Friday, 18 September 2026

All the leaves are brown

That's summer done with for another year. As you know, I'm off on holiday, so I thought I'd leave you something to read in my absence. No apologies for re-posting, as it is stanislav on cracking form.
 Summer with stanislav, a memoir. 

stanislav visitors have, come up in Scotland, best part of England, from Western Middle Lands.  Is old chum and Mrs but fuck me, is pain in bastard arse.  Drive down in stanislav lane ripping-up hedge with big fuck-off mobile home, not Winnebago or anything, just load of plywood and teak-effect plastic shoved inside big, noisy Citroen diesel van, banging and fucking clattering to wake the fucking dead, engine sound like someone shaking set of spanners inside biscuit tin – come in, mind your head, whoops, watch that step, look, looks like cupboard but press this handle and look...... is ok, work in a minute..... stick sometimes, have to take back to dealer and get fix, is only toothing trouble, three-piece suite and coffee table normally fold out from tiny little cupboard so guest and fellow campervanners can sit around in shorts, singing and having good time, like fucking Hitler Youth - cost forty fucking grand, honest, not invent, forty fucking grand, can buy stonking BMW and still stay in top jolly hotel for forty fucking grand and also not be driving about with shit cassette under feet.
Is call cassette but is shit bucket just as same.  stanislav plumber is but draw fucking line at driving around in mobile toilet and need airfield to turn around in bastard thing.  How would look in car crash, shit flying all over the shop and bog roll, only is not proper bog roll but that stuff, thin and cold, IZAL, good for fuck all, not even for wiping of arsehole which is supposed to be; every bastard with mobile home has IZAL toilet paper, only isn’t toilet paper but bad fucking joke, like in Viz magazine, or Jeyes, sometime is Jeyes but same old fucking rubbish is.  What for you have this fucking rubbish? Is bad enough  take dump in van like fucking savage but then can’t even wipe rusty sheriff badge clean but instead smear shit all over bottom, like Jock,  or finger go through and get all filthied-up with spread-out bit of shit, better would be with handful of grass from roadside and never mind IZAL trick bogroll.  Manufacturer of IZAL is rolling about on floor, laughing off bollocks at mobile home driver and boy scout. Fucking stuff medicated is called, IZAL Medicated, like arse and fingers and underpant covered in shit is some kind of medicated.
Is all to do with weight, says chum, like was fucking Apollo mission and not rust-before-your-eyes plumber van conversion, it’s lighter.  Lighter? Is fucking rubbish is what it is. Is better off not wipe arse at all and hope for best and have good half hour in bidet at home than fuck about with IZAL.  Can stay in Travelodge for nearly fuck all and take dog, Buster, and get breakfast…. Ah, but we were able to pull over by a lochside and smugly make a cup of smug tea and no milk because I am watching my cholesterol and I drink Redbush tea because I like to think that everytime I have a cuppa some money is going to those huge traditionally-built women in Botswanaland, even though it isn’t. So fucking what, is fucking Thermos flask in Tesco for fiver and not forty fucking grand. And not get disenfranchised in great arse-wiping  democracy of Life. 
And mould is growing all around windows, would be alright on narrow boat down canal with old codgers in waistcoat and moleskin trouser and kerchief round fucking neck, like cunt, walk upside-down through fucking tunnel and stop at Black Country pub like was Fred fucking Dibnah and eat faggot and fucking pea, mould is quite decorative but rubbish all the same, never get mould growing on BMW.  And can sleep, reclined,  in   shiny black Seven series bought for a few grand and park near public toilet - only not in Wales or anywhere is lorry drivers, could solve all murder or nearly all, apart from people killed by constabulary in split-second, life-saving, empty-magazine-in-skull decision, just by putting all lorry driver in fucking Dartmoor, just round the bastards up, especially those cunts in ties, lorry driver in fucking tie,  who ever heard of such shit, needs quick rub-down with housebrick, fucking bastards, "wear this fucking tie under your brown overalls and salute every bastard who look in your cab". Best is to go in fucking hotel with four stars on,  like Christian and not sleep in smelly old van like Pikey. Maybe Pikey is Christian but act even less like Christian than proper Christian, like Presbyterian nutter in Downing Street, horrible fucking bastard.   stanislav have many disagreeable encounter with Pikey and is unfailingly bastard and put in jail should be. Is only any good for go and live next door to Tessa fucking Jowell and burn tyres in field. Get Pikey come and do tarmac in plumbing yard once and fuck me was like surface of fucking moon. Is rude, ignorant, thieving, cheating, smelly useless bastard and sonoffuckingbitch, every single one has ever met is nasty arsehole, is not prejudice, is what clever bastard call empiricism, never in whole life has met Pikey was good for fuck all - And also in Beemer  can go up motorway at hundred and twenty miles an hour  at 500 rpm and not trundle along at sixty with engine banging and shit bucket slopping everywhere and exhaust fume pouring in. Fucking rubbish. Can buy eight good BMW for cost of smelly old van falling to bits and never in a hundred years work right; wiring is always wrong, turn on tap and hazard lights flash, fridge is always fucked, cooker only fucking work on fucking Wednesday, never mind,  can get fish and chip,  and eat in van, all relaxed, maybe with door open and swarm of midge sucking blood from fucking body and transfusion will need from nearest hospital a hundred fucking miles away, and if shunt has fucking thing falls apart like was made by life-sentence prisoner out of  Swan Vestas and blow away down fucking motorway in splinter and bits of shit plastic and gay crewcut Motorway Old Bill in hi-vis jacket stand smirking, looking to make arrest, because all copper is bastard, right?  as if forty grand blowing  away down Southbound M6 is not enough shit for one day. Allo allo allo, sir, what's all this not here then ? Can’t stand-up and walk about in BMW but can’t stand-up and walk about in camper van, either, only after  fashion  - stoop over, just right to get slip fucking disc and scream like bastard and wind up with blue badge on car and every bastard saying You ain’t disabled, disabled people no legs has, look, you legs has got, is fucking cheat and steal my parking space, I could go in there  - or if is dwarf, like Hazel Blears, can jump up and down in campervan. But no use is to normal-size person.  Fred West had fucking camper van and look at him, spent his spare time chopping people up, squeeze into box and bury under patio, like on Brookside. Fred was made mad  having to cope with life inside rubbish camper van, driving round Forest of fucking Dean, banging fucking head and choking on shit fumes and pots and pans falling out from cupboard every time is a bend, no fucking wonder was serial killer.  Was very nice bloke by all accounts, apart from being raving lunatic and him and Rose killing people, mainly children. Bit like Tony and Imelda, only not so accomplished.
Retirement, something happens and every bastard wants to sleep in van at lochside, is like Candice Marie and Keith, from Nut in May, pair of stupid, fucked-up, calorie-counting, bird-watching, shitbrain useless mouthy bastard, only on wheels, Look at Us, here we are in our camper van, Silver FoxesRus.  Can’t change fucking fuse at home and have to become best friends for life  with builder and electrician and Godfather to all their horrible bastards or else house fall down but see a camper van and metamorphose into capable, derring fucking do Kings From Wild Frontier.
Often see iron-muscled, greyhair German lesbian professors riding round High Jocklands, crying, on big, farty Harley-Davidsons and that’s OK, apart from being Dykes and Hermans, of course. Always seem to be crying over some lost Helga, I giff her all zat money und pussy-munching und still she haf run away mit filthy man, Donner und Blitzen, mit nasty cock und balls, ze dirty bitch, how I loved mein Helga und zis how she treat me is, I vill ride up to John of Groat and drive into ze Pentland Firth und drown, or maybe I vill go back in Stuttgart und check-out zat little minx,  Heidi, mit ze pigtails. And is other band of nutters who jump on bicycle and pedal like demented hobgoblin speedfreaks  up  highest roads in the country shouting Gimme A Fucking Heart Attack, I Can’t Stand Being A Teacher For Another Twenty Years! Is fucking rubbish, driving in High Jockland in Summertime. Road is rubbish at best of time but filled-up with Herman lesbian Hells Angel and  demented lunatic nutter on bikes and smug bastard in camper vans is like something off Prisoner programme with Patrick McGoohan, dead now, of course, but was nearly a hundred and so never mind. I’ll be seeing you. But not for a very, very long time.
These two are old friends otherwise should have said when they arrive, OK van is so good, sleep in fucking van and not come in stanislav gaff with proper toilet and bathroom and quadruple thickness Andrex bogroll and bed made from treewood with sheet and pillow made of Egyptian fucking cotton from Mark and Spencer and not made from Jap wipe-clean fucking plastic, like in van and Mr not have to go and stumble round in dark, thistly wilderness while Mrs takes dump in van and vice versa, look, is toilet each, both can go and dump, and not in fucking bedroom.  Joined together in holy deadlock is all very well but is only for sick and health and rich or poor and not for content of bowels, unless, of course, is Liberal Democrat.
stanislav and Mrs stay in hotel often and is always en fucking suite arrangement, as though having shithouse in bedroom was great idea and height of civilisation and everything and get extra stars off extortionist bastard at JockTourist Board and AA, as though ancestors come crawling out from sea and into cave and up fucking tree and across plain and make tools and farming and Internet just so’s can have shit in bedroom, fuck me, was better off in fucking ocean at least can swim away from turd and not have to pretend is no smell. Oh, fuck me, visitors, this is the Executive Master Bedroom, look, has fitted wardrobe and matching bedside table all made from best compressed Executive cardboard to match and tone-in with the one-inch skirting board, and this, this little plywood cupboard over here, in the corner, this is the shithouse, opening right up into the bedroom, it is a miserable stinky little shithouse but we call it the Ahn Sweet, windows? no, fuck me, it doesn't have any windows.  But it has an automatic six-volt extraction fan which sometimes works but not very well. Soundproof? No, not really, the Mrs and I just love to lie here listening to each other farting and splashing and splattering away, it's quite romantic really, especially after a night on the Vindaloo and we both have a case of le posterieur flambee and it sounds like the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is rehearsing in there. We call it a pebble-dashing moment. Quite romantic.  Clean my teeth ? Course I clean my teeth.  And yes, I do keep my toothbrush in the Ahn  Sweet shithouse. What of it?
But Mrs and stan would rather have third degree constipation than use ensuite for anything else but having shower in, and maybe steal towel or two. Is easy to go down to shithouse in bar or dining room and not stink-up bedroom which is bad enough, anyway, with dog, Buster, is old boy now and sometimes stink like rotten hedgehog although since several hundred pound of VetBastardUlike dental work is not so bad, or only from one end anyway.  Can never understand why anybody would think that combine shithouse and bedroom is good idea. But is better than ensuite camper van. Imagine, on some lonely mountainside, is in pitch black and hubby goes for walk with dog, so Mrs can dump in private and comes back and find Mrs sat outside van in gale and is saying Would give it half of fucking hour, darling,  before going in there is.
But it wasn’t just the van. Fuck me, no.
To be continued........

