A DOOMED SHIP OF FOOLS, HMS WHITE ELEPHANT
Desperate to secure shipyard worker votes in Scotland's Central Belt this fucking thing - and another, just like it - was ordered by Snotty Brown. The most expensive warship in British history it is hard to see what purpose it might serve lest it be under Uncle Sam's command. There will not be a global conflict fought with conventional weapons and remote assassination weapons targetting small groups of so-called terrorists and installations exist in abundance, drones, capable of performing previously carrier-borne aircraft operations at a fraction of the cost. Fleet engagements between super-powers are a ridiculous, anachronistic notion,as dead as the Battle of Midway and the deployment of Armageddon weapons is already taken care of by the Trident submarine fleet, again, with Uncle Sam's permission. In any event, whatever its notional deployment it is fairly safe to assume that HMSQE's electronics systems could be fried by the Chinks, the Koreans, the Ivans or even by a Mummy'sBoy teenage nerd from his bedroom in Scunthorpe, its weapons systems shorted-out, its fifty million pounds each aircraft grounded below decks, the Jolly Jack'n'Jill Tars stamping their little feet in frustration.
An anyroad up, she's only me Mum, 'snot as though we'm flesh an' blood or anythin' , so you can't expect me t'look after 'er. I mean, that's a job for the taxpayer, int it?
Well, actually, I'm not EmmyLou 'Arris, I mean Harris.
But what do you think, as a Labour MP, about Trump's plans to revive American industry; he's met today with US trades union leaders and they are reportedly very impressed by his plans for massive infrastructure redevelopment programmes. He has, after all, captured the Democrat's heartland, rather as the Tribesmen, up North, have captured what used to be safe Labour territory. Are there any lessons which Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party might take from Trump's appeal to workers disrespected and long locked out of spiv prosperity?
From the Archive: News report from 2017
Good
evening, and this is the truly shocking news - sensitive viewers may
wish to turn away, now - that the overwhelming majority of people in
this country have not signed some e-petition or other. Seasoned
observers, like myself, are saying that this is the single biggest
betrayal since the EU Referendum and the Scottish Indy Ref before it,
that this failure to participate is something which actively undermines
the movement towards us all changing our gender, as we see fit, on the
National Health.
Yes, that's right, here was an opportunity for the flashmourning community to step up to the plate and mourn, solidify and form a community of Global Citizens Against Democracy. Not since Je Suis Charlie, has there been such an opportuniy for ill-informed, hysterical people to click a button for a better world. Just think, here was an opportunity, like none before, for ignorant people to parade smugly, saying Not In My Name, or Not My President or Not My Referendum Result. Here was nothing short of a golden opportunity for men to use ladies' toilets without fear of censure.
But even so, we in MediaMinster can claim victory over the forces of Reaction and Fascism. There must now clearly be a re-run of both of the referenda and of the US election. Mustn't there? I mean. Clearly, there must be. I mean. Just do the math. A million chumps have clicked a button and this must surely overrule any dated notions about what the fascists call representative democracy. I mean. How can it be representative if one of the greatest political figures of our time- or any other - Mrs Meryl Streep, doesn't agree with it.
If there's one thing that Star Trek has always been about, it's working toward a better future — and also, a more tolerant one. (It is the birthplace of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, after all.) That might make it less of a surprise that cast, crew and other veterans of the Trek movies, TV shows and spinoff material have written an open letter denouncing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
"We cannot turn our backs on what is happening in the upcoming election," reads the letter, co-signed by more than 100 actors, writers and directors connected to the franchise, including J.J. Abrams, Bryan Fuller, Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, George Takei and John Cho. The letter was posted in a Facebook group titled Trek Against Trump. "Never has there been a presidential candidate who stands in such complete opposition to the ideals of the Star Trek universe as Donald Trump. His election would take this country backward,
Wheras continued watching of the Star Trek franchise is an unqualified triumph for democracy, which is more than can be said for elections.
We're joined now by People's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, for his opinion on the Rise of the Barbarian Horde, in America.
