of oaks and other trees, providing a safe environment for the squirrels to live. Little Cinnamon jumped onto the viewing platform to collect nuts which she busily danced off to bury in the leaf litter, while her mate, David, snoozed in his lair high up in a tree. The incredibly knowledgeable Squirrel Expert explained that David usually takes an afternoon nap. There was another female earlier in the year, but a bird of prey scooped her up and ate her. The principle threat to red squirrels, our indigenous species, is from grey squirrels, an American import which does everything better than our chaps - aggressive, bigger fellows, the Greys out-breed and  out-forage the delicate little Reds. Measures to prevent them from taking over entirely include the development of a squirrel contraceptive.

The parallel with Orkney's stoat situation has not escaped me.

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

Thanks to the late mr ishmael for his contribution to this week's Obituary Corner.

If you have not yet purchased your set of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster, now might be a good time to secure your copies. Something to read in the shelter. Here's how to buy them from Amazon or Lulu. 

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: 25/10/2026

 

I'm sure you've all been wondering how the the Orkney Wildlife Project's stoat genocide campaign is coming along.

The Project has cost the taxpayer £16 million in order to remove all stoats entirely from Orkney in order to protect the Orkney Vole.

Because - well, reasons. The Orkney vole, (Microtus arvalis orcadensis) is a personable little chap, brought to Orkney by humans in Neolithic times, possibly concealed in animal fodder, from trade with the continent, specifically, Belgium. The oldest known radiocarbon-dated fossil of the species in Orkney is 4,600 years old. There aren't any voles in Britain now - just this little population on nine islands of the Orkney archipelago: Orkney Mainland, Sanday, Westray, Rousay, South Ronaldsay, Burray, Eday, Shapinsay, and Stronsay. Our voles are fat little bastards, twice as heavy as the continental voles, of which there are lots.

The Project prefers voles to stoats, which eat voles.

So how's the Project going? Really not good. Mind you, if you are ever cornered at a drinks party by one of the Project's acolytes, as was once my fate, you will be told in self-congratulatory detail the numbers of murdered stoats - 6,500 since 2009. The Project employs around 40 staff, plus volunteers and a team of "conservation detection dogs". It seems a very poor return to me - less than a thousand a year. £16 million. Hmmm. Did no-one think introducing a few stoat predators might represent better value? Eagles, hawks, a great horned owl or two, foxes or badgers all are pretty adept at dining on stoat. But then the fermers would have to fence in their chickens and the 40 staff of the Project would be looking for more demanding work.

They did think they had it cracked in Rousay, where they thought that they'd got it down to just the one stoat. The taxpayer gave additional £150,000 to the Project so an all-out offensive could be mounted to deal with the Rousay incursion.

Alice Head-Rapson, a Project employee, said: “This incursion response was a test of our skills, but everybody at the project stepped up to meet the moment. My teammate, Benjy, and I spent the summer and autumn monitoring as much of Rousay as we can and expanding our trap networks, with a focus on sighting hotspots like the Loch of Loomachun".

Reader, they killed him.

Here's the trap, near the Loch of Loomachun.

Alice chortled: "Our work has certainly paid off. It’s still important we guarantee with complete confidence that the stoat we’ve trapped was the only one, but our achievement here is a big deal and we hope that will help to keep nature safe across all of Orkney. Working with the island community has been a privilege, and we’re really grateful for all the support the volunteers there have shown for native wildlife.” Not for stoats, obviously, on account of they are illegal immigrants. 

A single stoat roaming in Rousay was caught and removed, having been found in a trap near the Loch of Loomachun on Friday, October 9. 

The Orkney Native Wildlife Project (ONWP) said: "There are no signs that any other stoats spread to Rousay. However, monitoring measures are to continue for two years to ensure the island is free of the invasive species. ONWP first received reports of the invasive mustelid in  Rousay in April. Its presence was confirmed the following month. Now, after a major search operation involving traps, dog searches and cameras, the lone male stoat has now been removed."

