Sunday 3 May 2020

The Sunday Ishmael 3/05/20 FUCK OFF WITH THOSE DIRTY WORDS

Before he OD'd in Phil Spector's toilet, crazy-saint Lenny Bruce, well, he perfected the art of How to talk dirty  and influence people.


 I only heard Lenny's records long after his death but he was a profound influence, his raps accenting  much of what appears here.

I heard somebody say shagging, in a BBC play the other day, they meant fucking; contextually, fucking was the right word but they said shagging, shagging just wasn't right. It was a bit like when people of a certain age say Oh Shh --ugar, everybody knows they mean Oh Shit, everybody hears Oh Shit in their minds; the person who said Oh Shhh-ugar wants people to think Oh Shit without them having to say the filthy word in their nice clean mouths but nobody has actually said or heard Oh Shit, even though, in code, they have. Coded swearing, that is some fucked-up shit.

Saw a dreadful Australian entertainer a while ago, Eric Bogle, for whom a new phrase has been coined in this quiet cloister, a whole repertoire, in fact, a lexicon of stuff -

bogle verb, noun, adj, expletive, bogling, bogled-up

to bogle – to preamble-ise incessantly in terms of self praise eg, I care about things, I am a dreamer, I am a wonderful human being who cares about the planet and all of creation, wouldn't it just be, like nice, if everyone was as nice as me, before launching into a tedious, faux melancholic dirge about spastic children, limbless soldiers or lonely old people devoured by rats. Bogle is what they call a singer-songwriter; what they used to call a layabout.

to bogle, musical term – to play the same chord progression for thirty years, in the same time signature, accompanied by another musician playing the same thing but in a different position - eg Can you play properly, or do you just bogle ?

Expletive - Oh, bogle me gently or Well, I’ll be fucking bogled

Abusive – You fucking bogler

He’s right bogled-up, he is – He is up his own arse.

I’m bogled right off with this shit –I am fed-up

What a fucking bogle - disappointing.

Bogle in his concert of self-congratulation kept making wry little remarks about merchant bankers and the audience loved it, my, how they hooted; he really means wankers they telepathed to one another, smugly, wankers, isn't that hilarious, and isn't he clever, rhyming it like that, y'know, with bankers. I thought he was a complete dental flosser myself but I am often uncomfortable among schoolteachers and social workers of a certain age and such comprised his audience, culturally merchant bankers. I should have made notes but I was in too much pain. I should have heckled the bastard, I was in the front row and could have, easily, but I was scared. I won't tell you what the word was but it rhymes with truck, that was another one, brought the grey-haired house down. Coded swearing. That's some fucked-up shit, that is.

Bogle is one of those stage Jocks, lived in Australia with the skin-cancered, barbecueing, Abo-bashing racist bastard white supremacist moron riff-raff for forty years singing Waltzing Matilda and cracks on just like Lady Sir Sean Connery, world famous, wife-beating gabshite and Plenipotentiary Extraordinaire and Ambassador at Large to wee fat Alec Salmond, Och, I love Scotland so much, Och Scotland's where ma heart lies, only my bank accoont is in Switzerland. Come now, Miss Moneypenny, a man's a man for a' that, even if he is a muscle-bound oaf with shit for brains, shaken not stirred. Have you seen some of those films he's been in ? Up there with the school Nativity play, some of them. Bogle's like him. Returns to his beloved homeland when he's getting paid to do so.
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Hasty concision is often the default setting of blog writing, both in posts and comments, it is the immediacy of e-communication which is it's strength yet it's weakness, too;  the ability to comment urgently, especially when deployed via an often self-taught and inexpert keyboard skill can restrict reflection and discourage editing.
 I hate that When I Was A Kid stuff but when I was a kid at primary school, the caretaker, once a week, would wheel in a robust, brown radio on a trolley and the class - and classes around the nation - would do Singing Together, with William Appleby, stirring, if rigid  renditions of (mainly) English folk songs - D'ye ken John Peel, the Jolly Miller, Brennan on the Moor and The Minstrel Boy. Every term, there would be a visit from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, it didn't then give me any love of classical music but it certainly made me aware of it's grandeur and scale and helped break down barriers natural in a working class child.  The singing together - and the country dancing which was also part of the curriculum - however, never left me and  much later led me, via ensembles such as Fairport Convention and the Incredible String Band to the Copper Family and to the rural, non-industrial history which their songs reflect and embody,  the sung, social history of our lands.  In my twenties somebody was kind enough to sit me down and say listen to these, they are  Beethoven symphonies, you'll really like them and I did and do. It would have amounted to only a few hours a month, in primary school, spent on real music and  yet it has influenced my whole life, influenced everything which appears on this blog and in the commentaries of stanislav, a young Polish plumber and much else besides;   the music runs through everything, mr mongoose catches a lot of the references, a lot of them, though, are just there for me.