Well, thanks, Jon, or Lord Sox as you would have been if Gordon hadn't ousted me. And as a Christian the first thing I sould remind viewers of is Look, this is the time when Bill and Hillary Clinton should be uppermost in your fawts'n'prayers, as they are in mine and Imelda's.
Yes, that's right, here was an opportunity for the flashmourning community to step up to the plate and mourn, solidify and form a community of Global Citizens Against Democracy. Not since Je Suis Charlie, has there been such an opportuniy for ill-informed, hysterical people to click a button for a better world. Just think, here was an opportunity, like none before, for ignorant people to parade smugly, saying Not In My Name, or Not My President or Not My Referendum Result. Here was nothing short of a golden opportunity for men to use ladies' toilets without fear of censure.
But even so, we in MediaMinster can claim victory over the forces of Reaction and Fascism. There must now clearly be a re-run of both of the referenda and of the US election. Mustn't there? I mean. Clearly, there must be. I mean. Just do the math. A million chumps have clicked a button and this must surely overrule any dated notions about what the fascists call representative democracy. I mean. How can it be representative if one of the greatest political figures of our time- or any other - Mrs Meryl Streep, doesn't agree with it.
If there's one thing that Star Trek has always been about, it's working toward a better future — and also, a more tolerant one. (It is the birthplace of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations, after all.) That might make it less of a surprise that cast, crew and other veterans of the Trek movies, TV shows and spinoff material have written an open letter denouncing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
"We cannot turn our backs on what is happening in the upcoming election," reads the letter, co-signed by more than 100 actors, writers and directors connected to the franchise, including J.J. Abrams, Bryan Fuller, Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, George Takei and John Cho. The letter was posted in a Facebook group titled Trek Against Trump. "Never has there been a presidential candidate who stands in such complete opposition to the ideals of the Star Trek universe as Donald Trump. His election would take this country backward,
Wheras continued watching of the Star Trek franchise is an unqualified triumph for democracy, which is more than can be said for elections.
We're joined now by People's Prime Minister, Tony Blair, for his opinion on the Rise of the Barbarian Horde, in America.
Well, thanks, Jon, or Lord Sox as you would have been if Gordon hadn't ousted me. And as a Christian the first thing I sould remind viewers of is Look, this is the time when Bill and Hillary Clinton should be uppermost in your fawts'n'prayers, as they are in mine and Imelda's.
And in this time of tumult, as womens voices are blah blah blah blah to help us examine the situation we are joined by Jess
- all moi male constituents wanna rape me, no, no, really they do. Oi
sin 'em, down Broad Street of a weekend. And decent birds, loike
meself, loike, carn't even stagger-about pissed wiv me tits'n'arse
'anging-out wivout bein' whistled-at, which as a ma''er a fact, is
summat to which Oi'm opposed, root'n'pissin'branch loike- Tits, MP for
Birmingham, Yardley.
I was in Broad Street and Centenary Square on Millennium Night, and many other nights and I have never witnessed one sex attack.
Jess Tits, good evening and welcome to Newsnight.
Are
you really Emmylou? Well, Oi'd just loike t'say that Oi love your
records, all on 'em, but specially them ones with Dolly Parton on, I
dunno whether to pinch meself 'r not, bein' on the telly with Emmylou
'Arris. An' I wonder if you'd just sing us a request, 'tint fer me,
it's fer me Mum, she loves you an' all, loike. Could you do that one,
Boulder to Berming-gum, cos, loike, I'm the MP fer Berming-gum, well,
one on 'em loike, there's a few on us. I know the song int about this
Berming-gum, here, in England, moi Berming-gum but one in Alabama - is
it? - but even so, it'd mean a lot to me an' me Mum. I dunt see 'er as
much as Oi'd loike too, loike, but what with me career tekkin' off,
being down in the Smoke an' on the telly quite a lot, well, you'll
understand, yer old parents 'ave to take second place, when it comes to
wossaname, yes, social mobility, I mean, Oi didden get where Oi am today
boi wurryin' about other people now, did Oi, no pissin' sense in that,
is there?
