The Sunday Ishmael 14/11/2021

 

It is Celebrate War Sunday again. I know, the Season comes around so quickly these days: The Boat Race, Royal Ascot, the Henley Regatta and Celebrate War Sunday- all just whizzing past in a succession of clothes, hats, medals  and champagne. Shame that Good Queen Brenda has sprained her back and couldn't make it this year. What with her having sanctioned so many wars fought in her name by her loyal Governments. So many of them. And her having done her duty as but a wee princess driving tanks and patronising the salt of the earth cockneys in the blitzed East End.  Or was that her mum? Keeping the Family Business of War, Inc. going.

    I remember begging my dad for the money to buy a poppy at school. What do you want one of those for, he demanded, unaccountably angry. My dear old dad was very seldom angry, so I nervously told him that the poppies were so pretty and all my friends were getting one. So he carefully explained to me that the reason I didn't have a grandfather and the reason that man we had seen in Leeds sitting on a trolley because he had no legs, begging, was because of something called The Great War. Families left without a man to provide for them. Men left so injured that they couldn't earn a living any more. And the Government, which had used up a generation of men in fighting a war in which none of them understood the War Aims other than that The Hun bayoneted babies, 

 

failed to pay a level of compensation to widows, families and disabled men that would enable them to keep a roof over their heads, be decently clad, shod and fed.War Pensions were made a statutory right on 19th August, 1919, previous to which date the claim to a pension was as "a matter of grace." The claim for pension had to be made within seven years after the date of discharge or within seven years after 23rd August, 1921, whichever was the earlier date.The widow of a soldier, sailor or airman who had been killed in the war, or who died in consequence of his service within 7 years of being wounded or removed from duty was entitled to a pension of 20 shillings a week, (£1) or if she had children or was over 40, 26s 8d a week. Instead of riot and insurrection and demanding just treatment, the victim survivors of their state's war on its family enemies, accustomed to a habit of obedience, submission and fatalism got on with enduring the peace. In 1921, the British Legion was created to support injured servicemen and their families. They raised money by having disabled former servicemen make little paper poppies in imitation of the poppies that had sprung up in the disturbed soil of the battlefields of Europe, and sell them. Thus defusing the anger that should have forced the Government into properly meeting its obligations to war widows and injured servicemen.
Of course, the Government could have encouraged the women and orphans of the Great War into sex work, as has the University of Durham. Did you notice this week that the University has offered training to support its students working in the sex trade? The University apologists claim that the training is in order to keep its students safe, and suggests that a good way to earn extra money is to sell used underwear on line. I'm really not a liberal.
When I was in Durham recently, it was impossible not to notice the very great numbers of students dining out in the little restaurants lining the narrow streets and making up vast, convivial throngs in the pubs. Maybe, if they are so strapped for cash, they should cultivate a taste for baked beans on toast and studying.
As I said, I'm really not a liberal.
So, back to today's celebrations. Negotiating the Double Speak is really quite tricky. When I was a naive young thing, I believed the black suits, the slow marches, the Chelsea fucking Pensioners, and shed tears when the Last Post sounded. I actually thought that the death and disfigurement were regretted, that the Prime Minister in his best black overcoat and sombre expression and Sir Brigadier Rupert Go Lightly Jockstrap would ensure that the War to End All War would do just that, instead of it flaring up only 20 years later and never dying down again. Has there been one year since the ending of the Second World War in which Britain was not engaged in warfare or "peace-keeping"? Now that I am old and cynical, I realise that the Battle of the Big Dicks is never ended, that the War Machine never closes down, that the economies of the West depend upon a state of constant warfare and that wholly expendable young men are Nudged into believing the old Lie:

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

 

Andrew Marr, on his eponymous show this morning, God bless him, goaded and cajoled the latest Sir Bufton-Tufton into Boasting about the state of war and peace-keeping in which we currently find ourselves. 

 

Old Nick Carter (Winchester College and Sandhurst - definitely one of them), Order of the Bath, Order of the British Empire, Distinguished Service Order, Aide-de-Camp General and Chief of the Defence Staff since 2018, but imminently retiring from that role, and much criticised by the Americans for his conduct of the Afghan operation.  Lieutenant General Daniel P. Bolger, claimed that "young riflemen paid the price" for Carter's "risk-averse" mentality, his unwillingness to allow his troops to defend themselves, his refusal to visit the front line, confining himself to visiting safe positions by helicopter, his repeated refusal of requests for aircraft and artillery support from troops under his command, and summed up: "He's not the type of general I would put in charge of anything." Recently, Sir Nick has attracted home-grown criticism for his  pronouncement that Military Chiefs encourage a "laddish culture" because soldiers have to go and fight the enemy. But, he said this morning, robustly, the trick is, despite the Essential Battlefield Camaraderie, the trick is to put in some respect and the Spirit of Teamwork and some Leadership. As for the Kenyan woman who was raped and murdered by the British Soldiery, Sir Nick was Shocked.

