It seems to be the End of Days. Watch the News and it looks like the beginning of the Chronicle of Ruin - Covid 19, Financial crisis, airlines going bust, countries closing their borders. And at home, in Scotland, best part of England, Mr. Salmond, a frequent wriggler on Mr Ishmael's pen, is standing trial for a list of sexual offences that make Harvey's fade into insignificance. Remember to wash your hands.
If you haven't seen this little fragment before, you may enjoy it. I'm never quite sure, when looking through his Drafts, if Mr Ishmael worked them up and published them already.
From Mr. Ishmael's Drafts: A Fragment - Mrs Ishmael
If you haven't seen this little fragment before, you may enjoy it. I'm never quite sure, when looking through his Drafts, if Mr Ishmael worked them up and published them already.
From Mr. Ishmael's Drafts: A Fragment - Mrs Ishmael
I never much cared for what they called New Wave music, certainly couldn't tolerate the Eurythmics' nonsense but even that was better than the subsequent solo outputs of Lennox and Stewart, both of whom would make films or operas or paintings or trifles about their farts and sell them to an adoring audience. Artists, what are they like?
The ghastly Lennox, a showbusiness Buddhist and charity bandit annoying enough to rival Mr Bono, has been garlanded a-plenty for her art and her benevolence. I've only heard a little of her solo work and decided that a little was more than enough. Stewart is a bit of a Jeff Lynne character, a groupie-cum-producer to all sorts of showbiz riff-raff. I'd file him with Elvis Costello, a pretentious wanker who made a couple of good singles, long ago and far away. And I love good pop singles. You gotta hate the Beatles, don't you. for introducing Pretence to what was previously just sheer enjoyment. Hey, George, man. Yes, John? I got this ticket machine, like, off of a fucking 'bus, can you record me working it, like makin' the fuckin' tickets come out, and then kinda speed it up and then record it backwards, yeah? an' upside down, like off of a Zen 'bus, or something, only Yoko says that as long as she's guidin' the band, like, everything we do is Art, and I'm like a major artist. Sure John, do anything for my boys, I'm the Fifth Beatle; what key do you want it in? What's a key, man?
I watched a few fragments of Glastonbury Community Singing. None of it was aimed at me but I'm a tuneful sort of fellow, I like tunes and harmonies and rhythms and can usually find something interesting, maybe even enjoyable, in these sorts of events but just the thought of Kris Kristooffersensen or whatever the fuck he's called playing with washed-up actor-turned-singer Big John Depp gave me musical heart failure. I watched, instead, some ensemble called the Foo Fighters
33 comments:
Always a joy to still receive Ishmael's work and relish his excellent anti Establishment pretentiousness, Mrs I. Well done you!
Thank you, mr oldrightie, I'm glad you appreciate it, even though you can no longer engage in a dialogue with the author. You encourage me to post further pieces.
Well said, Mr O.R.
Dave Stewart (not in this clip, but inevitably suggested) once claimed to have dropped acid every day for a year. As I understand it, a next-day dose has to be double the previous quantity, or there is no effect. Even a maths dunce like me can intuit that 12 months in, this claim presupposes a tablet the size of the Ritz, or a small Gulf State. But hey, it's his trip, right?
v./
Hi, mr verge,
Good to see you here on the blog. And your arithmetical drug progression reminds me of mr. ishmael's puzzlement at the drug squad claims for their seizures. "Cannabis with a street value of umpty billion pounds seized in a raid today in which brave and noble officers destroyed a chain of blah blah blah, effectively taking drugs off the streets of Manchester, Birmingham and blah blah blah." What? Umpty billion pounds? Well, that must be the entire land area of a small continent, maybe the entire planet. Well done, noble and brave officers!
What is this street value? Is that after it is cut with the lawn clippings of the Home Counties, or do you suppose it is Made Up News and Filth?
