The chronicles of Ruin, continued.
Call me Ishmael said....intelligence is knowing what to do when you don't know what to do.
Anonymous said... When I don't know what to do,I come here.
10 September 2009 22:59
Do you suppose Angela Rayner has a tongue piercing?
Wiki tells us that Angela Rayner(néeBowen; born 28 March 1980) is a British politician serving asShadow First Secretary of StateandDeputy Leader of the Oppositionsince 2020.A member of theLabour Party, she serves as itsdeputy leader,chairand national campaign coordinator. She has beenMember of Parliament(MP) forAshton-under-Lynesince2015. She ideologically identifies as asocialistand as being part of Labour'ssoft left. Rayner was born inStockport, where she attended the state secondaryAvondale School. She left school aged 16 whilst pregnant and without any qualifications. She later trained insocial care, eventually becoming atrade union representativewithinUnison, during which time she joined theLabour Party. Selected to contestAshton-under-Lynein 2014, Rayner was elected for the seat at the2015 general election.
Admirable. A self-made woman. The very antithesis of white, privileged, public school, Oxbridge educated men with large pratfolios and an abiding interest in decorating. But also gobby (not the same as articulate), conversationally aggressive and downright irritating, as Andrew Marr will attest, having been talked over by Angela this morning.
Now, although it looks like the sort of punishment that a mediaeval husband might inflict on an unloved wife who talks too much or eats too much, like a scold's bridle,
the tongue piercing is experiencing a resurgence in popularity. Although there is loose talk about self-empowerment, overcoming anxiety (what? really?) and personal adornment, many people claim that it enhances oral sex. Apparently, many varieties of tongue rings are available with attachments intended for sexual purposes. It is, overwhelmingly, a female piercing. To voluntarily fetch up at a tattoo and piercing parlour, allow your tongue to be clamped in a surgical pincer and have one or more holes drilled through your tongue, for fuck's sake - and we know how richly provided one's tongue is with pain-transmitting nerves - remember how it brings tears to your eyes when you inadvertently bite your tongue - AND pay for the privilege, strikes me as the action of someone who needs to be restrained under a section of the Mental Health Act. And certainly not be appointed to the posts of Shadow First Secretary of StateandDeputy Leader of the Opposition.
I suppose it could be seen as a selfless act - to give enhanced pleasure whilst tonguing one's partner's bits. Or an act of oppression - choose me, choose me, the pierced tongue declares - look at what this can do for you. Given the continuing state of Patriarchy and predominantly male-controlled wealth, it is likely that the sexual bits in question will be of the male variety, and the pierced tongue will belong to a woman. Indeed, Wiki informs me that having a tongue piercing is unpopular amongst men. Presumably, heterosexual men.
So, how does one detect that someone has had their tongue pierced, if they don't stick their tongue out at you, either in a spirit of insult or enticement? Simple. They don't talk proper. They can't talk proper. They slur. They sound a little bit pissed. If they wish to disguise the piercing, say at a job interview, or during an appearance on the Andrew Marr show, they keep the lips closed, like someone trying to hide bad teeth. Then there's the halitosis and the permanently coated tongue.