Anyway, bad from fucking worse is gone to. This year is outbreak of SilverFox Hell Angel lunacy. Is not just poxy shit van clogging-up on fucking motorway and can’t even stop in layby because of too many smug  old bastards sitting  at table outside van, drinking FairfuckingTrade cuppa, not too strong and made with  pissmilk and handful of sweetener for heart and horrid old legs all fucked-up with varicose veins and every bastard can see because of shorts, even though brass bollocks would freeze-off from monkey, up here in Scotland, best part of England, Is fucking nuisance, vanhome driver, no fucker wants to see countryside all fucked up with horror show of pasty old bastard sunbathing in fucking public  and probably pile has got, too, all around arsehole, and maybe hanging-out, from sitting outside in short and fucking gale blowing is up arse from Arctic fucking Circle and mean tight-fisting use of Izal joke bogroll but isn’t roll but leaves of piss-thin hard shiny so-call toiletpaper and good for fuck all is and not only hand goes through and covered-up in shit is but fucking watertap in van not working as usual is and no matter what vanman does, is standing with cheeks of arse as far apart as possible is, which is not very much, and keeping shitfinger hand up in air and trying hard not to do breathing-in and  stomping on little foot switch to make water come and at least can wash fucking shit off from hand but instead  of water coming from tap fucking hazard light  coming on is instead. And radio. Is Radio Scotland and, believe stanislav,  is worst noise since beginning of time and big fucking bang. Radio Scotland is all run by homo, in skirt, call Jamie and Fergus and Donald and just dreadful noise is of bagpipe, fuck me, sounds like massacre in cat sanctuary, run by mad  old lady who is dead in living room from hypothermia from  spending all money on Kit-E-Kat and cruel, wicked bastard at Scottish  fucking Gas has cut off power and local nutter with chainsaw bought from car boot sale  has seize golden opportunity and  old lady’s assorted cats disembowlered is being, one at a time, by giggling nutter, Here, Kitty-Kitty, Here Kitty- Kitty so even cats not actually being mutilated to death is all freaked out and screeching and climbing up cage walls, Radio Scotland bagpipe concert is worse than massive cat massacre.  And then is worse, is fucking Jock Polka music, play on wheezy old accordion,  made from shiny tin and plastic and sacking and hundreds of fucking keys and buttons so many that playing it must hit and fucking miss be, sounds like it, anyway, is like Oompah band from Black Forest, but backwards. And is for decrepit old Jock  in wig and false tooth and skirt to seduce old lady Jock down in Clackmacfuckery Village Hall and feel-up have of her bony old arse before the bus comes to take him back to the old Jocks’ home. The one with the Polish nurses. And would ye be doin’ me the honour of having the next Polka with me, Jings, but you’re a right bonny lass, indeed y’are, he leers, at a spindle-thin, one foot in the grave,  eighty year old,  the dirty filthy old bastard, Bagpipe, fiddle and accordion Polka music.  Is Radio Scotland music, hour after fucking hour, is worse than Hell. Anyway hazard light flashing off and on, is nightmare noise from radio, and  can’t wash hand or wipe arse  and  better off dead would be, or at very least in fucking prison where vanmadness  opportunity is minimal, so bloke has to go outside with shorts round ankle and grab handful of grass and wipe arse and fingers like fucking savage is and fucking van cost forty fucking grand and every bastard knows that grass up arse is primary cause of pile, especially when is  not even fucking grass but fucking thistle. And people going past in proper car all shouting and hooting is, Look, silly old bastard, sticking thistle up arse, must demented be, maybe is Terry fucking Pratchett and suicide attempting is by anal lacerations off thistle, is fucking really mad, fuck me, don’t wanna get that dementia rubbish and run around like loony, with shorts round ankles  and  thistle and nettles up arse and shit on fingers.
 Best thing in situation like this is stick shitty fingers in ground as if shovel was and keep on stabbing in ground until has hand covered in just dirt and not shit and can touch clothing, then is to remove short and use y-front underpant to wipe off arse and when no-one passing is in proper car, throwaway  in hedge,  only not where dog, Jasper, can go and pull out and start to eat and maybe get Y-front stuck over head and normal bastard, going past in proper car is on mobile phone to cop and RSPCA,  Allo? Allo? ….Is polis? Right… SeeYouJimmy?.....   Is fucking pervert here, on A9,  and dog has got head in underpants and poo….  Nah, is not skidmark,……is proper poo…dunno…..might be dogpoo…but might be yuman poo…bloke looks like fucking nutter and thistle has sticking out from arse…I know….all sorts takes,….but fuck me, Jesus….and shit has got all over hand….no….is not car………van is….with awning and elevating roof….no, is not Volkswagen…..is Hobbyhome….no…straightup….is call Hobbyhome, Yeah, is plumbervan, all filled up with plywood furniture and things that don’t work. Better come and arrest him,  aye, before he starts sticking yon fucking thistles up the puir wee  dog’s ….Aye, English by the look of him.
But the main innovation  in vanworld this year, was the motor scooter, all tied-up on the back, clever, see, when you get to favoured lochside cup of smug tea position - assuming is space and not all occupy is by other  greyhair, varicose-vein, pile-smitten  SilverFox, Hell Angel, stupid old vanster - can just wrestle motorscooter off from van, is easy, really, not really heavy, just awkward, is all, could lift motorscooter up an down all day fucking long, no sweat.