And, speaking of Made Up News and Filth, my chum at work, or colleague as we say in proper speak, has been looking forward to a London trip all year. Going to see her son's graduation, a couple of shows, galleries, museums - all the things Lahndonners don't bovver wiv - country mouse in the big city. She's going to cancel. Lose the travel costs, accommodation costs - maybe get back the ticket prices if the cancellation is down to Boris' edict, maybe not. But you're safe! I howled. You're all young! No, but my son's asthmatic.
I was talking to a bloke from our local Men's Shed today - come out of a laboratory in america, he said. Weaponised virus.
Likewise, Mrs Ish. The creative accountancy may be wishful thinking - Plod PR longing for the day we follow the American model and allow local cops to keep seized criminal assets, with all the horrible corruption that inevitably follows. (Is your grass-cuttings speculation a lawnorder gag, by any chance?)
A virus is already weaponised, isn't it? Always has been - nanotech avant la lettre. (William Burroughs used to like saying that language is a virus - so the question may be whether this one is written in Chinese characters or whichever typeface they use on the front of the Sun.)
v./
Everyone I know, Mrs. ishmael, is in a high risk group. That, dear lady, is the penalty for living longer than the actuarians expect. I would not choose to visit London. It is difficult to be sanguine in the teeth of news reports telling one to self-isolate, to order food for delivery, to avoid shaking hands. It is tempting to stray into New Age pseudo-philosophical territory and to say, smugly, patronisingly, ah yes, perhaps one should not have had five children within three different relationships, even though it did not appear excessive per relationship... Malthus and so forth... but it drove Gaia to extreme measures to control this irritating human infestation. Spanish Flu reincarnated. If it is, however, the product of US exceptionalism's war on the rest of humanity, what is left to say? Sorry? Please stop hurting me?
....the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. They come through you, but not from you. And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you...all life is a weaponised virus, mr verge, desperately scrabbling for a foothold in some host or other, the next square meal, somewhere to lay what approximates to its head.
And lawnforcement gags remind me that the weekend is upon us and that damn grass is growing again, stealthily. And the ride-on mower is sulking in the byre, demanding yet another expensive trip to the mower-mechanics, as last time I dared to ask it to condescend to venture out it coughed black smoke.
Never forgotten, Mr forgotten but not gone. Welcome back. The blokes from the Men's Shed today were having a sort of competetive one-up-man-ship who is at most risk game. They started from the same base line - all of a certain age - but then one chap led with age& COPD, (which was a high entry point)and another came right back with age& heart&stent (not a bad response), leaving the third to limp along with age and diabetes. They are thinking they may have to close down until this virus dies down. Then the third bloke (the one with the weakest bid) said dolefully, it doesn't die down. It mutates and starts all over again. That won him the game, I think, cos then they all shut up and drank their tea.
Mr I, Mrs I, was not a fan of Glasto, was he? I recall a diatribe based on some poor bastard who walked across the Youtubed field - to get a butty or some such - while Jackson Browne was warbling. You'd have thought treason done.
Down here in Bandit Country they have all gone coronamad, possibly including me. I was sent out today to get bog-roll. not to hoard you understand but because we have aqlmost none in the house, and none of the shops or our Mr Online Tesco have any. The shelves were bare everywhere I looked despite this virus having nothing to do with that end. So I bought three boxes of Lidl's cheapeest tissues and ran the boxes through the band-saw to make them all pleasingly in bit of bog roll paper proportion. When I presented them to mrs m she looked at me as if I may have started on the slippery slope to doolalliness. Mongosling3 immediately escaped the room to electro-inform her siblings, cackling the while like a mad thing. Sometimes no matter how hard one tries, it is not enough.
Hi, Mr mongoose, nice to see you. Our mr verge is expert on Stanislav and Ishmael past - so if you need something tracking down, he's your man.