Really, not a good look for the Labour Party. Here's another one, courtesy of mr verge:
Dawn Petula Butler (born 3 November
1969) is a British Labour Party politician who has been
the Member of Parliament (MP) for Brent
Central since 2015. What happened to
gravitas? How come this clown got elected? Don’t you just adore
the beardie in the rentboy suit hovering at her side, desperate for her to shut
up and get on with the ruddy presentation? She wasn’t giving ground easily
though. So addicted to the limelight, she goes into her act every time she
opens the fridge door and the light goes on. Whilst I was appalled by the antics of the Shadow Secretary of State for Women and Equalities, mr verge was horrified by the man/woman, Pips Bunce. mr ishmael used to have a similar visceral reaction. He told me it stemmed from an occasion when he was walking along a corridor, and up ahead was a very attractive woman, long waving hair, beautifully dressed, high heels, perfect, gleaming stockings with a seam up the back, and that hip sway that has all sorts of sexual promise. mr ishmael felt a certain positive response within him and speeded up to overtake this vision, with the intention of engaging the lovely in conversation of a coffee variety. He very rapidly realised it was a man, tricked out in all the usual signifiers of femininity, and was enraged at being so easily fooled by the shallow mockery of womanhood, but, significantly, that his heterosexual self had been assaulted by being attracted to a man. His response was to rip off the made-up and bewigged head of his erstwhile lust object and insert it into the, doubtless, capacious rectum of his fellow male. He didn't actually do that, of course, but a couple of false nails and false eyelashes may have come to grief. Simone de
Beauvoir told us that “one is not born, but rather becomes a woman". That becoming is a concept or process rather more complex than having long hair and wearing make up. Cultural appropriation?
Back when we were probation officers together, my old chum Fred worked with rapists, murderers, child molesters and wife-beaters. Well, we both did, but because I'm female, I also got allocated some female offenders, so got to see the impact of the beatings in terms of missing teeth, missing clumps of hair, black eyes, swollen jaws, cracked ribs, burnings, scaldings and broken limbs. One day, Fred told me that the frightening ubiquity, prevalence and inexorable escalation of male violence had made him heartily sickened and ashamed of his gender. He didn't want to transition - he just wanted to raise the game of most men (not all, hasten to add) so that they could begin to approximate to the status of human beings as opposed to fear-aggressive, testosterone crazed Beasts.
Now that we have all these female role-models in positions of power, politicians and influencers (again, what the fuck sort of job is that? Answer - a lucrative one), I'm beginning to understand Fred's disillusionment, as I'm experiencing it in terms of my own gender. Acchh - awa' ladies, and pierce your tongues.
Which brings us to the scary Mrs. Fish. Our Andrew did his best, with facts and statistics, but Mrs Fish had no time for that.
What about the requirement to police borders yet you assert that there will be an open border?
Wisht now, I'll sort it all out.
Each
time Andrew lobbed in another fact-bomb, she just got redder in the face
and shouted louder.
Scotland's deficit will be 25% he edged in, desperate, but sure of his position. And all new applicants to the EU are formally required to work towards membership of the Euro and to reduce budget deficits to 3 per cent or less. How will you address that gap?
That's just made-up figures.
Under an independent Scotland, average incomes will be reduced by between 3.5% and 8%.
Scotland
is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, she yelled and you are quoting from a report that isn't even published yet.
She kept on yelling even after Marr informed her that they had run out of time and the titles were coming up. One must hope that she has done herself irreparable harm. Trouble is, shouty emotionalism is just the thing to appeal to the Scottish voter, especially when seeing wee Nicola under persistent questioning by a Cantabrigian toff, albeit one born in Glasgy.
The Desperate Importance of Interior Design
Apparently, Boris doesn't like the John Lewis look. Who would have thought he gave a shitcake for such things? Is this going to be Decorating Gate? Dominic Goings' revenge?
.......................................
Here's a small essay from mr ishmael on those who form our opinions, the Broadcasting Corporation
COME, YE MASTERS OF WAR. 7 March 2014
It's the Warathon to end all Warathons and the Paedophile Broadcasting Corporation is having a ball, preaching, eulogising and teaching us our history as only the PBC can. Christ, if only they could dig-up the grotesque Richard Dimbleby and have him read us pompous, ill-informed, arselicking homilies in his pompous, dreary, arselicking voice; how so trending would that be.
ESTABLISHMENT COCKSUCKER. RICHARD DIMBLEBY.
Yes, Her Majesty is crowned and safe abed, the Bank of England is secure, the Fleet guards the oceans, the wogs are subdued and all is well in our sceptred isle, the rich man, bless his wealth, in his Cotswold manor house, the poor man, shivering but doughty, in his hovel. All as it should be in the best of all possible worlds. Goodnight suckers.