An anyroad up, she's only me Mum, 'snot as though we'm flesh an' blood or anythin' , so you can't expect me t'look after 'er. I mean, that's a job for the taxpayer, int it?
Well, actually, I'm not EmmyLou 'Arris, I mean Harris.
I'm EmilyLou Maitliss.
I mean Emily Maitliss.
Wotchasay? You int Emmylou 'Arris? Emily Maitliss?
And who the bleedin' 'ell's Emily pissin' Maitliss,
when hers at home?
A
pissin' journalist? Well, Oi'll go to the foot of ower stairs, I will.
Me thinkin' Oi was gonna meet Emmylou 'Arris, an 'ere Oi am sittin' wiv a
bleedin' stick insect,
wot looks like her's escaped from a bleedin' bondage parlour
But what do you think, as a Labour MP, about Trump's plans to revive American industry; he's met today with US trades union leaders and they are reportedly very impressed by his plans for massive infrastructure redevelopment programmes. He has, after all, captured the Democrat's heartland, rather as the Tribesmen, up North, have captured what used to be safe Labour territory. Are there any lessons which Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party might take from Trump's appeal to workers disrespected and long locked out of spiv prosperity?
Well, the first thing t'say about that looad of old cock is that Jeremy Corbyn is not moi leader.
No,
it was NewLabour, in the form of Steven Byers, 'oo 'ad the right
industrial strategy, sell them factories off to the bleedin' Jerries
for a tenner a time, loike what they did wiv the Ostin. I mean who'd
want all them pissin' jobs back at the Leyland and Lucases and Triumph
and Smiths Instruments an' all them lot, employin' skilled blokes,
loike, an' on good money; they 'ad jobs as fitters an' toolmakers,
stuff loike that. I mean, who'd wanna do them kinda jobs, when they can
work in McDonalds. Yeah, an' in call centres. If that bloke Trump finks
that people want so-called proper jobs, not to mention so-called proper
wages, when, under my lot, they can do shit jobs, on zero hours
contracts for less than the livin' wage, and 'ave all the benfits a
bein' in the Common Wosssaname, Market is it, well all as I can say is
that he's talkin' out of his bleedin' arse loike, and his arse is out
the pissin' window.
An'
I tellyawot, Emily whoever ya pissin' are, if'e comes up Brummagem when
I'm around, Trumpy, he'll get a roight good bleedin' bollocking.
Why the rich need to keep more of their money
It was heart-warming to learn that our New Labour First Couple is paid in the region of £1000 per day yet uncomplainingly pays 0.75% of that in Council Tax; but it was dispiriting to read of Comrade Sheridan calling for them to pay more.
Letter to the Editor of the Scottish Herald - from the archive
Historical note for those readers only vaguely interested in Scottish politics:
Jack Wilson McConnell, Baron McConnell of Glenscorrodale, (born 30 June 1960) is a Scottish politician and a Labour Life peer in the House of Lords. He was the First Minister for Scotland, best part of England, from 2001 to 2007.
Edward Ludwig "Ed" Glaeser (born May 1, 1967) is an American economist
Tommy Sheridan (born 7 March 1964) is a Scottish politician who was co-convenor of Solidarity.
Why the rich need to keep more of their money
It was heart-warming to learn that our New Labour First Couple is paid in the region of £1000 per day yet uncomplainingly pays 0.75% of that in Council Tax; but it was dispiriting to read of Comrade Sheridan calling for them to pay more.
Actuarially speaking, the new middle class, of whom there can be no more lustrous example than the First Couple, will live much longer than the biddy in the tenement or the firefighting enemy within; right and proper, therefore, that the rich, who live longer, keep proportionately more of their money than the poor, who, through their own fault, die younger and therefore, obviously, need less money. In an obscenely telling phrase the other night, Professor Edward Glaiser spoke of the needs, nay the demands, of those he termed "the high end of human capital" and it is surely into this group that the achieving First Couple would barge their way. Their present rewards are scant enough and the quango pastures, furthermore, from which penurious retired politicians must augment their meagre, inflation-proof pensions pay, I understand, as little as £400 per day. It is mean-spirited of Mr. Sheridan to try to make Mr and Mrs McConnell's financial future bleaker than it already is.