The Awethorities have admitted that they have given up on everything other than slowing down the spread of this virus, in order to stagger the impact on the NHS. It is anticipated that everyone will eventually be exposed to it. Some will die. Boris said so. But, as Mr ishmael pointed out in Another Incredibly Old Bastard Dies, this happens all the time. Every day. To everyone. Eventually. It happened to him.
Many congratulations on your toilet roll initiative and clever use of the bandsaw. Mrs m and the third mongosling simply don't appreciate your creative genius. Up here, in a northerly corner of Scotland, best part of England, we have lots and lots of bog roll. So much so that, when toilet water started coming up through the shower drain the other week, I had to get a specialist drain-rodder out to dislodge a blockage in the soil pipe that leads to the septic tank. The blockage was toilet paper. Just boasting, I guess. We have so much toilet paper that we throw it away. Down the toilet. Bet you wish you could do that.
I swear that I stood in that supermarket and thought "Cut 'em in half through the box and then put the stack in the half box and you're home free. Six flat bog-rolls!" A prophet in his own land. That's me, Mrs I.
The mower BTW is not getting enough air through it. Mixture is too rich and not getting burnt properly. Petrol mowers get blocked with clippings in the air intake or maybe the filter, and then maybe2 the spark plug gets fouled. But clear the block and the decently-maintained mower will cure itself - if I know anything about Himself, that is.
Right, that's my weekend ruined.
Now I have to muck about with the spark plug and the air filter. There's probably a tutorial on You Tube to show me how. It's no fun being a single parent to a tantrum-throwing ride-on.Thank you for the tip, though, Mr mongoose, probably saved me a few quid.
Leave the plug. Do the air. The plug will likely solve itself. No thanks needed. Any friend of Mr I is a friend of mine.
I have a reprieve, dear friend mongoose. The gale is back. No playing out for me. When weather permits, I shall attend to the air filter.
Thanks for all of this, Mrs I; this remains the place to come. Courage, sanity and wry talent: the best antivirals.
Hi, mr bungalow bill,
Glad you could stop by for a chat. We just have to keep on keeping on. And wash our hands. Maybe just use 2 sheets of toilet paper per visit. And then wash our hands again.
Mrs I, please keep up the good work. Much appreciated Down Under in these difficult times. Just in the process of cancelling my travel to Europe in April - harder to cancel than book. No point going if everywhere is locked down.
Mr mike, 'g'day, thanks for dropping in. Sorry about Europe. Good decision to stay in Australia - best part of London - until everyone is better or dead. I'm sure I read an SF novel along those lines once.
Great to talk to all of Mr ishmael's good boys! Thank you for hanging out on this cyber street. I tried to post a Billy Joel song but I'm still learning how to do it - "I don't need no clever conversation, I just need someone I can talk to, I love you just the way you are." And wasn't he a pretty young man? Time makes such fools of us all - there's a Youtube video of Billy Joel jamming along with Sir Paul McC in later life. Painful and embarassing. So we'll remember the good times, while taking the bad times - I love you just the way you are.
'ello 'ello ladies 'n gents - so what's goin' on 'ere then?
now, just an opinion, mind...
and in consideration of my official position, i really can't - for the sake of public morality and the constant metaphysical struggle against pervasive interlocutory permissiveness - let this socially slack situation pass unchallenged...
however i am duty bound to remark that i find it distastefully soon - after the blog-master's untimely burial - for the regulars to be chatting up his good-wife, the hostess.
anywise - on the subject of the dreaded equity-killing financial-crisis-buck-swallowing trump-re-election-busting eurozone-rescuing neo-liberal-arse-saving lurgi - i sincerely believe that we should be exceedingly thankful for small mercies...
namely that, in the current panty-pissing prestissimo-news-climate, the shock-horror-headline-of-last-resort "gay-as-fuck-guy comes out as gay" can no longer be considered a goer.
pardon me, i fear i mis-spoke back there...
i meant to say:
"the current prestissimo panty-pissing news-climate"
@pc fuckoff
tragically, the rabid pension-pruning virus did not arrive in time to save us from the nap-filling nooze-headline to which mr f off alludes, just as domino camp-bed's blue-pie emergency improvization also did not call to comfort us earlier.