Yes, a dynasty in waiting but not until its members have endured
the time-honoured rigours of a private education, Oxbridge and
membership of the noble Bullingdon Club.
And, you may ask, you
noble race of Britons, shall we exalt them above all other broadcasters
and maintain them in a life of excess, infidelity and hypocrisy. Yes, I
respond, it is your sacred duty. Rule Britannia.
Christ Almighty, there is no tongue, no rant, no epic of rancid-bitter disillusionment can tell my loathing of people like the Dimblebys. Heads on spikes, innards fed to dogs, limbs dispatched to the ends of the Earth. It doesn't come near.
It's what the PBC has always done, though, this, create a laboured symbiosis with Empire and itself, the World Service cast as Freedom's beacon in a darkening globe: it was BBC coded broadcasts won the war, you know, nudge-nudge, no names no pack-drill. All the freedom movements in the world funnel themselves through the BBC.
Funny, how when Russia Today fires the odd counterblast at GlobaCorp's tethered media fellatrice it is howled down as propagandist lies; it may well be editorially pro-Russian, it may well, and it does, further engorge the bank balance of socialist manque,
WHAT A PRAT.
TOSSER GEORGE. A PERSONALITY CULT FOR THE UNWARY. With Tearful Tommy Sheridan, Galloway and his vanity have destroyed the Left in this country, probably for ever. Shame on him, shame on his voters, Tom, Dick and Ahmed.
George Galloway, surely the most successful of parliamentary filthsters but RT also screens bold, dramatic, independently produced documentaries of enquiry, record and accusation which, mirroring the tremendous, non-satirical content of Private Eye, would never, ever be screened by our own national broadcaster, fuck no.
There is an at-tipping-point yin and yang see-sawing between the PBC and it's funders, the audience. People want to believe the best of it, for - somehow - it still claims to represent both them and a sunny, virtuous pastureland of British values which, if it ever existed, was ploughed-up, poisoned and concreted-over by my gobby generation. People want to believe the best of the PBC yet the daily-growing mountain of evidence is that it represents only vice, degeneracy and greed, is a rogues' gallery of squalid, filthy self-interest.
A nest of thieves - you only have to look at them,
don't you ?
PBC 4, for instance, started out so young and strong, only to surrender, currently showing repeats of Top of the Pops, surely the most dire of trashy showbiz rubbish, it was shit when it was first shown, it's ghastly presenters, one-by-one being thrown, now, into Indecency's broom cupboard; Savile, Travis, who's next? All of them, if I had my way, every last one of them, grinning, mutton-headed jackanapeses. Where has all the PBC4 money gone? Look above, at Thompson and It-wasn't me-guv Fatboy Patten, that's where the money's gone. Repeats of Top of the fucking Pops, on the nation's culture, science and arts channel. Yeah, why not? Its kind of ironic in a post-ironic, retro sort of way, they gush to themselves. And besides, who gives a fuck about the viewers? Since when do they matter?
This thieving, mangy old crow is still there, what did we used to call her, the BBC's grunting, hunchback transexual, still wetting herself in self adoration on the artsreview sofa, still freebieing her way around theatres and galleries and cinemas and concert halls; still flogging her own, self-produced, dodgy OU-style programmes to the PBC, still squawking imperiously on Newsnight, like she gave a fuck about anything, She's worse, Wark, than Melvin Barg, his Lordship at least ponced some of his fortune from the private sector luvvies.
How to get on at the PBC:
If you do as you are told, they will look after you, don't rock the boat, lad, now you're on it. For Evil to prosper, good men need only think to their careers.