Radio Orkney, which has long since regarded the Project as expensive nonsense, gleefully reported on Friday morning that a second stoat has been spotted in Rousay. Doubtless that will cost the Scottish taxpayer another £250,000, but it will keep Alice, Benjy, the Rousay volunteers and the wildlife conservation dogs busy for another six months.

Warfare - expensive, brutal and wasteful, whether declared on stoats or other human beings. 

I'm not saying that it is never justified. My dad served his country in North Africa, Italy, France, Belgium and Germany. He was conscripted to the Royal Army Medical Corps on the third call-up. He failed the medical for the first and second call-up because he had problems with his teeth, his feet and wore glasses. 

 The Military Training Act was passed in May 1939.  Only single men 20 to 22 years old were liable to be called up, and they were to be known as "militiamen" to distinguish them from the regular army. To emphasise this distinction, each man was issued with a suit in addition to a uniform. The intention was for the first intake to undergo six months of basic training before being discharged into an active reserve. They would then be recalled for short training periods and attend an annual camp. However, when the Second World War was declared in Britain the Military Training Act was superseded by the National Service (Armed Forces) Act 1939,  imposing a liability to conscription to all men aged 18 to 41 years who were living in Great Britain. Men could be rejected for medical reasons, and those engaged in vital industries or reserved occupations. mr ishmael's dad was exempted from conscription because he was a coach driver in Northern Ireland. 

By 1942, having run out of fit young men,  the conscription rules were relaxed - all male British subjects between 18 and 51 years old and all females 20 to 30 years old resident in Great Britain and the Isle of Man were liable to be called up.

My dad, a gentle soul, saw such things and had to do such things ......... “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy”, but despite the horrors, was entirely convinced that some wars are worth fighting, despite the fact that when he was a little boy his own dad had been killed by the Germans in the First World War. 

My dad's unit was detailed to cleaning out the Concentration Camp at Sachsenhausen, located in Oranienburg just north of Berlin. Sachsenhausen was established in 1936 as a model and training camp for the SS, serving as the administrative centre for all concentration camps in the German sphere of power,  holding over 200,000 prisoners, including political opponents, Jews, Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Soviet prisoners of war. Tens of thousands died from forced labour, starvation, disease, medical experiments, and systematic executions, including 13,000–18,000 Soviet POWs in 1941 alone. The camp was designed with a triangular layout, central watchtower, barracks, execution sites, and industrial areas where prisoners were forced to work in brickworks, aircraft production, and currency counterfeiting operations 

 Sachsenhausen also served as a site for early experiments in mass execution methods, including gas chambers and shooting facilities.

So, should anyone say to my dad, "Hitler was a great leader and socialist who made splendid roads"  - that would not have gone down well. 

However, Britain did not go to war on Germany to protect Jews, homosexuals, gypsies and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939 because Germany invaded Poland on 1 September and ignored Britain’s ultimatum to withdraw, obligating Britain to honor its defense guarantee to Poland.

Britain’s declaration of war was the culmination of escalating German aggression throughout the 1930s and the collapse of appeasement. Germany’s invasion of Poland was the immediate trigger, but Britain and France viewed the invasion of Poland as a direct threat to European stability and international order. 

The British public did not know about the concentration camps. As British soldiers liberated Europe and invaded Germany, the full horrors of the German military machine were revealed. So it became a war that, to ordinary conscripts, became justified retrospectively. Did the Establishment and the Government know? Did they keep it quiet to allay panic?

Is it happening again? I'm quite prepared to believe that the Civil and Intelligence Services and the Government are actively keeping the British public in the dark. After all, we are a hair's breadth from civil unrest, our population having been expanded to include many people from many countries with religious and political motivations that are opposed to the values of secular Christianity and western democracy, who are bringing their historic quarrels to our capital city, gulling the left liberal well-meaning lanyard class and inspiring English nationalists to take arms against a sea of troubles. 