"neo-liberal-arse-saving lurgi"
this observation concurs with my own sentiments exactly, for, whilst i was inestimably ideologically heartened by yesterday's belated government-announcement that, in assiduous aid of its pyrrhic lurgy-busting counter-measures, an infinite infirmaryful of private health-sector beds would be made readily available to our chronically underfunded and overloaded notional health service, i was meantime deeply doctrinally deflated by the small-printed detail which shyly specified that aforesaid untold bed-capacity would, neo-naturally, need to be funded from the dementedly dribbling public purse.
what utter blazing bullshit: if bubonic boris had any real buggering bollox he would have cunting-well commandeered the bastard-bunks.
a thousand apologizations:
for "bastard-bunks" please read "bastard-bourgeois-bunks".
'ere in 'ackney we're copin' with the china-crisis in true east-end-fashion...
yeah yer know, the missus started splutt'rin' a wee bit las' night, so to err on the sensible side-a-'ealth-'n-safety - an' save on bog-paper - i jus' shot 'er.
oh dear, maybe i'm coming down with the cia-concocted crown-killing bug...
i must try to enter that comment all over again - making sure, this time around, that all the right speech-bits refer to all the right speech-bobs:
@pc fuckoff
tragically, the rabid pension-pruning virus did not arrive in time to save us from the nap-filling nooze-headline to which mr f off alludes, just as domino camp-bed's blue-pie emergency improvization also did not call to comfort us earlier.
"neo-liberal-arse-saving lurgi"
this observation concurs with my own sentiments exactly, for, whilst yesterday i was inestimably ideologically heartened by the government's belated announcement that, in assiduous aid of its pyrrhic lurgy-busting counter-measures, an infinite infirmaryful of private health-sector beds would be made readily available to our chronically underfunded and overloaded notional health service, i was meantime deeply doctrinally deflated by the small-printed detail which shyly specified that aforesaid untold bed-capacity would, neo-naturally, need to be funded from the dementedly dribbling public purse.
what utter blazing bullshit: if bubonic boris had any real buggering bollox he would have cunting-well commandeered the bastard-bourgeois-bunks.
messrs pc fuckoff, politically deflatulated socialist, politically deflowered socialist and mad pox-man,
Gentlemen, (or is it gentleman?)whilst mr ishmael was happy to welcome all to his blog, and to extend an infallibly-courteous response to all those kind enough to consider his posts and add to the discourse, he did point out that his was a decent family blog (honest, not invent), and expected certain standards of mutual respect amongst his commentariat. I would add that Mr ishmael was unique in his ability to sustain an entertaining tirade of scatological invective, so that even those squirming on the receiving end of his rants were honoured to have received an ishmaelic blogging.
I do hope that the standards set by mr ishmael will continue to prevail here in the comentariat.
ah yes, new wave...
the tourists, china-crisis, orchestral motions in the dark, gecko and the funnymen, hankie goes to hollywood, fiction factory...
you had to be there to forget it...
and if you were there, you wouldn't want to remember it.
nonetheless, it's a pity that contemporary pop-singer stropzy can't come up with a half-decent tune like wishful thinking or enola gay, instead of socially ingratiating himself with the neo-imperialist media-establishment - by supporting the ideologically clapped-out democratically sold-out cia-tit-suckling neo-colonial eu-empire-arse-licking labour party.
don't man know that the european union is the new royal african company?
frankly, this over-subscribed oyibo-wannabe now seems to have become a politically medicated follower of metropolitan elitist fashion, and needs a bit more cocteau twins, and rather less cia-cocktail-party-gins, in my unwanted opinion.
anyway, i'm off to listen to something pandemic-inappropriate such as doctor, doctor, the cure, or maybe just relax.