Both anthologies of the work of mr ishmael and his young Polish friend,
Stanislav, Plumb Cheap for You: Honest Not Invent and Vent Stack -
are available to purchase for mere money at Lulu or Amazon. It is
cheaper to buy from Lulu. Here's how to buy your own copies:
Please register an account with them first. This will save you a couple of
quid, as going straight into the link provided below seems to make paypal think
it's ok to charge in dollars, and apply their own conversion rate, which will
put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up,
follow our link; a pop-up box asks for age confirmation - simply set the date
to (say) 1 January 1960, and proceed. (If you type the title, the anthology
will not appear as a search result until the "show explicit content"
box - found at the bottom left by scrolling down - has been checked. You
may also see the age verification box, as above, at this point.)
The full title is "Vent Stack love from stanislav"
by ishmael smith, and the cover you'll see is red with white titles and a
picture of Buster the Previous Blog Dog having a green thought in a green
shade.
At checkout, try WELCOME15 or TREAT15 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, the book (including delivery to a UK address) should cost
£10.89
Looking disconcertingly like the Pilsbury Dough-Boy, Ambassador Andrey Kelin was neither jolly nor reassuring this morning on the Andrew Marr Show. Seven years after Russia annexed Crimea, things remain unsettling in that part of the world.
The Ambassador told us, rather unconvincingly, that the Russian troops and weaponry amassed on the Ukraine border over the last month is only because Russia is a very big country and they want to practice moving troops about. He added that“If the Ukrainian government decide to move troops into the Donbass - to make a bloodbath there and to kill Russians - then of course we are going to respond.” When asked if he believed that Russia and Ukraine are on the verge of war, he said: “I don’t think so”. He explained he's a bit uncertain because he is just the ambassador to London and he doesn't know what is going on in Moscow and he hasn't been home in a while. At least he's not in trouble and hasn't had to sleep in his car, unlike Kyaw Zwar Min.
Myanmar's ambassador to London was forced to sleep in his car after being 'locked out' of his embassy for opposing the military coup in the country. That one isn't going to end well.
Back to the Pilsbury Dough Ambassador, who maintained the party line on Alexei Navalny, who really isn't doing well in prison, quite poorly in consequence of his hunger strike; called him a hooligan and said that if he just behaved normally he'd eventually be released.
President Joe Biden's administration imposed a new round of sanctions on Russia this week - as mr ultrapox has repeatedly alerted us, the US will keep interfering. It really doesn't help - if world peace is a desired outcome. But then, it never was. On Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there were not yet grounds to fully relax and that Russia would continue to watch the situation closely. Last week, Vladimir Putin blocked all foreign warships from reaching Ukraine and closed part of the Kerch Strait - which separates Crimea in the west from Russia in the east.
On October 25th, 1854, a bit of a mess in the same part of the world led to Tennyson subsequently commemorating the abysmal stupidity of military leaders and the shocking waste of life in his poem, The Charge of the Light Brigade.
Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. “Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!” he said. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
Forward, the Light Brigade!” Was there a man dismayed? Not though the soldier knew Someone had blundered. Theirs not to make reply, Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die. Into the valley of Death Rode the six hundred.
The loss of life in the Crimean War
(October 1853 to February 1856) was prodigious, resulting in the death
of some 750,000 military service personnel on all sides. Russian diplomat Pyotr Petrovich Troubetzkoy wrote: “Few wars in history reveal greater confusion of purpose or richer unintended consequences than the Crimean War. "
The balance of power was threatened in July 1853, when Russia occupied the Danubian Principalities (Moldavia and Walachia) to pressure Istanbul. Austria, Britain and France favoured a diplomatic settlement, but Turkey declared war in October 1853 and attacked the Russians. In late November, the Russian Black Sea fleet annihilated a Turkish squadron at Sinope. Britain, anxious to secure her trade with Turkey and access to India by maintaining the Turkish/Ottoman regime, saw this as an insult and popular opinion was for war. The new French
empire was desperate for military glory and revenge for
its defeat at the hands of Russia in 1812. For them, the Ottoman-Turkish
empire was incidental.
