The Christmas Quiz
With our Quiz Inquisitor, Daddy Pig.
- Is there A SpecSavers in Barnard Castle?
- If a roll of wallpaper costs £840 a roll and is 10.5 metres long, how much will it cost to re-paper your 4 bedroom flat?
- When is a blind trust (a) nothing to do with curtains (b) not very trustworthy?
- When is a Party Not a Party?
- How many serving Prime Ministers have had a baby? Were any of them female? Is this an Equal Opportunities issue?
- What Fresh Bollocks is This?
- How much longer will the Great British Public accept being openly mocked, derided and laughed at?
Away from the Westminster Bubble, preparations for Christmas have been proceeding full tilt. Here, on Craggy Island, the lieges, having heard about Christmas Markets and open air festive ice-rinks, had jolly fun for all the family:
Yes, okay, it is a sheet of white plastic in a carpark, surrounded by industrial fencing.
With a Pallet Christmas Tree decorating competition.
And if the fun should pall, there's always target practice:
The offence of Breach of the Peace is continuously, prolifically and with abandon being committed, it seems, from its frequent appearance in the Sheriff Courts, and carries a maximum sentence of 12 months' imprisonment, a fine of £5000 or both, when the Sheriff sits alone and the case is brought Summarily. Should it be brought as a Solemn Case or on Inditement, where the Sheriff sits with a Jury, the maximum sentence increases to 5 years. By contrast, in England, Breach of the Peace is not a criminal offence, it is regarded as a form of disorderly conduct, and the worst that will happen to you is that you agree to be bound over to keep the peace for a defined period of time. If you then breach your bind over, you may be fined or imprisoned for the breach, but not for the original Breach of the Peace. So an English Person dancing naked in his own home in Orkney should not heave a sigh of relief at being charged merely with a Breach of the Peace - it is a serious criminal offence.
But undefined.
Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights requires that citizens know what actions will break the law - no punishment without law. Because the crime of "Breach of the Peace" is so vague, prosecuting someone for it should be a breach of their human rights. This was the argument in the case of Smith v Donnelly (2001 SCCR 800). Pamela Smith protested against nuclear weapons at the Fasland naval base. She was charged as follows: "On the 15th February 1999 on the A814, north gate entrance to HM Naval Base, Clyde, District of Argyll and Bute, you Pamela Smith did conduct yourself in a disorderly manner, lie down on the roadway, disrupt the free flow of traffic, refuse to desist when requested to do so and commit a breach of the peace." In her defence she argued that she had engaged in this sort of conduct before and it appeared to be arbitrary whether she would be arrested for it or not.
The High Court threw out that argument, presumably on the basis that it is dead handy to be able to charge anybody, anytime, with anything that anyone objects to, and send them to prison for it. What the High Court actually said was: "The crime of breach of the peace can be committed in a wide variety of circumstances, and, in many cases, it is a relatively minor crime. It has therefore been said, more than once, that a comprehensive definition which would cover all possible circumstances is neither possible nor desirable."
This is the world-famous Scottish Legal system - we are not going to tell you what not to do, but if you do it, you will be charged and sent to prison. Scottish Lawyers, eh?
Nicola Sturgeon is a Scottish Lawyer to trade.
Just saying.
I'm surprised that the Johnson Government hasn't adopted this convenient catch-all offence. Add it into the Covid legislation.
Do you remember Tavish McHooter, whose Cyrano de Bergerac proboscis attracted mr ishmael's attention? Well, that and his Liberal Democrat proclivities. You know - Pygmy Intellect and Giant Propensities. Anyway, after a short spell playing rugby, he's now running a fish farm. Salmon.
Former Liberal Democrat MSP Tavish Scott appointed as the new chief executive of the Scottish Salmon Producers Organisation (SSPO)2020
Here's mr ishmael, on the occasion of McHooter packing in Public Service to pursue other, and more lucrative, options:
SCOTLAND, BEST PART OF ENGLAND Tavish McHooter
 |
| A Shetlandish aboriginal sixth-form mutant on a work-experience placement |
Tavish
McHooter is retiring from the Scottish assembly or government as they
like to call it. His and his family's stars, he smirks, are
perfectly aligned. He has been offered a job in sport for which his only
qualification will be his inside knowledge of government grants, tax
dodges and cuttable corners. Oh, and his daughter is doing, well,
daughterly things from what I could gather - maybe she's been on the
game or dealing dope but everything's fine right now, he was grinning
like a dog with two dicks. Stars perfectly aligned. McHooter and Gordon
Brewer were flirting so hard I thought the telly'd fall off the wall.