In a New Labour sense Mr. McConnell's competence and far-sightedness actually deliver the services funded in part by the Council Tax; it seems unfair, therefore, that he should pay anything at all and, since that is nearly the case anyway, Mr. Sheridan should be calling for the McConnell's exemption from payment: it is the least that a grateful nation can do and it would, very eloquently, clarify the relative value we place on our fellow citizens, rich and poor.
I remain, sir, your very faithful servant,
Ishmael Smith
Gardening Corner
Gardening is cancelled. Gales.
33 comments:
I must say that the aircraft carriers that don't carry aircraft is a rum business. Gordon McSnot, eh? He was a card.
Good news, mrs i. Mrs m nicked four bog rolls from one of her swimming pools. Madly, although rather sweetly, she left a quid coin on the shelf. The world is gone insane but at least we aren't proper thieves yet, and we can wipe our nethers for another couple of days. Small mercies.
Mr mongoose: here's a device which could revolutionize your toileting habits in these difficult times:
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/03/on-toilet-paper.html
If you do a discounted cash flow analysis over your expected lifespan its a big winner.
mr. mongoose - aircraft carriers without aircraft - the country is increasingly Gilbert and Sullivan-esque.
The wife going out on scavenger-hunts? - I hadn't realised how desperate your situation is when I so callously and flippantly boasted about my own wealth of toilet roll. Mr Ishmael was a bit of a survivalist and Had Stocks In. Of most things. Driven by my insensitivity-induced guilt, I have ree-surched alternatives for you. (that means I googled it). Alternatives include sponges(like the Romans), old cloth, tissues (like your own inventive solution, but no need to take the bandsaw to them),wet wipes, large plant leaves, moss, the bidet, a bum gun (fire is not involved, you will be delighted and relieved to learn, and, most poular, paper. Back in the land of before-before, we would tear up newspapers into squares and hang them on a hook in the outside privy. Better quality newsprint, of course, to avoid black hands and bum. My daughter, when travelling in the outback, would equip herself with a second-hand hefty paperback, and tear out the pages as she read them. I can think of no better use for The Silmarillion.
The absolutely vital thing is to not flush these alternatives down the loo. Otherwise, you will have to call in Drains-R-Us. Their last visit cost me £125.00, which I thought an entirely reasonable fee for ridding the wet room of backed-up water from the toilet.
And remember, especially when engaging in the most outre of these toileting practices, Wash Your Hands.
Thank you, mr mike, what a very instructional web site. In my next home I shall have one of these devices installed. Do you have one? Can you give us a review?
Mrs I, no I don't but it makes sense to me. I'm not squeamish, but have always felt that wiping ones bum with a bit of tissue was a bit primitive. We are living in strange times, and maybe now is the time to embrace alternative solutions - or solyushuns as Mr I used to say (in memory of Gordon Snot).
As ever, Mr Mike, I am indebted. You and I will have encountered the odd Vietnamese bog-nightmare, I imagine. I skived off one afternoon and went up the river to one of those underground temples and there was a quaint line of 1960s concrete cubicles next to the car park. Unwisely not having gone before I came out, I was forced to be a brave soldier. Opening the cubicle door nothing presented itself - not even a back wall. One was required to extend the appropriate region out over the river and hope for the best. There wasn't even a handle just a wee lipp of concrete so signal the retreat had gone as far as sensible. I wouldn't have minded but the river was quite a busy thoroughfare and boat loads of the devout skipped back and forth not twenty feet away.
The bog roll crisis has in eny event passed. Mr Tesco has delivered. I am sure that we are all, err, relieved.
Meanwhile Bandit Country has closed down. Not a soul at work. Everyone hiding in their homes from people who do not yet have the virus. Just like we were told not to do yet. Oh well. Shall we listen to the medicos or Piers Morgan?