Once upon a time  I was married to a primary school teacher; Cat Stevens, she used to play to her charges, Morning Has Broken, and stuff from the Andrew Lloyd Webber Songbook. Almost in a heartbeat the emphasis had shifted from the traditional and the serious to the popular and sentimental; no singing of Men Of Harlech, no symphony orchestra in her school, the local steel band, instead, grinning its grinny music at grinning children, whose  own children now, Cowellites, cannot, for all their discussions and votings,  differentiate between quality and shit, and  if they could would choose the shit, everytime.
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THIS SUNDAY WHY NOT MAKE BEANS AND FISH?

stanislav shows how to combine stuff from the garden and the seas and only cost not even a fiver and make a nutritious and tasty slap up-nosh which all the family will love, only not the children, obviously, spoiled little consumerist bastards, and can have fish finger instead and tomato ketchup, like good little Infants of Ruin. Or MacDonalds Filet-o-mechanically-reclaimed fish offal, all deep-fried up in orange radioactive coating. And fries. And if they don't like that they can out on patio go and knife each other or climb over garden fence, rape old lady and set fire to. Bless. Kids, eh?

For Beans.

Is broad ones. Go down in garden and pull some off plant, pausing to admire last of summer flower and red berries coming on trees and pretend willow is not all over the fucking place and need urgent annual pruning up, ship-shape, like Bristol. En route put shredded secret documents in compost facility number one.
Have quick look around bottom garden with dog, Buster

and pick some parsley out from ground on way back in.
For parsley sauce.

Broad bean can be like eating boiled scabs. Take out from hairy pods and most people just throw in boiling water for half an hour and horrible outer shell goes white and necrotic and is probably fucking poison. Is fucking disgusting and should be against the law to eat, never mind give to fucking dinner guest, even if is utter bastard, like normal. Got this fucking Australian comes. Always bring two bottle of beer, fizzy shit like Becks or Fosters, drinks them and starts drinking my good beers. It’s his contribution, he says, bringing his own first two shit beers. Needs punch in fucking mouth. Eeyar mate, he says, walking across courtyard and already necking first bottle, have brought a contribution.

So is best to quickly boil for couple of minutes and cool down quickly, beans and not fucking Australian midget. And when cold just pop out into bowl and discard shell in compost bucket. Could just feed contents of compost bucket to Australian. Just start fire in oilcan and throw on loads of potato peeling and cabbage leaf and apple core and teabag and say Eeyar, Bruce, is barby, just like at home, in HMP Australia. Cheers, mate, goodonya, goodaya to make me feel at home. Okay if I take a dump in the rhododendrons, Walt-zin' Matilda, Walt-zin' Matilda, you'll come a-waltzin' Matilda with me. Sun A-rise, Oh-oh, Sun-arise Oh-oh, spread-in all de light all arou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ou-ound.

Really is shit though, Australians

For Trout:

Go down to sea again, rolling sea and tide, like this bastard below and stand with rod and line and hope big cod fellow or halibut bite hold of hook and not pull you off rocks and in to Davey Jones fucking Lock-up. Is very dangerous and not good to try at home isn't.