Brewer used to be the only big gun in BBCJock, chairing the
fifteen-minutes Jock Newsnight, he didn't have time to fuck about and was
a joy to watch, compared with, say, Jeremy Yawn on Newsnight Proper.
When NewsnightJock was scrapped Brewer fell out of sight and presumably
favour and although he's back now, fronting some pretend Politics
Jockland show, on which he minds his mouth. Up here we are celebrating
twenty years of devolved government in our half-billion pound doll's
house, chosen largely by Kirsty Wark, the Queen of Scottish Taste -
yeah, I know, look at her, like an elderly patient who's raided the
costume cupboard in a long-term asylum - and overseen by then
Scottish Speaker, Lord Dave Boy Steel of Ould Child Buggery; Dave, it
was, who let the budget for Holyrood climb from fifty million pounds to
half a fucking billion. We really are the most Northerly Banana
Republic in the world, although in a proper tropical den of corruption
someone of Steel's fathomless, insouciant incompetence would have been
up against the wall, and that was before the wider revelations of his
protection of the great Cyril Smith.
 |
| Cyril Smith, Liberal MP for Rochdale and prolific serial sex abuser of children |
In 2015, a retired police officer said that he was threatened with the Official Secrets Act after he found Smith in the home of a known sex offender, with two drunk teenage boys, and a police sergeant in civilian clothes. The retired officer said that he was summoned to a meeting with a senior officer at Stockport Police Station and told "in no uncertain terms" not to say anything about it. The alleged incident took place in 1988 at a house in Stockport after a complaint that the occupier had been committing a lewd act in his window in front of a newspaper boy.
Brewer asked Tavish McHooter what he considered to be the achievements
of twenty years of devolved administration. Oh, no problem, Gordon; now
there's no smoking in the 'pubs and same-sex marriage is seen by
everyone as perfectly normal. These are really great achievements,
worked on by colleagues from all parties, from all across the political
spectrum, really significant changes. I am not making-up a word of this.
In the olden days Brewer would've said, Aye, Tavish, but the schools're fucked, the colleges, too. The Scottish police, centralised by that mad wee fishwife, is the laughing stock of the lawnforcement world, it's had four chief officers in five years. The hospitals're fucked, waiting lists go up and up, outcomes deteriorate, recruitment and retention are in free fall, bullying is endemic, higher managements are bent and incompetent; local infrastructure maintainance has ceased to happen, gardens are dilapidated, street lights broken, bollards damaged and hanging drunkenly into the road, unmended for years and the nation's roads are like the surface of the fucking moon; the railways don't run, a wee drop of snow and the motorways're closed, every second shop in Aberdeen is a bookies', every third one a pawn shop; every fourth one's a gentlemen's club and every fifth one is closed, same in Inverness and Dundee and fuck knows what's happening in Glasgow.
In the olden days Brewer would've said, Aye, Tavish, but the schools're fucked, the colleges, too. The Scottish police, centralised by that mad wee fishwife, is the laughing stock of the lawnforcement world, it's had four chief officers in five years. The hospitals're fucked, waiting lists go up and up, outcomes deteriorate, recruitment and retention are in free fall, bullying is endemic, higher managements are bent and incompetent; local infrastructure maintainance has ceased to happen, gardens are dilapidated, street lights broken, bollards damaged and hanging drunkenly into the road, unmended for years and the nation's roads are like the surface of the fucking moon; the railways don't run, a wee drop of snow and the motorways're closed, every second shop in Aberdeen is a bookies', every third one a pawn shop; every fourth one's a gentlemen's club and every fifth one is closed, same in Inverness and Dundee and fuck knows what's happening in Glasgow.
...................................................................
mr ishmael's essay today is:
SCOTLAND, BEST PART OF ENGLAND Tavish McHooter drafted 2019
.....................................................................