But we now have the Government admitting to a state of undeclared war - of course, they will not admit that their policies of antagonising Russia since the 24th February 2022 have contributed to Russian actions. I suspect that the grandiosely-named Civil Service Mandarins believe that they are still playing "The Great Game", ignoring the fact that Britain is no longer a major Power.

It is a bit of a worry. To quote Oliver Hardy: "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into."  

Government guidance emphasises a “whole‑of‑society” resilience approach, advising households to follow the GOV.UK Prepare kit Be Ready - Be Ready, stay informed via the National Risk Register, and support national readiness measures outlined in the 2025 Strategic Defence Review and the 2026 Resilience Action Plan. 

Here's the the checklist:

Water: Bottled water for 3 days. 3 litres per person per day for drinking. More would be needed for other tasks such as cooking and washing. 

 Light and warmth Torch (and spare batteries). Blankets, sleeping bags and warm clothing. 

Medical and health First aid kit / first aid items. Essential medication and medical supplies. 

Food Non-perishable food for 3 days. Food with a long shelf life that doesn’t need refrigeration or cooking e.g. tinned meat, fish or vegetables, dried fruit and nuts. Communication and information FM radio (battery/ wind-up). Charged power bank. 

Baby products Baby formula. Ready-made or ‘ready-to feed’ formula is best, as you may not be able to boil water to make up powdered formula safely. Nappies and wipes. Hygiene Hand sanitiser, wet wipes, hygiene and bathroom products. 

Money and documents Cash (mix of coins and notes) and cards. Copies of IDs/documents. Important phone numbers and information (e.g. regular medication and doses). 

Pet products Pet food and bottled water. 

The government is aware that many people are living from pay day to pay day and cannot buy extra, so suggest "If you have any extra items, you could consider donating these to others who might not have the means to prepare their own household." 

I think a few bottles of something nice would be a useful addition to your store cupboard and get a water butt attached to your rainwater down pipe - so you can flush your toilet.

Government guidance is emphasising that conscription is not under consideration (the very denial kind of says that it kind of  is) and that there is no need to build shelters in your garden, if you have one. Yet. 

Wes Streeting, Defence Secretary

Streeting wrote in The Telegraph: ‘Our adversaries’ willingness to harm us is not new. What has changed is their capacity. By 2030 their force strength and war economy could put them in a position to attack. That gives us a little over 1,000 days to complete our mission: to be ready with our allies to fight and win.’

Jesus wept. These clowns have taken us back to 1939. But back then, Russia was our ally and Germany was the enemy. Just what is wrong with the human race?

To loop back, here's an edit of mr ishmael's:  Day the Stoat Killers Came, posted in 2019.

It has become normal for people not to introduce themselves but demand first your self-identification to them; we get calls all fucking day which open, Are you ishmael smith to which I reply, perfectly reasonably, that's not the question, the question is Who the fuck are you? You called me,  never mind who I am, who are you, you got no fucking manners?  
If you were a friend and had my number legitimately you'd know who I was, wouldn't you?  
Often, you can tell by the delay and the background noise  that this call is coming from a criminal call centre in Islamabad or whatever they call Delhi, these days. 
I have a formula, now, for these cunts. He or she says Good morning, Sir, how are you, I am Keith or Sally, calling from Microsoft about your computer. Ah, Keith, I say, how is your mother?  My mother? Yes, I saw your mother on the internet, last night, fucking a herd of pigs, sucking their curly cocks.  But your mother, Keith, she may be a fat, poxy old whore but at least she's honest, whereas you're just a thieving black cunt, aren't you ?  You're not Keith, you're Ahmed or something. If it's Sally on the phone  I say, Ah, Sally, you sound like a nice girl. Why don't you go and do proper prostitution, instead of trying to rob people in foreign countries, you worthless cunt.