We will be putting engineers in to fight the Battle of the Belarus Border by building some fences. Because of the Hybrid Playbook. No, I don't know either.

The Playbook is also a factor along the Ukraine Border. This is the Russian Playbook.  It may turn into a full scale shooting war, but he doesn't know, really. 

War

So that's War. How are we getting on with the whole Pestilence thing?

Pretty good. Transmission rates higher than ever, hospitalisations and deaths continuing. I've had my third anti Covid injection today - turns out it is not so much a vaccination, more a drug that needs repeating every six months. I was miserably unwell with my first two injections, (Astra Zeneca) so I'm hoping that I'll sail through this one.  (Phizer).

Which leaves Famine. Yep - on schedule; floods here, famine there, climate change will do that thing. Can't say you weren't warned.

If we haven't disappeared as a species by then, doubtless COP27 will see the gatherings of the great and the good again. 

 

 Just returning to me not being a liberal - you do know that there's an estimated 900,000 illegal migrants, male, and originating from Africa or the Middle East, roaming around France? France wants rid, as they are a nuisance, heads full of religious clapshot and misogyny, so they are very happy to stand back and see the boats leaving their beaches, with their cargoes of young men aboard, heading for Britain.  Around 23,000 made it successfully to Britain this year. One day last week there were 1000.

 

Enough from me. Here's mr ishmael, ripping the piss out of General Francis Richard Dannatt. Baron Dannatt, GCB, CBE, MC, DL, is a retired senior British Army officer and member of the House of Lords. He was Chief of the General Staff from 2006 to 2009. mr ishmael writes about the animosity that temporarily derailed Dannatt's progression to the other place, between Dannatt and Gordon Brown back on the 19th September 2010. 

FIELD MARSHAL RUPERT GOLIGHTLY-JOCKSTRAP-DANNAT, ABC, DEF, GHI, JKL MNOP AND BAR, BBC, ITV, ACDC, PDQ, WYSIWYG, SNAFU; CONSTABLE OF THE TOWER OF LONDON, (HONEST, NOT INVENT) FORMER CHIEF OF THE DEFENCE STAFF AND NOT CALLHIMDAVE'S HOUSE OF LORDS DEFENCE MINISTER

MAD,  YOU SEE, TOTALLY MAD, MAD AS A FUCKING HATTER.

LORD LIEUTENANT OF LOONYSHIRE.

ONLY HAVE TO LOOK AT HIM

POOR, MAD BUGGER

His Marshalness has had his jodhpurs in a twist recently. The now-vanished, former prime minister, Gordon Snot, blocked Rupert's elevation to the Lords where he would have been Rectal Emollient Pursuivant  Extraordinaire with Black Stick and Purse to the inbred coupster, CallHimDave,  that is to say he would have called Brown a cunt, every time Dave told him to, which would have been often, just like in the House of Reptiles. Rupert has form here, having rubbished Brown at every opportunity since laying down his Field Marshal's baton and retiring  into what he hoped would be another well-paid public life, like well-paid public servants do, one in which he could continue bossing people around.  At least Admiral Lord Liberace West, the last Rupert  to go into the Lords in government harness, so to speak, and gay as a nine-bob note,  cut a dashing figure around the Mall in his leather trousers, quite the Lord Wee David Steel he was, too, with his discordant shirt collars and matching tie and handkerchiefs.  Westy it was who said one thing on the Today programme and the opposite an hour later, after Snotty had given him a good, Kiss Me Hardy,  beating;  just the sort of Jolly Jack Tar you want in charge of national security but probably not as bad as Pauline, Dougie Hurd's partner in crime,  Fucking Jesus fucking Christ, where do all these  fucking monsters come from ?


Snotty probably thought to himself I've had the fuck enough of these Generalbastards kicking my arse and I'll be fucked if I'm letting this cunt into the House of Lords so's he can sit there kicking me some more and collecting a couple of hundred pounds a day and free dinners and a salary off the fuckiong taxpayer,  no, fuck that shit, he can wait until next time, if he lives that long, the cunt. And to be fair to Snotty, that's just what anybody'd do, isn't it? Even  Rupert's senior comrades-in-gin, still-serving senior Ruperts themselves, feel that Dannat's beasting of Brown and to an extent Blair is not quite the ticket;  staff officers have traditionally been deemed too stupid to have political impulses, much less opinions, preferring to occupy their idle hours with polo, bondage and mild corporal punishment, administered by their batmen, themselves corporals and thus likely to confuse their restrained superior officers, as those worthies urge, Lay on with that corporal punishment, corporal, I need a good corporal flogging,  corporal and so on.  More details of senior officers' leisure activities can be found in Lt Col T E Lawrence's Seven Pillars Of Sodom, or maybe it's Wisdom.

There has been a disconcerting development, in these recent years of Celebrity-Ruin, for former senior officers to gob-off at the first sign of a few quid from skymadeupnewsandfilth, or an even fewer quid from the BB fucking C. 