And anyway can sometimes catch big fucking stupid bastard like this


Not know when is fucking beaten and have to be persuaded ashore with some help and few magazines off Mr Thompson Fish Tickling Device, below. Too fucking big, anyway, to go in pan


Or:

Have heart attack (see stanislav’s heart attack) Go on air ambulance like flying fucking Triumph Herald and is enough to start heart attack off even in healthy bloke of which is none in Scotland as well known is, sickest country on Earth, average person is twice as fat as normal and only exercise gets from beating of wife and running from Old McBill.


Get in hospital and decline kind offer from greedysurgeonbastard to slice up from John Thomas region right to throat and and chop through chest bone like was Aylesbury fucking duckling and fuck about inside, even to stop fucking heart beating and cobble together load of old veins and shit and rubber band and then jump start heart again. Maybe. And God fucking willing is. No fucking thank you, can take aspirin and exercise. Fuck all that shit. Is only angina. Ah but Mr stanislav, quintuple bypass was good enough for Spunky Bill Clinton, president of Uncle Sams, can't get no better than that and you should have, only take five minute, can do Monday, Doctor knows best. Doctor is arsehole more like. Was in school with little bastard want to be doctors. Fucking evil was.

Anyway, go, instead in Undead clinic with grey-faced heart patients all gasping and fucking wheezing on bicycle to nowhere, trotting along on treadmill of sclerotic doom, waiting to get fit enough to get chopped open and rearranged and meantime has to bullied be three times a week by sadistic physiofuckingtherapist who would rather spend life gossiping than doing any work, just like every fucker in NHS. And drinking coffee. Is it my turn, I thought I made the last one ten minutes ago, Och, alright then, is it three sugars for you? See my wee Fiona, well she’s only eight and I swear she can play the violin better that that Yehudi fucking Menuhin, so she can, Aye and wee Hamish, see him, he’s so bonny……..But bloke on next bike is fisherman, walks out in loch in wading pants and trout just jump on hook, smiling-up and saying EatMePlease, Preferably With Almonds But Parsley Butter Will Do. Want some trout, stanislav? Am supposed to eat fish and everything, before the operation but fuck me, Jesus, is three times a day round my gaff, gonna grow fucking scales, you can have some. And anyway, how come you ain't having operation ? Is long story but sure can do with some trout. So freezer filled up with Sea Trout always is. And give Undead Heart Zombie companion a bottle of whisky now and again. Is called Billy. Billy the Fish. But for people not having heart attack and going down Undead clinic to meet poacher can always go in Tesco and get couple of nice fillets of trout. And points on club card. Spend more to save more. Arithmetic of Ruin.

Means of Getting Bones out from Dead Fish is:

Chop off head and tail, is fucking rubbish, even though some blokes say Oh, fuck me, can suck brain out of trout from head and get stiffy and slip up lunch companion, is bollocks, fish got no fucking brains, otherwise would be walking about on dry fucking land and living in fucking house. Fish is stupidest bastard ever, still swimming about in freezing cold water when every other bastard left millions of fucking years ago. Or never even was in in first place if American is, but just was put straight down in Garden of Eden, six thousand years ago, by Jehovah, God of all good ole redneck, nigger-lynching sonsafuckingbitches. And then thrown out. Because God is Merciful. But not so's you'd notice. Also pull out guts but is best get Mrs to do as is fucking horrible. Or buy from Tesco.

Put fish with head off down on board and take big fuck off knife and slice firmly down full length of dead fish’s back, just alongside spine

and then slice carefully, or scrape, really, along little bones and separate fish flesh from bones.


No big deal is and anybody can do, just need sharp knife, do same on other side of spine and wind up with two nice fillet of trout.


And no bone. Can run fingertip over flesh and if any bone is left can feel and pull out.
Can leave skin on but is fucking uncivilised and best to remove. Just slice down vertically at ninety degree through flesh at tail end, until blade contact makes with skin and then turn blade to forty five degree

and pull skin through knife, moving blade back and forwards.


Is easy and soon have jobs a good un. Is probably what Jack Straw does for hobby, only with live people and not dead fish. Children most likely.