People are quite shocked when they hear this, gasping the R word, you can't say that, ishmael.  But these people are trying to steal money from us, they are not really from Microsoft, they bought our 'phone number and they call people like us all day long, hoping to get the bank details of some poor soul and rob them;  racism be damned, they're thieving black cunts, that's what they are, they're the racists, trying to rob well-mannered British people who are soft and polite, conditioned to be nice to vermin. They have declared race war, declared that they want to rob me of what little we have. I've been here getting-on for twenty years and the most black people I have ever seen have been in my house, friends, visiting me; honest, not invent. That wouldn't wash, though, with the Virtuous, to whom it is the pious word which counts more than the deed.

 When it comes to the unwanted approach of strangers, therefore, I shoot first. She was a pleasant enough woman but she was doorstepping me and I just looked at her, like I was Zeus or Thor or Jehovah and was a heartbeat away from incinerating her on the spot, fiery-fingering both her and ShufflyMan. 

Oh, we're here about the stoats, she stammered.

The stoats?

Yes, we were wondering if we could use your land.

What, to raise stoats?

There's a big problem at the moment, with stoats.

 They're not native here, they've been introduced. 

And they have no predators.

Bit like us, you mean.

Sorry?

We don't have any predators, humankind, do we?

Oh, right, but what's happening is that the stoats are playing havoc with the ground-nesting birds and so we need to eradicate them.

How?

Oh, just with traps.

OK, and what happens to the stoats? 

Oh, they're lethal traps, she smiled a Mother Teresa  smile at me.

You kill them?

They're lethal traps, she repeated, not wanting to say the K word. Nice people don't kill things.

I walked them round the garden, her gasping at the trees and hedges, all most unusual in Orkney and very wildlife friendly, as we say, now.

What they wanted to do, themselves, in the interests of wildlife, was have a stoat-trapper come and plant his traps around my walls, they like the walls, the stoats, apparently,  and then, three weeks later,  come and empty and re-bait the traps. And then I could feel that I was doing my bit for nature, having poisoned stoat corpses lying around all over the shop.

Now, an ornithologist once told me that our garden was a miracle, it was the very first landing/nesting place for birds coming from the East and he'd counted a hundred or so different types.

I have been pruning recently and I can't move a branch, it seems, without finding a nest - people don't grow trees or hedges, here, normally, well, some incomers do but the natives don't and I can understand why, it is very hard work, what with the wind and the seasalt in it. 

The shore is about eighty metres distant and when the winds blow everything is salt abraded, I am sure you could strip a piece of furniture just by leaving it outside.
And if someone has decided that the stoats have to die, in desperate agony, alone, poisoned in a box, in order that the birds may flourish, well eradication takes on a newer, higher meaning than  when Europeans  decided that the Jews must be poisoned so that the Aryans may flourish.
I wish I'd asked Virtuous  Missy if  her  stoat eradication plan was a whatchamacallit, a Final Solution.

Animals, peoples, oceans, doesn't matter; some I-Know-Bester, like today's doorstepping halfwits will shit all over Creation and say it's for the best, no, really it is.

No, mate, yer fucked, it's Zyklon B for you.
It's the birds, they need lebensraum.
Wossat? No, mate, you don't need it just as much as they do.
Listen, mate, we're the master race around here, alright, the Devil, if you like,  and what we say goes. And that's why the planet is in such good shape.
Yeah, thousand-year EuroReich,
no problem.

If you have not yet purchased your set of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster, now might be a good time to secure your copies. Something to read in the shelter. Here's how to buy them from Amazon or Lulu. 

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: 18/10/2026

 

It seemed a good idea at the time. I had a prison visit scheduled to Dartmoor, first time for me, as my usual prisons were in the Midlands and a bit north. I could do it in a day - a long drive, but do-able, and mr ishmael, who also worked with offenders at that time,  had someone he needed to visit in Dartmoor, to do his pre release planning. So we thought it would be an educational experience to bring along the ishmaelings - both young teenagers at the time. Day out, penal history, criminal justice, most notorious prison in Britain. The youngest ishmaeling, now all grown up, relates the story over dinner tables as another shock  horror instance of my eccentric parenting. "Dartmoor," she shudders, "middle of nowhere. Miles of moor, violent criminals, 

the inscription on the prison gates reads: Parcere Subiectis (Trans: Spare the Vanquished) from Virgil's Aeneid.

left outside in the car, with only my brother, not even a packet of crisps and a bottle of pop. What if one of the murderers had escaped and hijacked the car with us in it?"
"You did so have a packet of crisps and a bottle of pop", I feebly retort, "and mr ishmael and I took it in turns to go into the prison."