The Battle of Balaclava
opened shortly after 5:00 am, when a squadron of Russian Cossack Cavalry
advanced under cover of darkness. The Cossacks were followed by a host
of Uhlans, their Polish light cavalry allies, against several dug-in
positions occupied by Ottoman Turks. The Turks fought stubbornly,
sustaining 25% casualties before finally being forced to withdraw. For
a time, the Russian advance was held only by the 93rd Highland
Regiment, a desperate defense recorded in history as the Thin Red Line.
Finally, the Russians were driven back by the British Heavy Brigade, led
by George Bingham, 3rd Earl of Lucan, a man otherwise known to history
for the brutality inflicted on tenants in Mayo, during the Irish potato
famine.
The
light cavalry consisted of lightly armed and armored troops
mounted on small, fast horses, usually wielding cutlass or spear. The
“Heavies”, by contrast, were mounted on huge, powerful chargers, both
rider and horse heavily armored. Lucan’s subordinate was James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, in
command of the Light Brigade. They were prideful, mean spirited and
petty men, who were brothers-in-law, and thoroughly hated each other.
Field
Marshal Fitzroy James Henry Somerset, 1st Baron Raglan, was in overall
command of the allied armies. Raglan occupied a high spot from which he
could see the battle, but did not realize that
his subordinates below couldn’t see what he could see. Spotting a small
Russian detachment trying to get away with captured cannon, Raglan issued an order to Lucan who was in overall command of his Cavalry. “Lord
Raglan wishes the Cavalry to advance rapidly to the front, follow the
enemy, and try to prevent the enemy carrying away the guns.” As Staff Officer Louis Nolan left to deliver the message, Raglan shouted “Tell Lord Lucan the cavalry is to attack immediately“.
The
Light Brigade was well suited to such a task, but the men below had no
idea what Raglan meant by such a poorly worded order. The only guns they
could see were dug-in Russian artillery a mile away, at the other end
of the valley. When Nolan brought the order, Lucan demanded to know what
guns were meant. With a contemptuous sweep of his arm, Nolan pointed down the
valley. “There, sir, are your guns“.
That
order amounted to a suicide
mission, even had heavy cavalry been used. The “Lights” were being ordered to ride
a mile down an open valley, with enemy cannon and riflemen lining both
sides, into the muzzles of dug-in, well sighted, heavy artillery. Nose
to nose and glaring, neither man blinked in the contest of wills. In
the end, Cardigan did as ordered. 674 horsemen of the Light Brigade
mounted up, drew their swords, and rode into the valley of death.
Louis
Nolan should have gone back to Raglan, but rode out instead, in front
of the Light Brigade. He was almost certainly trying to redirect the
charge and could have saved the day, but he was the first casualty of
the raid.Raglan
must have looked on in horror at the scene unfolding below. Instead
of turning right and climbing the Causeway slopes, almost 700 horsemen
first walked, then trotted and finally charged, straight down the
valley, into the Russian guns. Captain Thomas Hutton of the 4th Light
Dragoons said "A child might have seen the trap that was laid for us. Every private dragoon did".
It
took the Lights a full seven minutes to get to the Russian guns.
Cannon fire tore great gaps out of their lines the whole time, first
from the sides and then from the front. Shattered remnants of the
Light Brigade actually managed to overrun the Russian guns, but had no
means of holding them. They milled about for a time, and then back they
came, blown and bleeding horses carrying mangled men back through
another gauntlet of fire.When
it was over, 110 were dead, 130 wounded, and 58 missing or captured. The action lasted 20 minutes. Captain Nolan’s
horse carried his dead body all the way down, and all the way back.
Cardigan and Lucan pointed the finger of blame at each other, for the
rest of their lives. Both also laid blame for the disaster on Nolan, but he
wasn’t there to defend himself.
Prince Andrew wanted to dress up in his Admiral's costume for The Funeral. He's entitled to wear it - in fact, they all can, apart from Harry, of course, who's been stripped of his uniforms, titles, honours, etc, on account of marrying an American divorcee.