The Silmarillion, mrs I. Dear me, another thirty hours of my life I won't get back.
Strangely our soil-pipe is actually behind the kitchen wall. The swine who did the house renovation forty years ago thought it a good wheeze to make the kitchen a foot narrower and wall in the drainage so that we could never get at it. What larks we have had with the plumbing over the years. And then there was the landing with just some scaffolding planks chucked down and the carpeted over. No nails, just chuck 'em over down. Mind, he was a printer. they're rough buggers are printers.
Yes Mr mongoose, memories....As I've said before, however, I think Viet cuisine is one of the healthiest on the planet, certainly my favorite. Milder in general than Thai or Laotian or Cambodian. But they all share a centuries old understanding of holistic medicine which of course includes food and massage. Inside the big temple compound in Bangkok is a school (basically university) for massage and cooking. It has crossed my mind to enroll. In the west we have little understanding of the therapeutic benefits of herbs and spices which are in effect natural medicines. EG turmeric and chili are natural antibacterials, something which may currently need to embrace. We have a lot to learn.
i must say i disagree:
her majesty's battle-shit bollock-all-use could, after all, be intelligently deployed to blast bravely, and selflessly, away at megabug-19, or alternatively, to destroy the evil little bastards who released the mother-of-all-lurgis into our already challenged global environment...
or then again, of course, in the name of political prudence's untwisted pants - and whilst waiting for the final moderated test-results to come through from bio-warfare-lab, code-name: trans-world acid-trip - we could always park her high-tech royal-hulk next to the statue-of-liberty and then pull funny-faces at donny and - prime super-muck-spreading suspects - the dastardly democrats.
however - on a more practical, and rather mundane, note - we could just melt the fighter-lite bugger down and recycle the constituent materials for the immediate emergency-manufacture of hospital-ventilators.
Numbers are creeping out. 5-day doubling, six weeks to uk peak. That's 42 days - 8 and a bit doubles times what we ahve today. That's a frightening number. And if it does another couple of doubles, we are in trouble. As the two scientist lads said, the number of people who have it asymptomatically is the number that either saves us or kills a very much larger bunch of vulnerable people. Truly an awful thing, almost out of control now. As it was always going to be. This isn't a political event.
I love Vietnam, Mr Mike. Kind, funny poeple. As I have said before. And mrs m has run out of VN coffee too. Alas, I cannot see the me going again this side of the autumn at the earliest.
BTW I have been, I think, to the massage/healing wat in BKK but I cannot remember the name of it. Misty and strange one morning, May or June in 85. Such are promises.
well, i'm not going into details or anythink, loik...
but has anyone invented a bum-gun which does both ends?
geez, 6.1 billion quid?
really?
well, yer know, at times of crisis, we all 'ave ter pull our weight...
an' ter make sacrifices fer the sake of the nation, loik...
butt ter be honest, loik, that's exactly why i think building this great big air-boat-craft-thingy's been such a total waste of british tax-payer's money...
coz, see...
if i'd known they needed somewhere to land their f35s...
i'd of obviously rented them me arse fer nowhere near such a huge figure.
Mr. Mongoose, you may be comforted by this advice from my local University of the Third Age:
There are some grounds for comfort as the total UK figures, as in other countries are a huge underestimate whereas mortality figures are likely to be accurate . Many epidemiologists reckon a times 20 factor about right meaning the true mortality rate is a fraction of 1%.
In all areas of the pandemic morbidity rises with age, but this is likely to represent co - morbidity rather than simply chronological age. Diabetes , cardio - vascular disease , lung disease , kidney and any condition affecting the immune system require extreme care but just because you are over 70 , if your health is reasonably good , there is no need for undue worry.
The idea of confining this age group on the basis of age alone is not sensible."
mr have we accidentally constructed the desperately needed accommodation for parliament - please shorten your name! Too much typing. Would you prefer "mr for parliament" or "mr accidentally"?