"That's not how I remember it", she answered, darkly.

Dartmoor back then was a dreadful place. I remember stone corridors with water oozing down the walls, pervading cold and cables looping along the ceilings. The prison officer escorting me told me that it was built by Napoleonic prisoners of war and hadn't changed much since.

Well, it has. As you can see. The housing around it is for prison officers and is called Princetown, notable back then for the number of caravans and boats on trailers parked outside the houses. 

It was actually built by local labour to house Napoleonic prisoners of war, who were transferred there on completion of the prison in 1809, from terrible conditions on prison hulks.

The next cohort of prisoners were American sailors from the War of 1812. From the spring of 1813 until March 1815, about 6,500 were imprisoned at Dartmoor. These were either naval prisoners or impressed American seamen discharged from British vessels.  After all the American and French prisoners had been released, Dartmoor was left unused for 35 years until 1850, when the prison was recommissioned for civilian convicts. It reopened in 1851. The POW remains that had been originally buried on the moor were exhumed and re-interred in two cemeteries behind the prison when the prison farm was established in about 1852. During the First World War in 1917, criminals were removed from Dartmoor when it was converted to house Conscientious Objectors. The cells were left unlocked, inmates wore their own clothes and could go outside to visit Princetown. In 1920, the prison population again became offenders. It would develop a reputation for housing some of Britain's most serious offenders -  including murderers, gangsters, thieves, spies, and robbers such as Jack “the Hat” McVitie, Jack “Spot” Comer, John George Haigh, and Frank Mitchell. Prisoners constantly attempted to escape onto the moors, leading to massive manhunts by the police and prison service. 

Glory days. It is closed, now.

Dartmoor Prison has been closed since summer 2024 after high levels of radon gas were discovered.  All prisoners and most staff were relocated, and no reopening date has been announced.

Dartmoor can accommodate 650 prisoners. Around the same number who were released early as part of Labour's special measures release scheme this October, to free up prison places for newly sentenced offenders. Just saying.

Prince William owns Dartmoor Prison. Sort out the Radon Gas, Sir. 

I used to live in a radon gas area. Many, many people do, in Britain. The guidelines for dissipating gas in buildings include installation of vents and fans.

The  Duchy of Cornwall signed a £37m agreement in 2022 to lease the prison to the Ministry of Justice, generating rental income of £1.5m a year over 25 years. That was just two years before the prison became unusable, with the knock-on effect of  Princetown, the sole purpose of which is the support and staffing of the prison, facing ruin and unemployment. All those caravans and boats parked on prison officers' drives a thing of the distant past. Has Prince William generously excused the Ministry of Justice from paying £1.5 million a year in rent? No. Did he use the £1.5 million a year to sort out the Radon Gas? No. Has he got any plans to do so? No. Would sorting out the Radon Gas and re-opening the prison help deal with the short fall in prison beds? Yes.

So our future King has trousered £3 million in rent since Dartmoor became unusable. He regards the Radon Gas issue as the Ministry of Justice's problem, despite the Ministry being a part of his Dad's Government.

What he is planning to do was announced by Prince William's private secretary, Ian Patrick, who said: "Prince William knows that for many people in Princetown, the prison has long been part of the fabric of the community. Its closure has created genuine uncertainty, not just about jobs and businesses, but about the future of the town itself.  The duke felt strongly that, while those questions remain unanswered, the benefit of this income should remain in the community, helping local people shape that future."