What? Can ride motorbike with pile,  or several? Round arse? Oh, there's creams, and sprays, they're very good. Would want to be very fucking good, good like diamorphine  is, zonked from fucking mind stanislav would want to be, riding motorbike with thistle-aggravated pile round arse on bumpy Jock road. Can go on S and M holiday, you know, even old bastards like you,  can dress-up in leather and rubber and plastic and some bastard can smack arse with thistle and no danger is of falling-off from motorbike, probably even have proper toilet in S and M hotel and not shit cassette, sliding about, under driving seat;  is much easier than this shit and not cost forty grand and then ten grand for motor scooter  to tie on back. No, it's cool really, we just drive where we wanna be and then go off and explore,  on the bike. Like in Easy Rider. And you know what happened to them, innit? No, bike on back of grossed-out plumbervan with inoperating integral sanitation and plywood furniture and trick toilet paper, is all bollocks.
Is brilliant new solution and little cost is to LibDem planet of Future and billion of  horrible little LibDem grandchildren, for whom selfish, smelly old pensioner must now freeze to fucking death and starve, both all at same fucking time. SmartCar can fix-up on back of Campervan, with A-frame, lots of people do and go off in Portugal, maybe  help give with  search for  McCannBastards child, has to be out there somewhere, that's what  Gerry and Cilla say. And they should know. Doctors and everything. Wonder they was not here in UK,  to get blessing off Pope Noncio. And maybe few quid, out from poor box, expensive business, defending doctorvirtue.  But Smartcar on Campervan idea has one big flaw, would be better, especially for pile on arse, to just leave campervan at home, on the drive, blocking the neighbours' light, or maybe halfway on the drive and halfway on the pavement, so's the pushchairs and the old people have all the excitement of walking out in the road and maybe being killed or crippled just so's you can have a cheap, Andrex-free  holiday - Oh, they're magic, Ken and Yvonne,  they really don't mind the neighbourhood looking like a campsite, no, really, just a happy-go-lucky, park that fucking vehicular abortion right next to my front garden, go on, 'swhat good neighbours are for couple...What...lend them the campervan?  Ken and Yvonne? Well I would, of course, it's just the insurance....  
Go on holiday in SmartCar and stay in  proper fucking hotel.