Colonel Mad Bob Stewart, former commander of the Galactic Starfleet and a mental case,  is seldom off the box; General Sir Michael "Mike" Please Lower Deep Brown Voice  To A Shout Jackson - or Whacko-Jacko, as General Sir Michael "Mike" is fondly known by his former troops and lovers-in-arms -  can often be seen hurtling, in his camouflaged  Land-Rover, from studio to studio, commenting on les affaires militaire  for a few paltry guineas and a bullybeef sandwich.  And now Golightly-Jockstrap-Dannat, all set to be a force majeur in the Lords, rather like Slobodan's Banker,  the aforementioned ghastly old ghoul, Dame Pauline Neville-Corpse isn't, has had his fox shot, as it were, by the damned Son of the Fucking Manse blocking his ennoblement. Now,  throwing esprit de corps to the winds Dannat has been saying Brown is a rum cove, sort of blighter who doesn't pay his mess bill, goes on parade with his Cleobury Mortimer hanging out of his breeches, just to see if anyone salutes it.  Seems, according to Dannat, that Brown didn't value the lives of his Tommies, either when he was at the Treasury, hating Blair, or when he was at Number Ten hating everybody, starved them of funding for everything,  bullets,  boots and panties, almost as though he thought people who went in the forces were inferior to fucked-up, over-parented, nail-biting, feverishly masturbating, snot-eating freaks like himself, who never did a day's work in his life, unless you count plotting and scheming and blackmailing, mincing about  St Andrew's University and Whitehall and Broadcasting House and gurning over the repulsive, simpering man-hag, Mandelstein - why is it, in passing,  that nobody ever just punched him a good hard one in the mouth or on the nose or in the eye,  or better still, a good hard kick in the bollocks, Mandelstein, that is, but any of the horrible fucking bastards, why is it that they were able to get away with all this shit, that cunt, Campbell, he'd only need a good shouting-at from a proper bloke, don't forget, he's not really a hard man,  he only ever bullied the worthless,  piece of shit, gibbering, drunken  filth in Fleet Street,  and he'd shit himself, run off into a bout of depression; if somebody justly offended by any of these nasty malodorous fairies  had just smacked them one in the kisser;  then maybe the country wouldn't be going down the toilet, pissed-on, in sour valediction, by the likes of Clegg the Gimp and Cameron and that Foxtrotting Nitwit, Granpa Vince, droning-on in his  weary, I-Know-Best Granpa drone.

But Snotty and Dannat, it's the two cheeks of the same arse syndrome, isn't it? Both a pair of hypocritical  tossers, oh, maybe Dannat has a proper medal for proper courage,  although most generals seem to get one, like the filth all get the Queens Gallantry medal for throwing sixty year old women  around,  any plod above the rank of  station bicycle monitor has got some bauble attesting to his courage, The Distinguished Having His  Helmet Knocked-Off And Needing Six Months' Counselling On Full Pay  Medal For Conspicuous Bare-Faced Lead-Swinging, must come a time, if someone is being considered for Generalship, when the promotions  board says, What's this, old chap, no medal for gallantry, just all this campaign shit that they give everybody, not even a Mention in Despatches? No problem, just stand here and I'll step on your toe, we'll write it up and you'll get the DSO or something, must be something like that;  Dannat has the Military Cross, a couple of knighthoods and the Queen's Award For Valuable Service, honest, valuable service, stirring stuff,  whereas Snotty just gets his staff to write books about so-called courageous politicians -  like the unwholesome dead Kennedys  and the celebrity-worshipping, human photo opportunity, Nelson Mandela, don't quite see where the courage is in being imprisoned for twenty seven years, don't have much choice, it's not like storming a machine gun post or rescuing comrades under fire but we judge politicians by different standards, lower ones -  puts his Snot-name where the author's name should go and hopes that stupid people everywhere will think, Ah, that Gordon Brown, there's a man who knows real courage, he must be  a man of true grit, just like that other big fairy, John Wayne, I think I'll vote for him, especially since you can buy his Bravery Annuals  for a quid, down the remaindered books bookshop, courage AND value for money, he should be prime minister. But both have been pampered most of their lives, both have an overblown  sense of entitlement and both lack any proper courage.

What  Dannat should explain, instead of beasting Brown, he has already been beasted by much better beasters, is why, if his troops were so cruelly under-provided for by the Snotman regime - and it truly was ghastly - remember Hoon and Browne and Ainsworth? - did he wait until he retired and could scent an opportunity with the worthless Cameron before blowing the whistle.  If his troops really were losing their lives, as he claims, unnecessarily, why didn't he speak-up then? Ah, convention, separation of powers.  As retirement neared he didn't give a fuck about convention, not when a government post beckoned.  But when it mattered, when it might have saved lives or limbs or senses, he bound himself up in self-censoring ordinances, conventions, customs or, as we call them in Ishmaelia, self-interest.

 

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

There's more from mr ishmael and his young friend Stanislav in the two books: Honest Not Invent and Vent Stack from Lulu or Amazon. It is cheaper to buy from Lulu. Register an account with Lulu to save 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. 

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