So he is going to take the Ministry of Justice's money (that is, tax payers' money; that is, my money) and give it to 

the Princetown Community Fund.  And not keep a penny for himself. He will make at least £250,000 available to locally led social, economic and environmental projects. The difference between the earmarked £0.25 million and the £1.5 million rent will not personally benefit the Prince, nor will it be used to sort the fucking Radon Gas out.

Wonder what Prince Harry has to say about his older brother's largesse?

Obituary Corner: Speak nothing but ill of the Dead (continued)

All this prison talk loops me back around to the subject of last week's obituary, Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (15 April 1940 – 5 October 2026).

Sir Martin James Narey DL is a largely retired Civil Servant, Charity CEO and advisor to the British Government. He served as Director General of the Prison Service of England and Wales between 1998 and 2003, and chief executive of the National Offender Management Service from 2003 to 2005. Writing in The Spectator, he shared a few anecdotes about Baron Archer's prison days. Too good not to be shared, particularly in the light of  the sentencing judge, Mr Justice Caulfield's remarks to the jury: "Remember Mary Archer in the witness-box. Your vision of her probably will never disappear. Has she elegance? Has she fragrance?....Is he (Archer) in need of cold, unloving, rubber-insulated sex in a seedy hotel round about quarter to one on a Tuesday morning after an evening at the Caprice?"
Martin Narey, then Director General of the Prison Service,  received an indignant letter from a publican whose pub was near to North Sea Camp Prison, where Archer was held, pleading with Narey to persuade Archer to pay for the room he occasionally used on his return from day release and where – it was alleged – he met certain young women. By that time, Narey had already moved Archer back to a fully secure prison.

Narey's other anecdote relates to a lunch organised by Archer (when a serving prisoner) at a restaurant in Lincoln "to which he persuaded a senior prison officer – against all the rules – to attend. In his diaries, ludicrously and deceitfully, Archer insisted the purpose of the lunch was to discuss the drug culture in prisons. When a Sun photographer mysteriously appeared to capture the impropriety of such a scene, Archer knew that it would fuel interest in the first volume of his prison diaries which were to be published a few days later. He may have been a liar, but he was not a fool, and he will have known that the prison officer would pay for the lapse with his job. And he did, being forced to resign days later."

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

In more current matters, Zack Polanski has doubled down on his party's controversial policy. "The two-state solution is for the birds", he informed Laura Kuensberg this morning. "No, I am not sorry."

He told Laura that she is "a-historical" regarding the right of Israel to exist as a state and spent some time telling us about the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November 1917. The Declaration was a British government statement, issued by Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Rothschild, expressing support for establishing “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. More than a hundred years ago.  Since then, of course, the modern Jewish state of Israel was proclaimed on May 14, 1948, in Tel Aviv by David Ben-Gurion, who became the first Prime Minister of Israel, marking the first Jewish state in nearly 2,000 years, establishing Israel as a homeland for the Jewish people, guaranteeing equality and freedom for all its inhabitants regardless of religion, race, or sex. On  May 11th 1949, Israel was admitted as a full member of the United Nations.  Zack, of course, has form for failing to recognise facts - something about the efficacy of breast enlargement through hypnotherapy? 

Fortunately, our Zack does not have a Parliamentary seat, and a substantial section of his own party hate him, so a defenestration is probably on the cards. Zack is a Jew, brought up in what he describes as a "Zionist" household. What could possibly have shaped his thinking?

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

Across the Channel, our hereditary enemy, France, appears to have declared war on itself.

For god's sake, Andy Burn'em must be prevented from "creating closer ties" with these mad bastards.

I fear censorship is coming to our Blog and to the published anthologies.If you have not yet purchased your set of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster, now might be a good time to secure your copies. Here's how to buy them from Amazon or Lulu. 

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: 11/10/2026

 Young, enthusiastic and wholly wrong-headed, Michael Wakelyn-Green, a Green Party activist, was ripped a new arsehole on the Camilla Tominey politics show this morning. 

What possessed the lad to subject himself to the gladiatorial skills of the cold-blooded Tominey? Vanity and ambition, I suspect. I daresay the extra arsehole will come in useful in the career he has mapped out for himself in Green politics. 