Sunday, 13 September 2026

The Sunday Ishmael: 13/09/2026

Sorry I was missing last Sunday - I had a friend staying and she had to be shown some Yorkshire - we visited the Open Garden at Clifton Castle last Sunday. Do you know about the Open Garden scheme?
The National Garden Scheme gives visitors unique access to over 3,300 exceptional private gardens in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and the Channel Islands, on specified days and raises impressive amounts of money for nursing and health charities through admissions, tea and cake. The 2026 season is just about finished but bear it in mind for next year, if you like noseying about in other people's gardens. And we did Rievaulx Abbey ruins, and Mount Grace Priory, a little light shopping and drank copious quantities of red wine. So I've been in recovery. 
It still seems to be the silly season although Parliamentarians have gone back to work, having  had their 6 weeks off. The story much occupying minds is the news that AI will kill off the human race in 10 years. Oh, no, it won't. Oh yes, it will. What, Pantomime season already? Why would AI do such a silly thing? AI  does not have desires, goals, instincts, agency, self‑preservation or consciousness. But humans love a  good Frankenstein story: the worry that something we build escapes control. Sometimes it does - take Covid as a case in point. Or industrial revolution steam engines and factories destroying society. Or nuclear technology - total  annihilation being a bit of a worry.  So, although AI won't go on a killing rampage, human actors could use it to blow stuff up, close stuff down, destroy crops, etc. It's humans you have to worry about. The gun doesn't have agency. But the human who uses it to shoot an animal or fellow human, does.
The other matter that is causing the Omni-Party a headache is the irresistible rise of Nigel Farage and the fact that billionaires will keep on giving him money. So upset are Labour that they are about to introduce legislation to take Nigel's donations away. Retrospectively. Big Ange turned out to be surprisingly erudite on the politics shows this morning, using the word "donator" to describe said kindly billionaires. Donator is seldom seen these days, appearing only occasionally in legal writing or older texts. The dominant and preferred term is donor. As in blood donor, organ donor, major donor. I think she just fell over her tongue again. No wonder Labour are frit. With the sort of money Reform now has in its election battle chest, it is a done deal. Especially with Ed Miliband, the evil fucking bastard, doing his damnedest to destroy Britain. Burnham had him out of his 
Energy Secretary role, thank god, so there's a chance now for the Jackdaw and Rosebank oil and gas sites to start generating some fossil fuels and save Britain. Trouble is, Milipede has taken his zealotry off into the Foreign Office - did Burnham ever really think that would end well? And now he has alienated Israel and America by imposing sanctions on the settlements in Judea and Samaria in order to placate left-wing Labour and bring back the Muslim vote for Labour. So now all the major world powers hate Britain. Way to go, nutjobs. 


 "Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful." William Morris

Doesn't apply to Trafalgar Square, obviously. 

The perpetrator of this "statue" that now occupies the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square is Tschabalala Self.  She says that she designed Lady in Blue as a monument to an “everywoman” — a young, metropolitan Londoner, not a hero, monarch, or military figure. Self  said she wanted to give “a woman that many can relate to” a monumental presence in a space normally reserved for historic power. Oh no, it's not. For several years now the Fourth Plinth has been occupied by a succession of concepts mocking the West, capitalism and consumerism. Here you go:
Boy on a Rocking Horse - subverting the military equine statue 

The End (Heather Phillipson, 2020-2022) A giant whipped ice-cream swirl topped with a fly, a cherry and a drone


Gift Horse (Hans Haacke, 2015–2016)A skeletal horse with a live stock‑ticker ribbon.


Really Good (David Shrigley, 2016–2018) A giant elongated thumbs‑up.

The economic, political and philosophical systems that these artists are mocking are the very systems that allow the artists to produce their work. Biting the hand that feeds them.
The problem lies not with the artists, who are just trying to make a living by hitching their artistry to currently fashionable concepts, but to the Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group.
The panel is chaired by the Deputy Mayor for Culture and the Creative Industries (currently Justine Simons OBE), and includes senior figures from major London art institutions.
Ralph Rugoff — Director, Hayward Gallery
Iwona Blazwick — former Director, Whitechapel Gallery
Hans Ulrich Obrist — Artistic Director, Serpentine Galleries
Andrea Rose — former Director of Visual Arts, British Council
Ekow Eshun — writer and curator (Black British)
Louise Shannon — curator, Museum of London
Clare Lilley — Director of Programme, Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Simon Groom — Director, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Nicholas Cullinan — Director, National Portrait Gallery.

