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.

The Sunday Ishmael: 04/10/2016

 

What the hell were they thinking? Oh yes, they weren't thinking at all. On account of not having grown brains yet. Brains that can detect acts of provocation, can link actions to consequences, and can advise caution. That can think beyond money and celebrity.

Narcissistic, smug, self satisfied, failed and/or disgraced former politicians "acted" in a dangerous piece of television nonsense that aired on Sky television between the 21st to the 24th September 2026. The concept was that a fictional Russian attack was launched on Britain by Russia in 2027, and that bloody Michael Gove was Prime Minister.

A post that he was never able to achieve in real life, despite wishing really, really, hard.

Mind you, he was not the only one of the crew of failed/and/or disgraced former politicians to give themselves fantasy jobs in this alternative reality.

Nicola Sturgeon got to be Deputy Prime Minister. No, really.

That's the campervan bought with SNP party funds by Sturgeon's jail-bird husband, being seized by Scottish police.

Jim Murphy got to be Foreign Secretary, while Harriet Harman played the Home Secretary. Sadly, Penny Mordaunt, Sword Bearer,

appeared as Defence Secretary.  She isn't my hero anymore. Especially after her bit on the Laura Kuenssberg Politics Show today, when she revealed her ambition to get back on what she called "the squad" and has applied for selection as an MP, having promised to change all her former policies and principles and do anything Kemi demanded.

Wiki's episode by episode description will inform you - if you can be bothered - how the story unfolds to the point of Michael Gove declaring war on Russia, resulting in strikes against Kaliningrad and Murmansk inflicting heavy casualties on Russian forces and hitting  targets in close proximity to Russian nuclear weapons facilities. 

Sky has admitted the heavy use of generative AI to produce scenes showing Russian attacks on targets in the United Kingdom and fake TikTok clips from real-life influencers demonstrating public reaction to government decisions.

What the actual fuck, as the young people say nowadays? What did they think Putin was going to make of all that? The notoriously thin-skinned Putin, who has already withdrawn his ambassador from Britain? 

Speaking at the Valdai Discussion Club in Moscow on Thursday, Putin warned the Western allies to cease their escalation in Ukraine, stressing he's willing to use "all weapons" in the Russian arsenal in the scenario that Russia's exclave of Kaliningrad comes under attack.

"The drills in the Baltic Sea, following one another… Then the attempts to arrest our ships and vessels. All this is an escalation. And then we began to hear statements regarding the Kaliningrad region. If it comes to direct attack against the Russian Federation, in this case on Kaliningrad and possibly some other territories, of course the issue of using all weapons in our country’s arsenal will inevitably and unavoidably emerge on the agenda. This is unavoidable." 

NATO held recent military drills near Kaliningrad which Putin referenced in his remarks.

The warning sent to NATO echoed statements issued by several Russian embassies in Europe this week which said that Moscow has "information that NATO is preparing (an) air and naval blockade of Kaliningrad and Kaliningrad region."

Moscow at the start of the week took the rare step of sending a formal letter to NATO leadership in Brussels.

The letter accused NATO of an "unprecedented escalation of the military-political situation around Russia's region of Kaliningrad accompanied by highly provocative public statements by NATO Allies' officials. This dangerous and reckless course entails high risk of the outbreak of a direct armed conflict with the possibility of Russian strikes against decision-making centres of the alliance's member states right from the outset of the conflict." 

I hope Sky is congratulating itself on a job well done. Was it any good, this show that seems to be precipitating World War Three? Lucy Mangan reviewed it for the Guardian. "Gove, Harman and Sturgeon are fabulously awful. Stiff, self-conscious, self-important, entirely unable to give any portion of themselves up to the purported reality or the flow of the thing. Sturgeon is an alternately whining and furious goblin, Harman a disappointed schoolmarm and, though I suspect he is desperate to do so, Gove cannot modulate his perma-condescending tone – whether he is addressing his fellow cabinet members, his military advisers or the nation."

There will be plenty Sky viewers out there who now believe that Gove is indeed Prime Minister and that Russia has engaged in an escalating series of attacks on Britain and those viewers will be clamouring to join up to do their bit. Maybe that was the purpose after all.

OBITUARY CORNER:  Another National Treasure Dies.

From mr ishmael's archives.

Aghast and open-mouthed I can watch all sorts of rubbish on the box. mrs ishmael often enquires You gotta brain the size of the planet, why're you watching this shit and I always respond Because it is;  even so,  I have never been able to tolerate Cruelty TeeVee and have been banging-on about it for as long as me and stanislav have been blogging.