A clear case of nominative determinism, poor young Michael, or Mister Wakelyn-Green, as Tominey icily addressed him, was  destined from birth to make a cunt of himself on national television, advocating the Green Party's new policy. For those that missed it, here's the Green Party's own press release about its position, established at the 2026 conference, following a vote of 1022 in favour with 813 against. The party's leader, Zack Polanski, was not in the hall and did not vote.

"The motion sets out the Party’s opposition to Zionism, defined as an ethnonationalist political project ....... The motion reasserts the Party’s commitment to Palestinian liberation, the right of return, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), and a full arms embargo against Israel. The motion also restates the Green Party’s backing for the right to self-determination and calls for the establishment of a single democratic state throughout historic Palestine".

The motion has caused the most awful fuss, establishing the Green Party once and for all as really not being about green energy and saving the whales. With a bit of luck, it may see off Zack, of the permanent dirty stubble and appalling dentistry, 

who failed to win a seat at the by-election for Holburn and St. Pancras, losing to Sagal Abdi-Wali, a Somalian, who secured 12,292 votes to Polanski's 8,928.

Back to Mr. Wakelyn-Green, interrupted in his little rant about colonialisation and expansionism by Tominey, who asked him what his understanding of  Zionism is, responded: "we're into semantics now and I do quite agree that it is a complex issue". 

Tominey asked him to consider the meaning of a single democratic state throughout historic Palestine.  "The motion wants Israel to be wiped from the map, doesn't it?" 

Visibly angry, she gave Mr Wakelyn-Green the opportunity to have a little think about Judea - the clue being in the name.
He doubled down: "Israel does not have the right to exist, but people do have the right to exist. Israelis will live with dignity and respect in the state of Palestine. They will have democratic representation."

Good luck with that one, lad. 

Good thing he is qualified to pursue a career outside politics - his LinkedIn page tells us that he holds a "Level 2 Mental Health First Aid & Mental Health Advocacy in the workplace".

It would be rather nice if the indignation that this Green policy has created turns the corner in the distressing anti-Semitism that is now a feature of Britain. And just why exactly can't the relevant authorities ban the pro Palestinian, anti Israel marches that disfigure London on a regular and frequent basis? Especially the one that celebrated the invasion of Israel by Gazans on October 7th 2023?

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

In other news, John Swinney, who now looks like an entirely bald, 

very clean old  man, undertook to return the £400,000 embezzled from Party Funds by Mr. Peter Murrell to the SNP members who raised the money.

He told Laura this morning that the most likely route to get the cash back from Murrell was through the courts. Maybe he has in mind a  sequestration order. So would that be levied against former matrimonial assets? Maybe Nicola needs to try and pick up some more television work? A spot in Traitors, perhaps?

Swinney has been conspiring with the nationalist leaders of the United Kingdom's other devolved nations - Wales and Northern Ireland, and confidently declared that now he has got a stonking majority from the people of Scotland, for another five years, he is going to deliver independence.

Perhaps Prime Minister Burnham needs to read Verse 6 of the National Anthem: 
"Lord grant that Marshal Wade, 

May by thy mighty aid, 

Victory bring. 

May he sedition hush, 

And like a torrent rush, 

Rebellious Scots to crush, 

God Save the King."

Obituary Corner: Speak Nothing But Ill of the Dead

Another Colourful Old Bastard Dies. 

Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (15 April 1940 – 5 October 2026), was an English novelist, politician and convicted criminal. He survived allegations of insider trading, near bankruptcy and misrepresentation of academic qualifications to obtain entry to Brasenose College, Oxford.

Archer was the deputy chairman of the Conservative Party from 1985 to 1986; he resigned after a newspaper accused him of paying £2000 to a prostitute, Monica Coghlan, to go abroad. In 1987, he won a libel suit against the paper and was awarded large damages because of this claim. 