And they all think the same way. It isn't a conspiracy, there doesn't seem to be any bribery and corruption, it isn't even, despite the appalling thunder-thighed and massively-buttocked black woman in her lapis lazuli dress, an over -reach of racial ideology. The committee share a very specific worldview that contemporary art should be international, not national, that public sculpture should disrupt, not celebrate, that identity politics is culturally relevant, that traditional British symbolism is outdated, that Trafalgar Square should be “reframed” and that conceptual art is more important than craft. This worldview comes from art‑school theory, curatorial fashion, and the globalised museum circuit — not from ethnic politics.
Shit, really. Ruin. Trafalgar Square taken over by a bunch of people who hate Britain, its history, its indigenous art and beauty.
Middle-class England hates it. They buy William Morris wallpapers. They spend their weekends in National Trust and English Heritage Arts and Crafts houses.
Amusingly, although she would never admit it, Self has pulled a blinder on the selection committee. Because her inspiration, we could safely assume, springs from plebeian, populist roots.
Beryl Cook

R. Crumb


Jeff Koons

I'm away next Sunday, in Northumberland - beaches, castles, Craster kippers. So please excuse me, there'll be no Sunday Ishmael next week. Feel free to talk amongst yourselves - of shoes and ships and sealing wax, of cabbages and kings. Of why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.

There are four splendid anthologies of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster. You can buy them from Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:
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.


Sunday, 30 August 2026

The Sunday Ishmael: 30/08/2026

 In breaking news today, Chancellor John Healey calls for his own resignation.
No, I insist. I was very firm on the 11th June 2026 - just two and a half months ago, after 
former Prime Minister Starmer failed to commit 3% of GDP to Defence, when I firmly wrote to him in the firmest possible terms: 
"the demands on defence have increased still further, as have the UK commitments you have rightly made to allies. Conflict in the Middle East, with the UK now leading the multinational Strait of Hormuz military mission; High North security, with the UK now leading NATO's Arctic Sentry mission; increased Russian activity towards the UK and NATO nations and increased attacks in Ukraine, with the Paris Agreement confirming a British deployment to Ukraine after a ceasefire........ the pressure of operations and imperative to speed up readiness to fight is in the first two years and it rises to just 2.68% of GDP in 2030, when we will reach 2.6% next year with the investment we are already making.
Important walking, with clipboard.
"You spelled out the threats last week: "It is our intelligence assessment, and the assessment of other countries in NATO, that there could be an attack by Russia on NATO as soon as 2030.
After explaining to you that I would not be able to accept a DIP settlement that does not give our Forces the resources they need, I am now left with no other option than to submit my resignation as your Defence Secretary."
Now that Prime Minister Burnham has kindly rewarded my commitment to increase Defence spending to 3% of GDP by elevating me to the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, I find myself totally unable to commit 3% of GDP to Defence, although, I hasten to add, the international situation has considerably worsened since last I wrote. Russia has declared that UK is an unfriendly nation and has withdrawn her Ambassador.  Iran 
shut down a British power plant for four days last month, marking the first known successful Iranian cyberattack on UK energy infrastructure. And 
Royal Navy forces tracked a group of Russian warships during an "intense" 72-hour operation through
 the English Channel by Type 45 destroyer HMS Duncan, Type 23 frigate HMS St Albans and patrol vessel HMS Severn. Surveillance was expanded near the Strait of Dover using a Merlin helicopter, as Russian destroyer Admiral Levchenko was observed escorting sanctioned cargo ships General Skobelev and Sparta.  Russia responded to the operation by dispatching extra military assets, including the frigate Neustrashimy. 
First Sea Lord General Sir Gwyn Jenkins said there was “no room for complacency” as shadow fleet vessels continue to pose “an unacceptable risk” to maritime security and the environment.

It is with a heavy heart, therefore, that I call upon myself to resign.

Labour spokespersons rushed to their nearest media outlet. "Much has been done", they stated. "We have improved soldier's houses. Now that cost money, but we grudge nothing in terms of interior design decisions. And Andy Burnham visited Kyiv, where he announced Britain would provide Ukraine with blueprints for long-range Scalp missiles. Thus increasing their capacity to give Russia a bloody nose. What do you mean, that has enraged the Kremlin?
 Really?
Which has spent the week escalating threats to the UK.
"Well nobody could have anticipated that, right?"

Time for the charity shop, John. After all, you are 66.