Grab some herb from garden, fresh is best and not dried up little parcel of dust, tender Rosemary leaf is good or dill or parsley or all of them, and stick on top of fillet with butter and salt and pepper and juice out of lemon, stick other fillet on top of that and cover with couple of rasher of streaky bacon, place in pan hot with herb-infused oil cook for couple of minute only and then shove fucker under hot grill until bacon is crisp up, maybe three or four minutes, how do I know, your grill might be shit, maybe five minutes, or six, but definitely not twenty, otherwise is burnt to fuck, if you get this far you probably know when fish is cook and nasty Nip bastard eats raw anyway, fuck me, is no wonder is such cruel little Banzai monster and bomb Uncle Sam navy to shit and torture poor POW, raw fish is bad shit so best make sure trout is cooked otherwise might get Atom fucking bomb on kitchen.

Ishmael essays:
All on the Cover of Newsweek  (extract)       posted 17/05/16
Fuck off with  those Dirty Words                  drafted 18/08/09
Hasty Concision                                           drafted  12/02/11
Cook with Stanislav                                      drafted 6/09/09






21 comments:

mongoose said...

The idea of a guest bringing his own first two bottles of grog is a bit Oztralian. The cheeky bastard wouldn't get asked back here.

Bungalow Bill said...

Fine writing. I never knew the Stanislav stuff; as Mr Verge says, it’s inspired.

Anonymous said...

Too right, Mr BB - do you mean this particular piece (new to us all) or stanislav in general? Lots of good examples in the anthology, well underway, but meantime if you type stanislav into the blog-specific search box top left of the Ishmael front page, a selection should appear, as on a few occasions Mr Ishmael reposted old stanislav material (most of which was first seen on order order, and then briefly on stanislav's blues, which preceded Ishmael.)

cheers

v./

mrs ishmael said...

And another time, mr mongoose, we were having a bonfire, because mr ishmael loved bonfires and we had the grandson staying with us and he loves bonfires too. So we invited a few folk round for bonfire, beer and baked potatoes. The Oztralian immortalised by mr ishmael's prose had his old dad and his brother visiting him from Oz. Bruce brought along 6 tins of something beery as his and his brother and his wife's contribution and handed them in at the kitchen. His dad was bearing a large bottle of blended whisky. Nice to meet you, I burbled, what a long journey you've had, how do you like our islands, shall I take the bottle, so kind of you to bring it, can I get you a drink? No, he replied, clutching his bottle harder, this is for me.And it was. And he took it away at home time, the little that was left.
Doubtless mr mike, when he wakes up, will tell us all about these interesting customs from Down Under.

mrs ishmael said...

mr bungalow bill, you have such a treat in store for you - all the stanislav material is waiting for you. One bloke laughed so hard at stanislav his wife had to call an ambulance. Many a ruined keyboard was reported to stanislav as his readers spilled coffee/wine /beer in their paroxysms of delight. A Feast of Jamie awaits you. Summer with stanislav (the one with the Camper Van), How to kill and cook a turkey bastard. Then there's the truly disgusting essays of which Blogger (Christian) Linford complained, which brought down the Snotty Brown administration.
mr Editor verge has them all, and more, lined up in the anthology. Stuff that all the family can enjoy. Prob'ly make an ideal Christmas present for the wives and servants.

Bungalow Bill said...

Thanks Mrs I and Mr Verge. Sounds just the spiritual fare I'm after. Art and filth.

mrs ishmael said...

A pleasure and a privilege, mr bb. It's one of those great combinations, innit, like sex and drugs and rock 'n'roll. Art and Filth - but don't leave out Humour - or you end up with D H Lawrence - and there's not many belly laughs there.

yardarm said...

Summer with Stan was my first acquaintance with Mr.Ishmael. I`d ventured onto Guido`s House of Blood and Pizza after Stan`s heyday but his name was mentioned. Then I discovered Old Holborn and he put up Summer with Stan. Both me and the late Mrs Yardarm were out of work, she with the first hints of the cancer that would kill her and I read Summer with Stan at three in the morning up with toothache; I think my laughter had a hysterical tinge. Then Gordon the Ruiner followed and some kind person posted a link to Mr Ishmael and here I am.