The two anthologies of the works of mr ishmael and his young friend stanislav: Honest Not Invent
and Vent Stack are available to buy for mere money 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.
Link for the paperback:
Or...
shorter link, which might make it easier if you wish to
paste it into an email and tell a friend:
Honest, Not Invent is available in
paperback or hardback.
Link for Hard Back :
https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ishmael-smith/honest-not-invent/hardcover/product-njr7vg.html
Link for Paper Back :
https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ishmael-smith/honest-not-invent/paperback/product-wq2kpg.html
At checkout, try PROWRITINGAID15, WELCOME15 or TREAT15 in the coupon box,
which 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
18 comments:
Can it get any worse? Highly Likely (T/M).
Just read a piece in the Filth-o-graph. Liz Truss threatening Russia with "consequences". The mad bitch might be a contender for the throne when Boris exitus sinistram, but does she realise that the UK could be cinders within 15 mins if Russia chose to exact its consequences?
We're in turmoil, mr mike. It is a historical twinkle of the eye since the USSR disintegrated, and now the EUSSR is doing that too. Unless I am mistaken the great Republic across the water is also broken. Perhaps it is broken irretrievably. All of this makes us look as ever with a caustic eye and ask the critical question: cui bono?
China, I think. China thinks that it can extend its empire to include those territorial and economic bits that it has eyed covetously since it first peeked its eyes out from under its insular duvet. Mad, bad Vlad wants his route to the south as he always wanted it. China in India now, and then in Afghanistan, and they'll become something to worry about.
Authority everywhere waves its silly fat, chubby pinkies. Islam, wokeism, I-know-bestism, Putinism, Democrat stealing, all of it can be swept away by the people except maybe China. When will the smartphone destroy China?
Cui bono? Indeed mr mongoose. Its a question to which I cannot find an answer. I think we are at one of those historic fin-de-siecle moments. The collective West has comprehensively lost the plot and power has shifted east. Its moving back to where it was historically - the Silk Road.
And don't know what Kirsty is wearing in her "Doctor, Doctor, I look like a pair of curtains" picture but she ought not to have.
integrity-challenge quiz-entry - submitted anonymously by a former chief adviser to number 10:
1. affirmative, i visited the barnard's castle branch during lockdown, because i was having great difficulty reading all the coronavirus-regs
2. a £100000 consultancy-fee
3. when your wife's in charge of it
4. when it's a conservative party
5. i dunno, but the present one is predicted to have a few when cleo watson shares her snaps of the illegal lockdown-rave held in downing street last year
with the exception of one particularly progressive incumbent - an ice-cream-lady forced by circumstances to identify as an alpha-male greengrocer - it is my actual understanding that the praying minister is always a female - who whilst in office, gives birth to batches of freeloading franken-babies which she duly appoints to cabinet, and then eats
yes, male prime ministers should be permitted to have babies too
6. your red box, prime minister
7. as long as enhanced benefits and indefinite paid holidays are on offer
You can join my pub quiz team, mr ultrapox - are you as sound on football, soaps and pop music as you are on politics and current affairs?
Any other ishmaelites care to submit their answers to Daddy Pig's Christmas Quiz of the Year?
And mr v is for vengeance - what's the answer to your straight clue?
Further to the debate on the previous thread about Boris' super-power being that he is easily bored: he's a flibbertigibbet. Lovely word, flibbertigibbet. Defined as a frivolous, flighty, or excessively talkative person.
Isn't it utterly exhausting, the relentless sludge of untruth?
You know, mr bb, I don't think that Boris is a liar. I think that he just can't be bothered to be exact. He's a bullshitter but not a wicked deliberate deceiver. On a scale of 1 to 10, Boris is 2 and Biden is 11 btw.
What has happened is that repetition can make truth. Twatter, and Fuckbook, and paid commenters on newspaper sites use simple repetition to make something 'true'. The actual facts don't matter. If A has more fact-checkers, and commenters, and retwats than B, A wins and B is called a liar. The standard of debate thereafter turns to complete shite.