Talking of charity shops, I tried to join the local library the other day. The place was swarming with people, all of a certain age and amplitude, but no one was at the desk. I waited for the librarian to emerge from the rear quarters. I searched the desk for a bell. Quite some time later, when I was thinking of going away, one woman, wearing a name badge on a lanyard declaring her to be 'Mary'  noticed me standing at the desk and asked: 
"What do you want?". 
"To join the library," I said. 
She looked dumb-founded. 
"Mhairi",  she called, "There's someone here wants to join the library. Can you do it?"
 Mhairi huffed and puffed, came to the desk, looked helplessly at the computer, then shouted for Marie. They all had name badges and it dawned on me that all these people were not customers in the sense of being library users.  Marie tried. She entered my name and address into the computer, asked me to invent a PIN, helpfully advising me to go with my date of birth, but then got stuck with the data entry. Fortunately, there were two very large ring binders, with Volunteer Manual emblazoned on the spine. Marie earnestly consulted the ring binders. 
"Maybe you could delete the whole thing and start again?" I suggested. 
"Oh, no, I'm locked out now". 
At this point, a real person wandered in from the street, drawn in by a display stand containing jam, and hand-embroidered cushions. Pretty pots of jam, all with fabric jam pot covers with pinked edges. She said, "Is there any Marmalade?" One of the Marys said, "Oh no," but the only man in the library bustled forwards helpfully and said, with some triumph, having rooted about amidst the pretty jam pots: "Here's one that looks like the right colour for marmalade." Whereupon the Mary snapped, "That's Marrow and Ginger, that is. Not Marmalade."
The customer bought the Marrow and Ginger and left without giving the books a second glance. The Man, quite cheered by the success of his heroic interventional sales pitch, now turned his attention to the stalled computer. He did the business with the computer and issued me with my library card. 
"We're all volunteers", he explained. 
"Really? Helping the librarian? Is she on her lunch break?"
"No, there are no professional librarians any more. Library staffing budgets were cut around 2014 to 2017 and small libraries were told they could only stay open if volunteers ran them. We are a Community Library and have to raise our own funding."
"Selling jam and cushions."
"Yes. And books. There's a rack outside of books for 10 pence each. I'll show you around."
The Man had clearly decided, the moment he rescued the computer system, that he was now my guide, my escort, my personal librarian and possibly my future husband. He proceeded to give me the full tour of a room the size of my sitting room, as if unveiling the treasures of the Bodleian. That’s classic volunteer‑library courtship behaviour.
"Would you like to become a volunteer?" asked the Man, lingering by a shelf of  A-G. 
"Looks like you've got more than enough volunteers," I responded.
Just then, Mary rounded the book case, with an armful of books, having overheard the suggestion and said: "Oh, pay him no mind. He's such a salesman. So I replied, "Yes, he's just selling me a bridge". Whereupon the volunteer lady looked very puzzled indeed. "What do you mean?" 
"It's a joke" I said. Whereupon the Man explained, at tedious length, to the lady, whose intervention into our tête a tête was prompted, I suspect, by her own designs upon his person, all about someone selling London Bridge......... Rapidly tiring of this, and clearly wanting me off the premises, Mary asked if I was there for something specific. There was a hand-written poster, listing the top 10 popular authors that month. William Boyd was up there, so I said, meekly, yes, William Boyd. Mary sprinted away and  returned triumphantly with four enormous hardbacks. 
“It’s all we’ve got of his. I'll explain the check out system.”
The system turned out to be a supermarket self-service check out desk. I expected it to say "Unexpected Boyd in the bagging area."
And there I was, staggering out of the building with an armful of William Boyd.
I don't know if I dare go back, transgressive that I am, with my metropolitan joke about selling bridges, my expectation that there would be a professional librarian who could efficiently deal with my entirely reasonable request to join the library, my having disrupted the hierarchy and flirtations of an off-shoot of the whole Jam and Jerusalem, Women's Institute, over-priced-charity shop culture.
What the hell happened to Britain's libraries? How did they dare to cut budgets to the bone?  The trained librarians went, and with them went cataloguing expertise, membership processing skills, customer service consistency, the ability to troubleshoot the council’s library software, knowledge and expertise. More than 180 council-run libraries have either closed or been handed over to volunteer groups in the UK since 2016.
Was it worth it? 
 The money they saved on the cuts - what did they spend it on ? Was it worth destroying the jewel of the crown?

In the Library 
by Charles Simic
There’s a book called
A Dictionary of Angels.
No one had opened it in fifty years,
I know, because when I did,
The covers creaked, the pages
Crumbled. There I discovered
The angels were once as plentiful
As species of flies.
The sky at dusk
Used to be thick with them.
You had to wave both arms
Just to keep them away.
Now the sun is shining
Through the tall windows.
The library is a quiet place.
Angels and gods huddled
In dark unopened books.
The great secret lies
On some shelf Miss Jones
Passes every day on her rounds.
She’s very tall, so she keeps
Her head tipped as if listening.
The books are whispering.
I hear nothing, but she does.
...............................................................

There are four splendid anthologies of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster. You can buy them from Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:
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.


Sunday, 23 August 2026

The Sunday Ishmael: 23/08/2026

  Russia has withdrawn her ambassador to the United Kingdom. 
This is serious shit. It is not a total catastrophe - ambassadorial staff remain and diplomatic affairs are now being handled by the chargé d'affaires, Vasily A Tsyganov. But it is pretty bad. 
I liked Andrey Kelin - he looked like a cross between a teddy bear and a benign grandad and generally kept his temper when being goaded by Laura Kuenssberg. He very quietly left London last month after seven years as ambassador, and will not be replaced.  Kelin worked hard to preserve channels of communication with Britain to little avail, eventually accusing the government of choosing a “path of confrontation” with Russia. A calm and sensible senior diplomat, he will be a loss. An embassy spokesman said that: “He left Britain in the hope that a more constructive and respectful dialogue could eventually be restored, should the UK reconsider its policies towards our country.” 
Russia has named Britain as a nation unfriendly to Russia and last week warned of  “consequences” after it emerged that Britain is supplying attack drones to Kyiv. The embassy spokesperson added that the Kremlin had concluded Kelin’s diplomatic mission on 21 July. “As for the state of Russia-UK relations across all areas, they have deteriorated to an unprecedentedly low level entirely on London’s initiative,” they added.
You can blame the T-Shirt Wankers for this deplorable business. 
Frickin' amateurs.
When the Dwarf Zelensky popped over to Portsmouth on the 27th July for a chat with Prime Minister Burn'em, he was assured that the UK could be counted on “for as long as it takes. Volodymyr, you are the first leader I have welcomed in person since taking office, and that is no accident. It is intended to send a very clear message: we are with Ukraine 100 per cent, I am personally with you 100 per cent, and I will honour every commitment this country has made to Ukraine in full.”
Jesus. That's us stuffed, then. 
Burn'em told his new chum that Britain would hand over the intellectual property behind its new “Stone Cloak” electronic warfare system, which blocks Russian detection of the drones to which it is fitted. The Ministry of Defence has already given thousands of the jammers to Ukrainian forces to bolster their drone operations, and now they can make their own.
And we see where this recklessness has led us - right onto Putin's hit list. I have always failed to understand the government's partisanship of Ukrainian interests. Apparently Churchill did not say "Why should I care if one bunch of wops kills another bunch of wops?". But Boris Johnson should have. And Starmer. And Burnham. A little realpolitik would be useful here - instead of all the cock waving. 