Mike said...

Mrs I: awake now Down Here. Cloudy with showers expected. Decided not to go to golf with the potential rain, buy will go for a walk shortly with an umbrella just in case. Yes, its the case down here to take some grog with you when going to a party. Though in my experience most people take something rather good and are keen to share - actually I like the idea as you can try several wines (my tipple) for the first time. One thing is for sure, there will be no shortage and the host gets to keep what's left - a reward for providing the grub (some people may also take a dish of food as well) and hospitality.. I think we invented BYO in restaurants here as well. Quite civilised really

mrs ishmael said...

Oh, mr yardarm, I'm so sorry for your loss. Those of us left behind just have to make the best of things and be thankful for the time we had together. I'm glad you found your way here - you know what it says on the tin: "When I don't know what to do, I come here. 10 September 2009 22:59" And here we are still, holding our hands to the tiny blaze that holds back the darkness.
mr ishmael knew his commentariat only virtually, but he cherished everyone as family. We're not a big family, in internet terms; but god, we're close. Today, 122 people viewed these pages; yesterday - obviously a bit more leisure, as it was a Sunday, 181 people dropped in and, I hope, had a good laugh, and lit a candle from that blaze to remember mr ishmael. And now we'll light a candle for mrs yardarm.
I'd love to hear from you all.

mrs ishmael said...

Good Morning, mr mike, thank you for calling in. Yep, it's the custom here to bring a bottle or two to a party, but not to take it home again at the end of the night! We don't do the bring food thing, though - the Americans do that one, as well, I think. Unless the restaurant doesn't have a licence, we wouldn't take our own booze - and for restaurants without licences, they charge corkage.
Gosh, will there be parties again?
How's the coronacrisis going where you are, mr mike?

Mike said...

Mrs I: as of right now we have 6823 cases and 96 deaths. NZ doing even better. If it wasn't for cruise ships inexplicably being let in our numbers would be tiny. We are not locked down as tightly as you and people are generally being responsible. Just done a 1 hour walk (and will do again this arvo); noticeably more walkers, joggers and cyclists about = working from home.

professor n=madcronysquared foggisum said...

6823 cases and 96 deaths, mr mike? assuming the rest of oz-households are equally well stashed-up, it rather sounds as if you guys got off lightly - however, as a leaning academic in this field, i would venture to suggest that any accurate epicureal assessment of these figures would rather depend on whether you are talking cases of scotch or wine...

anyway, whatever the variables in vintage, rates of self-isolation, and distance between socials, my gut-feeling still tells me that 96 fatalities could prove to be a spot on the low-side...

and indeed to take a case in point, and talking of great figures, i did some research on this very subject just the other month, during a naughty night-in with my super-model-partner and an unbroached case of daftmill, when - to cut a long story down to what little i can remember - our extensive extra-curricular experimentation and imprudent inputting resulted - after things went a bit weird - in one biologically unconscious mathematician crashed-out under the table, one short-circuited motherboard, an empty crate of whisky, and half-a-million unexplained deaths.

of course, as the more arithmetically astute amongst you may have noticed, there remains in my calculations one huge unanswered question, for, if i only drank one bottle, how in hell's name did she-who-must-be-obeyed sink eleven?

Mike said...

Mr yardarm: sorry to read your news. Best wishes.

professor n=whatever-the-fuck foggisum said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
mrs ishmael said...