Explaining the payment to Coghlan as the action of a philanthropist rather than that of a guilty man, Archer won his case and was awarded £500,000 damages. Mr Justice Caulfield was particularly smitten by the evidence given by Archer's wife at that time, Mary.  Caulfield advised the jury "Remember Mary Archer in the witness-box. Your vision of her probably will never disappear. Has she elegance? Has she fragrance? Would she have, without the strain of this trial, radiance? How would she appeal? Has she had a happy married life? Has she been able to enjoy, rather than endure, her husband Jeffrey?" The judge then went on to say of Jeffrey Archer: "Is he in need of cold, unloving, rubber-insulated sex in a seedy hotel round about quarter to one on a Tuesday morning after an evening at the Caprice?" Says rather more about Judge Caulfield's interests than Jeffrey Archer's.

Made a life peer in 1992 and subsequently the first Conservative candidate to be selected as a candidate for mayor of London, Archer ended his candidacy in 1999 after it emerged that he had lied in the case in 1987. In 2001, he was sentenced to four years in prison for perjury and perverting the course of justice. 

Ringo  Starr said of him: "He strikes me as a nice enough fella, but he's the kind of bloke who would bottle your piss and sell it."

Not even the BBC pretended that he was a national treasure, the best they could manage being complex character and lovable rogue, although he added much to the gaiety of the nation.

 I had no idea he was quite such a prolific writer, churning out 29  novels, 7 short story collections, 3 prison diaries, 3 plays, and 11 children’s books, along with other stories and works. I've never read any of them, I am proud to say, but quite a few other people have lapped them up - his stuff has sold over 300 million copies worldwide. Apparently, he is one of the most successful contemporary British authors, according to his own website. I searched for an ishmaelian rant about Archer, being quite sure that there must be one, because mr ishmael loathed and detested him. There was a copy of Archer's first Prison Diary on the bookshelves once over, and I'm assuming mr ishmael at least dipped into it, but I couldn't find anything in the archive. So, instead, here is mr ishmael's conclusion to the Book of Common Pulp, his take down of popular fiction:

"There is, actually, only one Book of Common Pulp. 

 It comes as the illuminated Lindisfarne Gospel and  the Book of Kells; as the Compleat Works of Shakespeare and  the gilded, leather-bound King James Bible;  the dog-eared Penguin Lady Chatterley's Lover and the intangible, Kindleised Fifty Shades of Grey, and it comes, lonely, lewd and lustful, written on the cyber toilet-wall.  

We tell each other the same story, over and over and over again, of war and peace, of life and death, love and hate, feast and famine, vice and virtue, the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to and the lifting-up of our eyes unto the hills."

The Cautious Traveller's Guide to Days Out in the English Countryside.

1. Terraced Gardens     There's a reason for the terraces. Those Victorian and Edwardian owners weren't planning for people with dodgy knees who have left their Nordic walking poles at home. They saw a steep hillside and thought, "Excellent. Let's build seven terraces and a water feature." The more impressive the photographs in the handbook or magazine, the more likely you'll find yourself halfway up, looking for somewhere to sit down  and wondering whether the gardeners abseil.  
2. The Rustic Café, with authentically primitive toilet arrangements, lacking hot water/soap/toilet paper/towel. Menu items to avoid: "Home-Made Sandwich" - generally two hearty, seeded doorstep slabs of bread with improbable quantities of mayonnaise and chopped egg. "Home-Made Tomato and Basil Soup"- Open tin of chopped tomatoes. Apply industrial microwave. Scatter basil. If they are going to open a tin, why not a tin of Heinz Cream of Tomato, that most nourishing and soothing of soups? "Home-Made Quiche" - a dense, cold wedge of eggy concrete.  Actually, avoid anything saying it is "home made". 
3. Uninhabited stone ruins under the stewardship of English Heritage or the National Trust. With the heads of dead animals stuffed and mounted on the walls. You'll need to take your inhaler. 

If you have not yet purchased your set of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster, here's how to buy them from Amazon or Lulu. 

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.