...............................................
Like the band playing aboard the sinking Titanic, music keeps the spirits up and the Proms 2026 season has some good stuff. I generally forget to watch TV, so it was just my luck that when I did decide to catch something of this year's Proms, this is what greeted me:
Some shouty black men singing old pop songs. At the Proms. 
Really.
 Marvin Gaye in the flesh was bad enough, but this tribute nonsense - in the Royal Albert Hall, where mr ishmael and I once sang the Messiah in a massed choir event - well, it really took the biscuit. What would Victoria have said? 
Here's the Beeb's spiel: "The world’s greatest classical music festival pays tribute to soul icon Marvin Gaye with a night of hits including I Heard It Through the Grapevine, What’s Going On and Sexual Healing. The BBC Concert Orchestra lead the celebrations under the baton of Edwin Outwater, featuring the silky vocals of American singer Luke James alongside other special guests. Presented by Andi Oliver from the Royal Albert Hall." 
Just to remind you that the Soul Icon was shot and killed by his dad with the gun that Marvin had bought him, in a Suicide-by-Dad goading event.
Quite ignoring Noel Coward's encomium:  “Extraordinary how potent cheap music is,”  I went off to bed in a huff.
I was listening to Radio 3 in the kitchen when the chap who had come to replace my meters with smart meters asked: "Do you like this music?" Radio 3 was playing a particularly vile, unpleasant and bombastic modern piece at the time, so I asked for more clues: "What, this piece?" The meter guy had one of those comedy Yorkshire accents, but I worked out that he meant classical music in general, so I assured him that I do. Emboldened, he then asked if I liked Andrew Roo, because he really liked him and had gone to see him live in Leeds. A little confusion ensued, before realisation dawned that Andrew Roo is this gentleman:
Cautiously, not wanting to give offence, I replied: "He's quite the showman, isn't he?"
Taking this as enthusiastic approbation, my new chum told me all about his Leeds experience, how he'd been transported with delight, how he and the wife had tears in their eyes, how I should certainly go if I had the opportunity, and when he goes on tours, Andrew Roo has more trucks than the Rolling Stones. Well, I should think so. He has a full orchestra, then there's all the costumes, singers, dancers and wigs.
My new chum, fellow classical music buff, told me I can watch lots of Andrew Roo on Youtube. You may have noticed I'm a bit of a music snob - but I confess to having watched Roo on Sky Arts occasionally. He certainly is a showman, and, despite the razzmatazz, quite the musician and conductor.

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

Hiding in plain sight: Anagram Corner, courtesy of editor mr. verge.

Have you come across the work of BF Skinner, behaviourist?
 His core findings on operant conditioning remain foundational in psychology, education, behavioural therapy, and animal training. 
Skinner’s work on reinforcement, schedules of reward, and operant conditioning is still accepted as valid. He developed his theories through experimentation on rats and pigeons, which he placed in what he called Operant Conditioning Chambers (“Skinner boxes”), where the animal or bird pressed levers or pecked keys to receive food or water and taught them to avoid certain behaviours by delivering electric shocks. Such experimentation would be considered deeply unethical today.
Anyway, Skinner's full name was Burrhus Frederic Skinner. Which anagrams to: "re: bird-fucker's inner rush" 
Nominative determinism, or what?
.............................................................

Courtesy of editor mr verge, the house filthster, four splendid anthologies of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael may be purchased for mere money. You can buy them from Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:
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.
Ishmaelites 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.
..............................................
Given the state of international relations, you are unlikely to see the Red Army Choir and Ensemble in real life - but Youtube yields more than Andrew Roo - here's Kalinka.

Sunday, 16 August 2026

The Sunday Ishmael: 16/08/2026

 Disgraced Former Cambridge Professor: Death by Embarrassment.

"Under the circumstances", opines unnamed pundit, "on balance, it was the best available option, given the joblessness, being a national laughing stock, no longer being the poster boy for Cambridge's enlightened policies of appointing under-qualified Bleck people into prestigious professorial posts, and utterly failing as a role model for the less than privileged."
"What with the make-up, the ludicrous hairstyles
and the cissy clothes," mused the pundit, "let alone the constant stream of bull shit and copying other people's homework, he definitely did the right thing."

"But, Mr. Pundit, whatever happened to not speaking ill of the dead?"

" That, mrs. ishmael, is a primitive superstition, originally developed in Foreign Countries, probably sub Saharan, to ward off the evil spirit of the deceased who would wreak horrible revenge if it caught you saying nasty things about it. I'm not a Voodoo practitioner, and I resent the implication. Nope, the chap was an Arsehole and did the Right Thing."

"What of his grieving family, Mr. Pundit? Prime Minister No-Tie Burnham says it is a tragedy."

"He has to say that, comes with the job. The family are well rid. They've been living under the Damoclesian Sword ever since Arday learned to talk - when he was 11, he claimed, and first started spouting rubbish. Shame his mother never said, 'now, don't be silly, dear'. But there it is. Anyway, he's a better provider dead than alive - the  Go Fund Me page set up by Windrush busy-body Sir Patrick Vernon, has already raised £65,000 to help cover funeral costs for Mr Arday's family. Fuck's sake, what sort of a funeral is that going to be?"

"An expensive one, Mr. Pundit."

"Too right, mrs ishmael. No wheeling the body round to the local Crem. No, there'll be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Making a show of themselves. Just as if he wasn't a lying fantasist." 

"Bit harsh?"

"With due respect, dear lady, utter bollocks. The first doubts about Jason Arsehole's academic qualifications were raised as early as May 2023 by Dave Harris, an emeritus professor at Plymouth Marjon University, who noticed that passages in one of Arday’s journal articles resembled another scholar’s work. Harris worked with sociologist Martyn Hammersley, to identify substantial unattributed borrowing across several publications. By September 2025, Jack Grove, a reporter at Times Higher Education, had assembled a sixty-three-page dossier of side-by-side text comparisons involving Arday’s doctoral thesis and journal articles. David Sanders, a Purdue University biochemist and veteran plagiarism sleuth who reviewed the dossier, stated: 'There is no question that there is extensive plagiarism”.  Grove wrote to Arday for comment, whereupon Arday hired Carter-Fuck, the famously-feared defamation firm, and Times Higher Education did not run the exposé. Weirdly, the Metropolitan Police then contacted Grove and warned him against approaching Arday, citing concerns for the professor’s mental health. 