@oldrightie
"always a joy to still receive ishmael's work and relish his excellent anti establishment pretentiousness, mrs i. well done you"
was mr ishmael actually pretending to be anti-establisment all those years?
my goodness, i would never have guessed, you know...
what a bloody marvellously convincing act.
so was he really a blazer-wearing two-faced tory toss-pot, then?
@ultrapox 15 march 2020 at 13:15
correction:
let me be fair and rephrase the penultimate paragraph of my earlier comment - let me change the title 'oyibo-wannabe' to 'oyibo-establishment-wannabe'...
because you see, it is only now stropzy has become a big rich man of the british neo-colonial establishment that he can afford the luxury of indulging in the posh bourgeois pursuit of british party politics...
it is only now that he can afford to play the popular establishment-parlour-game of british party politics...
it is only now that he can afford to maintain the dangerously decadent political pretence of presuming one half of the british neo-colonial establishment not to be racially oppressive of black british plebs - and not to be plain-old oppressive of plain-old british plebs...
and of course, it is only now stropzy has graduated to become a big rich man of the neo-colonial european establishment that he can taciturnly ignore all the genocide perpetrated against impoverished africans by eu-syndicated commercial protégés - whom it liberally, but illegally, licences to extract, and trade in, mama's billion-dollar blood-mineral-booty.
can this big-bad-man stand up to the entire neo-colonial establishment, or does he consider some neo-colonialists more politically correct than others?
unfortunately, stropzy has not yet realized that, when you become part of the british neo-colonial establishment, you become part of the - neo-colonial - problem.
conversely, in the case of wrapper rizla ahmed - who received an exclusive private school and oxford-university establishment-education - his problem appears to derive from being born into the british neo-colonial establishment, yet - whilst proceeding to benefit professionally from the privileged social position thereby accorded - meantime seeking to maintain the rather pathetic pretention of repudiating his privileged professional status as a british establishment-celebrity.
in fact, it's always the highly privileged establishment-personality - such as angry ahmed the actor - who psychologically tends to displace, or project, his violently suppressed hatred - of his family's neo-colonial collaboration with the british establishment - onto common british plebs - against whom, under the radical political pretext of denouncing british institutional racism, this establishment-personality will then guiltily vent his social frustration, stoked by an emotional incapacity to himself renounce the social and professional privilege which his own neo-colonial collaboration with the british establishment affords.
@ultrapox - 6 march 2020 at 13:37
in recent neo-liberal decades, the eu-facilitated blood-mineral-genocide in africa - alongside its cia-brother-in-arms, the eu-condoned oil-genocide in the middle-east - has easily been comparable with that concomitant with the slave-trade and european colonialism, however, when britain's eu-withdrawal - the god-given opportunity with which to expose these eu-licenced crimes against invisible black-humanity - at last irresistibly presented itself, it predictably came to pass that the pseudo-left-wing likes of 'artists' stropzy and rizla-wrapper - in common with all the eu's unethically programmed establishment-celebrity-tools - did not even part their ridiculous remote-controlled lips in conscious criticism...
why?
because, of course - for these cia-sketched cartoon-cunts - the nasty neo-colonial curve of their establishment-enabled careers, blood-stained sackfuls of neo-colonially sourced establishment-dosh, and unlimited sticky stock-piles of neo-colonially nurtured, and carefully corralled, establishment-celebrity-pussy came a clear fucking first.
stropzy - the black revolutionary prophet?
what's the fucking point?
he's no fucking steve biko, bwoy.