I guess it started in this country with nonce-lover, Esther Rantzen,  and her hideous smirk-show, That's Life. 

this below, from Victor Lewis-Smith in the Evening Standard:

THAT'S LIFE!

In life, there are some certainties. Tributes always flood in (they never trickle), lucre is always filthy, virtues are always extolled, rises are always meteoric, gauntlets are always run. And on That's Life!, no matter how pitifully tragic a story they might be relating, you won't have to wait long for a gratuitous mention of either willies or titties. This week we had both.

It's significant that the first word in the opening titles is "Help" because Esther and her catatonic catamites desperately need some. For twenty-one years they've been getting away with murder - shamelessly repeating the same shallow format of vulgar misprints mixed with tales of stupid people who've given money to clever people - but now their show is on Death Row, with the execution date already fixed. On Saturday night, the Patron Saint of Patronisers appeared, wearing a startled expression usually only seen on the faces of blow-up sex dolls, and dressed in a yellow number that made her look like a tube of mustard surmounted by Shergar's teeth. She'd even chosen to make her entrance through the studio audience; presumably, she thought ordinary people might like a last chance to touch the hem of her garment, before she departs at Easter.

By piggy-backing on Atrocity Ratso managed eventually to deify herself, well, in her own eyes, anyway.
Her dodgy past, though, as dodgy pasts do, caught up with her and with her customary psychopathic bare-faced  cheek

 

the mangy old crow claimed that when, years ago, she was sucking Sir Nicky Fairbairn, MP's cock she didn't know that  he rammed it up children, was a child rapist and maybe much worse. 
Well, how would she?

 Rantzen, had not at that point opportunistically developed her self-glorifying, phoney Childline persona and the ability to spot a nonce at a hundred metres, unless it was Sir Jimmy Savile.

I can do this to your cock, I'd  love the taste of broken  children on it. Why don't we start a charity. for abused children, yeah, I know, hilarious. But we'd make a fortune.

No, you're alright, love, a bit old for me; twelve, thirteen, that's my top limit.

or indeed any other pushy, showy pervert fingering, buggering and murdering his way through a gilded  career in MediaMinster.

Rantzen's That's Life schtick was as Lewis-Smith describes, the cruel and spiteful  presentation of the foibles of the poor by the mocking rich.  The flea-bitten old slag can take historical credit not for helping children but for inventing Cruelty TeeVee, a genre in which people who have been to university, people who have had  the good fortune to receive a bit of education mock, lampoon and ridicule those less fortunate.

Arise Dame Esther.  

Rantzen, after a lifetime of trashing around with filth, has been made one of our betters, or that's the theory; now all those screeching panel show hosts, on whose shows the ghastly old crow continues to sicken the nation will have to refer to her more respectfully. A manky  old cheapshit dame for cheapshit telly.

Run by Oxbridgers, homosexuals, child molesters and thieves, the PBC is Rantzen's home away from home and it was there that she revealed her true grimy,  showbiz colours;  she was reading the notification of her bauble, she hissed, and her daughter started dancing round the kitchen in delight and then, as the news sunk in, Esther, too, started dancing round the kitchen with her.  Rantzen the nonces' friend and champion had been given an award in recognition of her role in a showbiz child protection scam;  dancing, mind, dancing.

GOOD DOG, ESTHER

A mad dog is to stand as an independent candidate in Luton, should there be a general election. Well, you know, everybody says I'm crazy and I am, says the horrid, mouthy old bitch, but you see I just can't fade away and go into an old dogs' home, not after I have been so famous. Do you want to see my thong? Grrr, grrrr. Vote for me, help teach an old dog new tricks.

Emeritus professor of Newsnight Review and ludicrous Big Brother contestant, Dr Germaine Greer, below

said "That toothy old Sheila bangs like a shithouse door in a gale, probably fuck her way through the constituency, if she can be an MP so can I, 'strewth, I been on as much telly as her. (sings) Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters..."
Professor Greer has issued this leaflet as the opening shot in her election campaign,

which, it is said, has Ms Rantzen, seventy-tooth, sorry, seventy-two, biting her tail in rage.

Yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp, yelp, whine, whine, whine, whine; over-rehearsed, platitudinous, corny, tub-thumping, shameless, self-promotion after over-rehearsed, platitudinous, corny…. etc., etc..

God Al-fucking-Mighty, cry Havoc and let slip the Dogs of Ruin; Esther fucking Rantzen, Jesus fucking Wept.