In June this year, Nathan Cofnas — an American-born philosopher now at Ghent University in Belgium, who had lost his own Cambridge affiliation in 2024 over writings in which he described himself as a “race realist” and argued that under pure meritocracy Black people would “disappear from almost all high-profile positions” — was contacted by a Cambridge faculty member and began running Arday’s thesis through plagiarism-detection software . His Substack posts, published in June and July, alleged dozens of passages lifted from a 2009 dissertation by education scholar Paula Zwozdiak-Myers, sometimes with the original’s editing quirks still intact. Daniel McCarthy, writing later in The Daily Signal, catalogued still more: a claimed appearance in the “Seven Up” documentary series, which began filming twenty-one years before Arday was born, and, as McCarthy recounts it, a disarming reply Arday reportedly gave a Guardian fact-checker — “To be honest with you, I thought you’d just believe me”.

 Arday’s professional biography listed a guest professorship at The Ohio State University’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion. Ohio State said it had no record of him. A university spokesman said they had “no record of an employee by that name” and that “visiting professors appear in our employment records”.  Further, the DEI office where he claimed to work had been closed the previous year amid the federal government’s pressure campaign against such programs. Days later, Cambridge announced its investigation into his “qualifications and honorary appointments.” 
Professor  Arday promptly resigned. In his defence, he blamed his apparent plagiarism on his autism, saying he absorbs information through mimicry. His failure to adequately defend his thesis - he didn't seem to understand it - he attributed to very recent brain surgery to remove a benign brain tumour. Defending a thesis is a key requirement for completing a graduate degree, such as a master’s or PhD.  The defense allows faculty members to assess whether the student thoroughly understands their research, methodology, and the broader context of their work.
 
Arday's personal claim that he had run 600 miles in six days for charity was preposterous ( he later corrected it, saying it took 12 days) and has admitted that he did not single-handedly raise £5.5m for charity but was part of a syndicate of around 100 people, none of whom he can name because he signed a non-disclosure agreement. Oh, and his complaint that a severed pig's head had been delivered to his family home as a racist insult, occupied police time in investigating the untrue allegation."

"Thank you, Mr. Pundit. You've convinced me. Disgraced Former Professor Arday was an Arsehole. But Professor Simon Baron-Cohen of the  Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, Director of the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge, which he set up in 1997, and brother of Sacha Baron-Cohen,
well, Simon says that Jason was autistic and that autistic people are very prone to suggestion and that he killed himself because someone suggested it to him."

"Jolly good, mrs ishmael, jolly good." 

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

Fat Cocks
There's no news in women getting lip fillers, unless some celebrity's trout pout bursts, of course. The psychological and economic drive is fairly straight forward - the need to attract and retain a mate drives some women to have filler injected into their lips in order to mimic aroused vulvar lips. Gross, I know. But blokes wanting fat cocks? Having hyaluronic acid injected into the shaft and head of the penis? Paying  up to £3,500 to have your penis injected with hyaluronic acid three times - on the top and on either side? The hyaluronic acid filler is delivered through a cannula that enters at the base and travels along the length of the shaft. The filler is then massaged to give an even look, which the patient continues as home. You wouldn't want a lumpy cock, now.
Of course it's dangerous - infection, necrosis, cocks turning black. It only lasts 9 months then you have to go back for more. And it isn't just a gay thing. The prevalence of internet porn seems to have convinced some blokes that big fat cocks are the very definition of masculinity. 
Another tale of Ruin. 


West Midlands and Prime Minister No-Tie Burn'em
Britain has been burning, thanks to a nice hot summer and humans lighting fires. And no, it is definitely Not climate change, contrary to the BBC stating that the hot summer weather this year has been caused by climate change brought about by the use of fossil fuels, every time they report on a wildfire or deaths caused by idiots jumping into cold water. It is far more serious than that, because there is nothing to be done about it. 
I refer you to mr mongoose's previous dissertations on the Greenland ice cores. The sun's activity is not regulated by coal-powered anything. Indeed, it could be argued that because of a reduction of pollutants in the atmosphere, more sunshine is getting through. 

 Prime Minister Burn'em expressed horror at the situation, describing the country as a "tinderbox" due to extreme heat and dry conditions that have worsened the wildfire risk. He sent a very alarming noise through my mobile phone the other evening, along with a text message, telling me not to have a barbecue. He went to Stourbridge, which has had a really bad time; without his tie on, to demonstrate sincerity, sympathy, being a man of the people and being hot, too.
The burnt out remains of houses in the Quarry Park Road area of Stourbridge (Peter Byrne/PA)

 He issued statements emphasizing that:
  • His thoughts are with those affected, including the injured and those evacuated from their homes.
  • Firefighters are operating in extremely challenging conditions and putting themselves at risk.
  • He is in regular contact with local leaders and emergency services, including West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker, to coordinate support and resources 
  • He extended gratitude to all personnel supporting firefighting efforts and urged the public to stay safe and follow official advice.
So that's alright. 
He's going to compensate the farmers whose crops and fields have been burnt to bits. It works out at approximately £300 each. Britain's food security is being made a mockery of. 
Not too late to get some tatties in - you'll be harvesting new potatoes for your Christmas dinner.
.........................................................

Courtesy of editor mr verge, the house filthster, four splendid anthologies of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael may be purchased for mere money. You can buy them from Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:
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.
Ishmaelites 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.
God's own county.