Anyway, they didn't let him - Andrew, that is. Wear the dress-up clothes. He did, however, get an interview with the press, and was able to tell them that he mourned the demise of the Duke of Edinborough "as a father" - neat that. I don't think we're quite ready for his rehabilitation, though. Ghislaine is not yet dead.
The Poet Laureate has been earning his crust, producing a poem for the Grand Occasion. There's an expectation that the Laureate will write verse for significant national occasions. Tennyson had the job and wrote The Charge of the Light Brigade - quoted above, as part of his duties. The remuneration used to be a butt of canary wine, but it's now £6000 a year.I daresay he knows his business best, but Simon seems to have fallen into the ponderous mode favoured by the Scots Makar, Jackie Kay. What exactly does "snow recast as seed heads and thistledown" mean?
Among the causes of the Crimean War, which Russia lost to an alliance of France, the Ottoman Empire, the United Kingdom and Sardinia, the precipitating factors involved the rights of Christian minorities in theHoly Land, then a part of the Ottoman Empire. The French promoted the rights ofRoman Catholics, while Russia promoted those of theEastern Orthodox Church.There's a huge irony here, one we're so accustomed to that we seldom notice that a religion of peace is blamed for appalling bloodshed. The same religion, at that. Christianity. At least Russia and the United States aren't pretending its about religion this time.
Here's mr ishmael on religion, drafted 4th September 2014:
You
know how it is when you have a new or a different car, you start
seeing them everywhere, there aren't any more of them, it's just that
you are on the lookout for them, Narcissus on wheels, it's part of the
practice of consumption, some sort of almost subliminal brand
recognition; it's why Hollywood sells product placement opportunities in its
product, why product endorsement from product-irrelevant and worthless
celebrities - like the hideous Michael Parkinson, the chuckling dwarf,
Ronnie Corbett and the buffoon sprinter, Farrah - is such a large part
of GlobaCorp's enslavement strategy. What, exactly, the fuck does
Parkinson know about life insurance, or anything, for that matter,
outside a shallow lifetime spent nauseatingly brown-nosing the dross of
tinseltown? And do tell us, David Niven, something else that's
wonderful about your life and your wonderful career, some witty apercu,
perhaps, about you and Errol Flynn or you and Clark Gable or you and
any of the great studio degenerates, any of the spontaneous and witty
recollections of a lifetime spent being great which we rehearsed with
you before we came on. Why on Earth would we be advised about broadband
by this shamelessly money-grubbing sprinter, I doubt he can switch-on a
computer unaided. And as for Corbett, the impertinence of one little
old man, laughingly advising all the nation's other little old men and
women about their lonely frozen dinners, well, 'senough to put you off
your cottage pie with sliced green beans, a delicious gravy and a truly
tasty ice cream dessert to follow.
Easy to digress, once one starts on GlobaCorp and its agents but I
suppose my point is that a presence does not reflect either an
intrinsic value or a statistical relevance; we must not conflate
marketing with reality. And that's why I came to talk about the Jews -
or Judaism.
It was mr tdg and mr bungalow bill who mentioned the immensely
disproportionate contribution to human progress of - I don't know what
you call them, people, I suppose, with some Jewish blood - those
connected somehow to an iron age religion, those who may or may not
follow its tenets but feel themselves, nevertheless, embraced by,
enfolded in its exclusivity. Probably the oldest form of racism,
Judaism except that it's all moot, are they members of a race or a
faith? it is a faith obviously, but a good deal more, too. It is
something which I have been raised to accept as - forgive me - Gospel
Truth, whilst simultaneously, if furtively, being told, whispered to,
that You can't trust them, the Tribe. Is it true, though? I think the
latter is axiomatically demonstrated, one cannot trust any zealous
religionist, be he Jehovah's Witness or Jehovah's Chosen, for he will
serve a purpose alien to the commonwealth of man, be he Muslim, Mormon,
Sikh or B'hai, he - and it is normally he - will rule his home according
to myth and superstition, Ahmed and Isaac, alike, will brainwash their
families into obedience, into separatism and bogus superiority. The
family and its faith, the roots of racism and bigotry. We need not
travel to Tel Aviv, we can see it in Glasgow, Belfast or Enniskillen,
there are religions of peace causing shit and havoc everywhere you look.