@ultrapox 16 march 2020 at 13:37
i do not wish my psycho-analysis of establishment-celebrity-actor and maniacal character rizla ahmed being in any manner misunderstood - and hence, for the final two paragraphs in my penultimate comment, please read the following clarified ones:
"conversely, in the case of wrapper rizla ahmed - who received an exclusive private school and oxford-university establishment-education - this psychotic problem of split political identity arises from an unresolved psychological conflict between, on the one hand, his professional dependence upon the privileged social position accorded him by birth into the british neo-colonial establishment, and, on the other hand, his perverse parallel desire, as a celebrity-member of that selfsame british establishment, to maintain the rather pathetic pretension of repudiating his privileged professional status.
in fact, it's always the highly privileged establishment-personality - such as angry ahmed the actor - who psychologically tends to displace, or project, onto common british plebs, a violently suppressed hatred of his family's neo-colonial collaboration with the british establishment - and moreover, it is against common british plebs, under the radical political pretext of denouncing british institutional islamophobia or racism, that the schizoid establishment-personality will then guiltily proceed to vent the social frustration stoked by his emotional incapacity to, himself, renounce the professional privilege which his own neo-colonial collaboration, with the british establishment, affords."
@ultra-pox 16 march 2020 at 13:37
apologies, but indeed to such a mentally disturbed degree do i not desire my pathologically impertinent psycho-analysis of establishment-celebrity-actor, part-time politically active pillock, and maniacal character rizla ahmed being in any manner misunderstood, that i will once more attempt to clarify the final two paragraphs of my above-referenced comment - and furthermore, with such syntactically succinct sociopathic assiduity that you might fairly perhaps speculate as to whether the nasty neurotic neo-colonially bankrolled establishment-backside-polishing bbc-bourgeois git-bastard had actually tried to murder me:
"conversely, in the case of wrapper rizla ahmed - who received an exclusive private school and oxford-university establishment-education - this psychotic problem of split political identity arises from an unresolved psychological conflict between, on the one hand, his professional dependence upon the privileged social position accorded him by birth into the british neo-colonial establishment, and, on the other hand, his perverse parallel desire, as a celebrity-member of that selfsame british establishment, to maintain the rather pathetic pretension of repudiating his privileged professional status.
in fact, it always tends to be the highly privileged establishment-personality - such as angry ahmed the actor - who is psychologically pre-disposed to displace, or project, onto common british plebs, a violently suppressed hatred of his own privileged family's neo-colonial collaboration with the british establishment - and in this respect, moreover, it is always against common british plebs that the schizoid establishment-personality, under the radical political pretext of denouncing british institutional islamophobia or racism, will accordingly, and guiltily, vent the social frustration stoked by his own emotional incapacity to renounce the professional privilege which, ultimately, his own neo-colonial collaboration, with the british establishment, affords."
@ultrapox 22 march 2020 at 22:27
oh dear me, who really gives a flying politically correct fuck about the pretentious islamo-racial whingeing of an intellectually ineffectual establishment-coddled celebrity, who - by hypocritical virtue of his neo-colonial membership of the british and euro-establishment-acting-agency - is achieving no bloody more in life than obscenely selling his, far-less privileged, co-religionist and co-cultural brethren, both here and back home, down the war-ravaging neo-imperial river of no-return-oppression.
@verbally enhanced british establishment arse-wipe-receptacle
due to working within the neo-imperially financed luxury of the establishment-film-industry, rebel-in-repertory rizla apparently suffers intolerably from "imposter syndrome" - and no doubt was likewise crippled by such burdensome affliction-of-affluence whilst studying at oxford university, not-to-mention when experiencing the painful purgatorial privilege of a private education.
i really don't know what this poncey political poser really expects when he pockets the sweet sterling success of the bombing british establishment's booming silver bucks, is furnished with oppression-fuelled five-star fame, and has his name lit-up-large in unethically fuelled neo-colonial neon?
if he truly craves the comradely comfort-and-click of crafting an honest coin outside the snob-class-cauldron of dog-eat-hog-hierarchy - rather rolling relaxed with those whom he respects - then surely he should forsake the cruel crime-wave-coercion of celebrity and the crack-cash-cartel of big-bad show-biz-capitalism, and instead go independent into the unknown of more ideological issue-led production - of maybe #muslimtoo, or dogme 95.
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