If I said that there was at least one perfectly available, low-cost, early treatment that was effective against cv19 but that everyone in the universe had decided not to talk about it on the basis of Orange Man bad, what would you say back to me? And if I said that there can never be an effective 'vaccine' against an mRNA coronavirus because they mutate like the flu does, what would you say then? And then if I said that the WHO had changed the definition of 'vaccine' to get around this? There is a lot more seriously wrong with the world than Bojo being an Eton and Bullingdon braggard bastard.
Bojo would though benefit from a good kicking.
Although I don't particularly like Boris I have to admit he livens stuff up. I agree he can't be bother with detail - basically he's lazy. I remember a piece he wrote in the Spectator when he was editor; he described how he liked to have his morning crumpets smothered in butter then stretch out on his chaise longue for a nap. What he needs is a good manager to keep him on message - which he doesn't have. Frankly, I think he has lost interest. The next one will be worse, I predict. It might be the boy Sunak or Truss.
It is, mr bb, exhausting, and demeaning - wading through the ordure. But keeping an eye on them is what we do, as is constant debunking and calling out the misinformation - even though we know that the constant repetition of their message will convince the majority of the voters. And the other thing that is fairly life-draining is the knowledge that there isn't a credible alternative to the Conservatives and they are likely to sweep in at the next election, despite all their shit.
Sunak and Truss are named as contenders,indeed, mr mike, should Boris clear off for more lucrative pastures. I can't actually see Boris doing a Cameron outside Number 10, flanked by wife and littleuns, though, as he has shaped up the job to suit himself (concentration span of a budgerigar, need for snacks, hols, totty and little lie-downs). And I can't see his party doing a Thatcher on him as despite his appalling incompetence, he seems to be a vote-catcher. So even though Sunak is rich enough to bail the country out and Tank-Girl Truss has called out Putin, Daddy Pig is prob'ly going to continue to liven things up for a while yet.
Yeah, we can only keep trying to be good.
Someone has to, mr bb
The Left needs to unite, mrs i, and that's us, I reckon. I am not actually committed to any political party. The Good Lord knows that I have voted for them all. But do you know that n the dark of the night, it is better to vote for the Fucking Tories than any of the other bastards because the other bastards are chaotically incompetent and have been for a hundred years. Everything they touch turns to shite because they have not the courage to look at the world as it is. I know that that is annoying BTW but if you don't get annoyed we'll just get another 10 years of the FTs.
The Left needs to work out what it's for. And then make an honest message, and take it out into the world. FFS the post-industrial constituencies oop north voted for the Fucking Tories last time!! Something is wrong with the Left not the Right.
If the answer is Trannies and rainbow fuckwittery, double the decade and call it two. Honest, ordinary people want their lives, their heritage and their values to be respected. They don't want to demean or be unkind to anyone else. They just don't want to be called cunts and deplorables and racists because they are getting on with their lives. My children are the most liberal - sexually, racially, any fucking-ly - of any generation that has ever been born. Let's respect that but also respect that their parents brought them up to be like that. My generation, ours, achieved this. Perhaps we should be listened to a bit more.
Unfortunately, Mr mongoose, the party you wish for doesn't exist - nor will it in the conceivable future. But I'm reminded of what my dad told me. He said after WW2 the returning troops would never accept a return to the pre-war status quo. So they voted Churchill out. Failing that result, there may have been a civil war - feelings were running high.
North Shropshire will be of interest. Do we hold any hope of Sunak? Is he clever and does he know any more of life than numbers and ambition? Who is there on the Left, Mr Mongoose, though I share your view that someone needs to find a way?
We need politicians who have constitutional, aesthetic and, yes, moral intelligence. By aesthetics, I mean the aesthetics of all human endeavours. Humility in the sense of correctly estimating worth would help too.
We’ve never been good, of course, but I think recent years have seen an actual shift to Mr I’s new people: a new way of being in the world which is a type of formal degradation, certainly of the intellect. That’s the alarming bit.
Were there ever such politicians, mr bungalow bill? Maybe in the early years of the Labour Party. Conviction politicians, motivated by a drive to improve the lot of one's fellow human beings, rather than to fill their boots at the expense of one's fellows.
Or maybe I am able to delude myself because they were better at maintaining their privacy before the invention of television.
Post a Comment