I do think you've hit on an excellent idea. Parliament could be floated off, together with SPADs, family members employed in various capacities, ree-surchers and bits of fluff. HMSQE could then be deployed into those waters where the adjoining countries need the sage advice and counselling of those placed by god to rule o'er us. Except for Bolivia, of course. As Queen Victoria discovered.
My word, mr jess fill-er-face and ms juicy biceps mp, you do get up early! Or stay up late. Great attempts at a Brummy accent. Birmingham - second best part of England. I suspect that nothing - not even a dual-action Bum Gun, could deter our Jess from telling it loike it is. You've got to warm to someone who allegedly (Phillips told Owen Jones in December 2015) told Mr Corbyn and his staff to their faces: "The day that ... you are hurting us more than you are helping us, I won't knife you in the back, I'll knife you in the front,"
We must bear in mind, however, that she says more than she knows and that's in a wee tin whistle.
Yes, mrs I, that is a comforting notion, and I am not worried about my lot. Indeed the mongeese are a pretty fit and hearty lot for the most part. If we do not count the little one who smashes her body into things with an alarming frequency. She is the clumsiest child I have ever encountered. Though she is otherwise as fit as a butcher's fittest dog.
I would have thought that a decent sample size and some random testing would yield up a decent asymptomatic infection number pretty easily. Perhaps it is already done and they are terrifying us merely to get us off the streets for a fortnight.
Some heartening tales too of the Blitz Spirit peeping out - folk shopping for wrinklies and paying peoples' wages when they don't necessarily need to. The world not yet gone completely to hell.
For those of you who like it from the horse's mouth:
Imperial College Modelling
But why, Mr mongoose? Where is the possible advantage in getting us off the streets, driving small businesses into closure, preventing folk congregating in theatres, churches,concerts, pubs, football and the like? What is really going on?
Conspiracy theorists, apply here.
The only decent conspiracy theories I have heard are:
1) It's a bio-weapon that that thos pesky Chinese have let escape from their spooky lab, and consequently we are doomed unless unless.
2) It's a delay Brexit scam that the whole world is conniving in ij order to annoy Mr Poundland.
3) Hillary's crew did it so that Trump loses in November.
Ah, hah, mongoose, dear chap, you have missed the wrinkle to your (1) scenario - we'll call this (1)(a) It is a bio-weapon that the Americans have released,targetted at the infirm elderly in order to deal with the First-world demographic crisis in which there are too many old buggers living longer with the diseases of old age. Didn't you hear about the 1,000 American troops on the streets of Wuhan?
And then, of course, there is (4) 5G, first rolled out in Wuhan, has caused the reduction in people's immune systems, allowing coronavirus, which is one of a range of similar viruses, to gain hold in the human population.
It cannot be long either, mrs I, until somebody mentions it being climate change wot dun it.
"even though large tracts of europe and many old and famous states have fallen or may fall into the grip of the dreaded lurgy and all the odious apparatus of viral-panic, we shall not flap or flail. we shall go on washing our hands to the end. we shall fight the lurgy in filthy old france, we shall fight the lurgy on hard-surfaces and door-knobs - with common household-disinfectant - we shall fight it with protective medical gowns and chinese-manufactured face-masks in the air - if dirty diesel-engine-pollution does not snuff it, or us, out first - we shall defend our daft old buggers, whatever the cost may be to our sacred notional health service of out-sourcing care to our fat-cat conservative friends in the private hospital-sector. we shall fight the lurgy on the beer-bottle-and-booty-strewn beaches of marbella and alicante, we shall fight the lurgy in the arrival-lounges of heathrow and gatwick airports, we shall fight it on the football-fields and in the wine-bars, we shall fight it in the marital dog-house when the missus adjudges us, after a boozy friday-night down the pub, to be three sheets to the fucking wind; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe [cough cough] the people of this island or a large part of it were to become work-shirking and lazy little cunts, then our commonwealth-citizens beyond the seas, expediently invited and passported by our friendly and multi-culturally cuddly british immigration-service, would carry on the struggle, until, a decade late and a dozen billion bloody dollars short, the new world-fucking-disorder, with all its neo-colonial oppression and corruption, steps forth to ensure the pharmaceutical addiction and the economic exploitation of the old."