I WANNA BE ELECTED, MS RANTZEN, 71.

It's all quite appalling, said toothy old dog, Esther, a fierce self-publicist, I haven't been on TV for ages, despite my thong and everything, at least this way I shall be on TV all the time, again. Wanna see my teeth, big boy ? I'm a widow, y'know.

Fuck me, no, said the Luton voter, first Mags DryRot and now this brazen old minger, shouldering her way in. Next thing it'll be Wotsername, the old drunk, FagAsh Lil, Germane Greer, the female bollock, her, off the telly. It's the BNP for me, lads.

Revealing her true colours in an interview with the PBC:

  Well, Jonathan, and I agree with all the other members of the panel, except that I'd like to talk about myself, now that I'm a politician and people in my constituency tell me that it's time I did something Rantzenish. And that's just what I'm gonna do. No, I'm not gonna show you my thing, I mean my thong, however (ghastly, nightmare, coquettish grin-cum-snarl) much you'd like me to. But instead I'm gonna do something which showed just how wonderful and caring and suited for Power I am. Listeners may remember...

 If you could get .....

  ....no, Jonathan, I am, really I am, and let's face it, I did run the most successful television show ever, for forty years, so I'm sure I can hold down this little slot, here, on Radio Fuddy-Duddy, without boring too many of your one-foot-in-the-gravers......

.......to the point

   .........and so the thing is, that, you know how we did KidsLine, or whatever it was, and immediately stopped all forms of child abuse, or at least got my picture in the paper - still does, actually, from time to time - and gave the little darlings something to talk to strangers about, on the phone, I mean, does it matter if it was true, it's the kids who matter here...

   ..if you would just

  ......and so I thought I'd do the same with the boys - and maybe the girls, but I'm not too sure about them, bit butch, by all accounts - out there in Kuwait, or wherever, and that I could be their sweetheart, I could be there, on the end of the Troopsline telephone, I mean they're not all gay, not even the First Batallion, The Queen's Own Nancyboys, and maybe they'd just like to talk privately to a hot-blooded, mature woman who knows what makes men tick and who might be able to offer them some relief from all that dreadful stress, I mean seeing how they're fighting and dying for us I could do them at £1.50 a minute, Troopsline With Esther, the Forces' GrannySlutBint....
  ......shut the fuck up.

TALK TO THE MERRY WIDOW OF LUTON

£1.50 PER MINUTE.

NATURE CORNER

By way of a palate cleanser.

Climbing the hill that rises behind my Yorkshire village the other afternoon, we noticed a wind hover riding the currents,  high in the intense blue October sky,  swooping and soaring. Just then, like two fighter planes scrambling to intercept incomers, two crows launched themselves at the kestrel, one feinting, the other swooping down and driving it back. It recovered and returned to the fight, when, amazingly, one crow flew in close and pecked its wing, causing its complete retreat.

Every leaf speaks bliss to me

Fluttering from the autumn tree.

   Emily Bronte

And in Orkney news, the Genesis fishing boat struck rocks off the west coast of the island of Hoy and issued a mayday call last week. The RNLI lifeboat from Stromness turned out, along with coastguard helicopters from Sumburgh and Stornoway, and the Northlink passenger ferry Hamnavoe, which launched its fast-rescue boat.

All of the crew members were winched to safety by a Coastguard helicopter and taken to shore.

The fishing boat remains grounded and the coastguard tug and counter pollution teams have been sent to the scene.

A Maritime and Coastguard Agency spokesperson said: "Just after 06:30 on 1 October, HM Coastguard received a report that a fishing vessel with 17 people on board had gone aground at the Old Man of Hoy, Orkney Islands and was in need of immediate assistance.

"The vessel also issued a Mayday asking for assistance to evacuate the people on board."

Image source,

Police Scotland and Scottish Ambulance Service were also in attendance.

The HM Coastguard Emergency Towing Vessel (ETV) has been dispatched and the HM Coastguard Counter Pollution team and other relevant authorities have been informed.

Mark Wrigley, from Leeds, who was on the Hamnavoe said an announcement was made telling passengers the ferry was going to assist. He said: "It was quite a distance but you could quite clearly see a boat on the rocks and there was a couple of boats in the water. The RNLI were there and then they were joined by a coastguard helicopter."

He said rescuers winched the fishermen into the helicopter two at a time very close to the Old Man of Hoy rocks.

"I was absolute in awe of the people who were doing the rescue," he added.

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

If you have enjoyed mr ishmael's obituary of Esther Rantzen today (never speak good of the dead), and you haven't 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.