Why should Judaism be any different? Ah but mr ishmael, it is a
religion of peace, it's adherents only wanting to be left alone. 'Snot
what it says in the Torah, which is nothing but fire and brimstone,
flood and slaughter, not just in the past but forever more. Judaism,
like Islam, is a state of war; it is engaged in an unwinnable war with
its god, with its historical tormentors and with its neighbours, whom,
constitutionally and scripturally, it must cleanse from the land. UN
rulings which Israel does not like - As of 2013, Israel had been condemned in 45 resolutions by the United Nations Human Rights Council
since its creation in 2006, the Council had resolved almost more
resolutions condemning Israel than on the rest of the world combined.
The 45 resolutions comprised almost half (45.9%) of all country-specific
resolutions passed by the Council, - it does not honour, whilst
piously damning its neighbours' lawlessness. Those who ignore Israel's
criminality do so on the basis that they are Jews, themselves, or that
Jewish suffering in the Holocaust and other pogroms was so great that
she is beyond the law. Israeli is not alone, of course, in her
criminality, all major Western powers flout international laws and
conventions, Uncle Sam's war and espionage machine is the great Satan, he is
the global torturer; France, her relics of empire still a casus
bellum, meddle brutally wherever she can and under the cock-waving
nincompoop, Hollande, has begged to be allowed to jump on the faces of their enemies, once Uncle Sam has got 'em on the ground.
Religious Statistics from the U.K. 2001 census:
Religion (2011)
Eng.
Wales
Scotland
Northern Ireland
U. K.
%
%
%
%
%
Christianity
59.4
57.6
53.8
82.3
59.5
Islam
5.0
1.5
1.4
0.21
4.4
Hinduism
1.5
0.3
0.3
0.13
1.3
Sikhism
0.8
0.1
0.2
0.01
0.7
Judaism
0.5
0.1
0.1
0.02
0.4
Buddhism
0.5
0.3
0.2
0.06
0.4
Other religion
0.4
0.4
0.3
0.39
0.4
Total non-Christian religion
8.7
2.7
2.6
0.8
7.7
No religion
24.7
32.1
36.7
10.1
25.7
Religion not stated
7.2
7.6
7.0
6.8
7.2
No religion and Religion not stated
31.9
39.7
43.6
16.9
32.8
Percentage of respondents in the 2011 census in the UK who said they were Christian.
Look out your window, baby, there’s a scene you’d like to catch
The band is playing “Dixie,” a man got his hand outstretched
Could be the Führer
Could be the local priest
You know sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace ........................................................
Both anthologies of the work of mr ishmael and his young Polish friend,
Stanislav, Plumb Cheap for You: Honest Not Invent and Vent Stack -
are available to purchase for mere money at Lulu or Amazon. It is
cheaper to buy from Lulu. Here's how to buy your own copies:
Please register an account with them first. This will save you a couple of
quid, as going straight into the link provided below seems to make paypal think
it's ok to charge in dollars, and apply their own conversion rate, which will
put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up,
follow our link; a pop-up box asks for age confirmation - simply set the date
to (say) 1 January 1960, and proceed. (If you type the title, the anthology
will not appear as a search result until the "show explicit content"
box - found at the bottom left by scrolling down - has been checked. You
may also see the age verification box, as above, at this point.)
The full title is "Vent Stack love from stanislav"
by ishmael smith, and the cover you'll see is red with white titles and a
picture of Buster the Previous Blog Dog having a green thought in a green
shade.
At checkout, try WELCOME15 or TREAT15 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, the book (including delivery to a UK address) should cost
£10.89
Sometimes Satan comes as a man of peace.
A darkie? In the bushes?
I daresay you're right, your worship, I'll fetch your twelve-bore.