@sir ginstone lurchswill
forgive my rhetorical correctitude, but granted the current-day cabinet-composition, i feel the alternative adjectival descriptor "chink-made" might bestow upon the omni-impotent oratory a more authentic 'boris-ring'.
@pcfuckoff
...and i make this critical literary observation purely in - and with concern for - stylistic terms, obviously.
mr sir ginstone lurchswill
Thank you for your statesmanlike and inspirational contribution to our musings and thank you, mr pcfuckoff for the amendment which gives both a Borisian and Prince Phillipian(God bless you, sir)stirring ring to the piece. Good to know that it will all sort itself out, and, after heroic effort, it will eventually be business as usual. And, may I add, We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, will look back upon this day and say, I told you so.
Having become increasingly aware that we appear to be living in a dystopian science fiction novel, we should hold a competition to identify the author who appears to be writing it. I shall kick off with: "When I was quite small I would sometimes dream of s city - which was strange because it began before I even knew what a city was... clustered on the curve of a big blue bay..the streets, the buildings that lined them...quite unlike any I knew...carts running with no horses to pull them ...things in the sky, shiny fish-shaped things that were certainly not birds...I was seeing a bit of the world as it had been once upon a time - the wonderful world that the Old People had lived in; as it had been before God sent Tribulation." Wyndham, The Chrysalids.
Read a book-review the other day, Mr Mike, of something that may be of interest in re food & good health: Sitopia, by Carolyn Steel. If you sign up for that course in Bangkok, please keep us posted.
Mr Mongoose - the Algerian Coffee Shop in Soho has a Vietnamese option; too strong by itself for me so I blend it with a milder bean 1:2. They're usually pretty efficient with orders online or by phone, though inevitably (I just looked) the website is not taking orders just now because of intense panic demand.
v./
dear mrs ishmael,
on behalf of both myself and the diabolically discerning constable, may i say that the party polemical pastiche was a rare pleasure to ejaculate, mrs ishmael, and that, by way of my own edit, i would probably have preferred - as included in earlier, somewhat stronger, drafts of the inebriated oration - the more powerful phrase "economic enslavement" to the altogether pissier "economic exploitation" - but let us pray that it does not come to that.
i blame lidl's german lager for my aesthetic and artistic failings, however, i wonder what luxurious and extravagantly sourced vintage-excuse mr johnson relies upon for his ever onward-rolling cabaret de cunticité? as for wyndham and his creepy chrysalids: the high-flying hallucinating bourgeois bastard obviously has a helluva lot to answer for - although i grant that, but for his, at the time, all-too-common-place d-day bravery, we would probably all be interminably weighed down under the heinous grammatical yoke of blogging in bloody krautsprache.
yours, in eternal elucidation
sir gin-{hic}-stone
correction
oh dear, the bloody raf have been onto me about my proposal already, so - in case i have not expressed myself with sufficient precision - for:
"if i'd known they needed somewhere to land their f35s...
i'd of obviously rented them me arse fer nowhere near such a huge figure."
please read:
"if i'd known they needed a huge buoyant platform on which to land their f35s...
i'd of obviously rented them me arse fer nothing like such a fantastic figure."
ps:
i can swim and am still considering realistic offers...
And the winner of the competition for the dystopian science fiction author who could best write our current Tribulation, is, of course, mr ishmael! Gordon the Ruiner is now republished as the latest post. Of all the slimy characters assassinated by mr ishmael and stanislav together, the one to emerge undaunted at the top of the heap is Bo-Jo the Ho-Ho, who will lead us unerringly through Tribulation and into Ruin.
As we say nowadays, but not in restaurants anymore as they are closing their doors,(Except, perhaps, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe)
Enjoy!
I had forgotten Bo-Jo the Ho-Ho. Beyond marvellous to be able to read these again.
mrs narcolept, good to have you back here. Bo-Jo the Ho-Ho has emerged as the Leader we deserve during a global crisis. Who would have thought?
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