The cruise liners are a big concern, mr mike, here as in your neck of the woods. Not just that they are potential plague ships - even in precorona times, there was massive animus towards them in these islands - polluting, over-sized monsters, with passengers eroding the ancient sites that they had signed up to visit. And the burden on the local infrastructure! mr ishmael was told by one of his doctors and several nurses that, because the cruise on-board medical facility charged squillions of money for even the administration of a paracetamol, passengers and crew headed for our local cottage hospital the minute their feet touched land.They were prohibited from landing,here, though, at the beginning of the coronacrisis, which was just at the start of the cruise season, so we've avoided pools of infection caused by liner traffic. And our borders are closed, except for food, supplies and medical purposes - can't book a ferry crossing nor a plane, so we have tiny numbers - 7 recorded cases (which actually doesn't mean very much, as there has been very limited testing)and two people have passed away.
The problem about being so clear of the virus is that once the borders are open again, we will have a spike of infection, as there will be little immunity in the indigenous population. And I believe a viable vaccination programme is still some way off.
Do any of our American readers care to chip in with an update on their situation?

mrs ishmael said...

Dear mr professor fuck-foggism,
Haven't I mentioned these long names before? Even you can't remember your avatar. Might be down to the other bottles of Daftmill, I suppose. Glad you're having fun at home, even at the cost of your liver. (Mine's a lost cause, I fear) Sex and death, that other great pairing. Do you suppose that in nine months time, all the new BabyBoomers will have interesting names to reflect these times and the circumstances of their conception? Young LockDown, a promising boy, and here's Corona, such a pretty little girl. Makes a change from Fifi Trixibelle or Chardonnay, anyway.

president "houdini" hump - much too busy fighting the war-on-himself to deal with crabbies crawling 'round the jockstrap said...

infected insurgent cruise-liners? what d'you think we flogged you a nuclear detergent for, buster? send in the subs and blow the sacrilegious stone-age-eroding cunts out the water - i have it on good scientific authority that gamma-radiation with a half-life of 10000 years fries 99.9% of all immigrant viruses to fuck and will clean all that unsightly sphagnum-moss off those manky old rock-stadia.

yeah, have no fear my dear cousin hut-dwellers and crud-crufters, i can assure you that i'm fully culturally committed to conserving my ancestral celtic roots and the mystic musty moistness of the misty mcmotherland.

err...so any of those dilapidated sites suitable for a prehistoric golf-park including contextually considerate roundhouse-hotel with authentic orange thatch?

mrs ishmael said...

Just stop it, now, there's a good boy.

mongoose said...

I have slight experience of the Oztralian, Mr Mike. One of my oldest friends is one, though he is a rough bugger, and bowls fucking terrible leg-spin. And I don't care who knows. I agreed to meet him in the whatever pub it is at Fulham Cross. In I walked to find him eating a bag of fish'n'chips at the bar. The staff were looking at him coldly. I failed to mention that a few days before a couple of couples - previously a harmonious Friday night foursome - had erupted into a table-throwing brawl, including leash-straining chav-dogs. The only time in my life I have had to stand in the way of mrs mongoose and real danger btw. But I digress. But he too was a BYOG-man - though he did not carry it under his arm, it was his grog at a shindig. He would freely offer a tinny of Swan but you should not take the bugger unasked. It is just a different way.

The kids do it now at ewknee. Too poor to buy grog in the pub they take their own to "pre-s". Awful that we have allowed even that simple pleasure to be destroyed for the young.

mrs ishmael said...

Calm down, mr ultrapox, that's enough dead-Brooke-Taylor, now. By the way, did you read the last post? It's kinda the entry ticket here. I'm afraid I have to remind you of mr ishmael's remarks to you back in June 2014 and, on this occasion, I have adopted his policy:

"I have said this to you previously, dr klondike buzz, and I will repeat for the last time - your multiply-tagged, repetitive flights of fancy rapidly irritate; they are unquestionably delivered with some linguistic finesse however they do underscore the adage that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, something which, before encountering your endless, snide bullying, I would have questioned. Your comments may amuse you but I suspect that you will be your only audience; tortured, exagerated wordplay makes slave of its author and creates enmity in its readers. I have, therefore, deleted your last half-dozen posts; they add nothing to anything, I hope that your participation in the wider public discourse is less self obsessively negative, less preposterously clever, I would guess, though, that your life's purpose is to disrupt any continuum in which you exist; here, you no longer exist at all.

Any effort at having the last word will only exhaust you; it will take me a second to recognise you and a half a second to delete your comment."