call me ishmael: February 2022

Sunday 27 February 2022

The Sunday Ishmael 27/02/2022 Best Get Some Tins In, Mother.

Spam, corned beef, Ye Olde Oake Ham, sardines, cullen skink, chicken soup. No good having a freezer full of food when the power is cut off.

Former film star, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is directing the Ukrainian/Russian conflict as though he was starring in a Hollywood blockbuster. He has handed out 180,000 guns to the citizens of ~~Kiev Kiyiv~~ Kyiv and told them to kill Russians. He has instructed the population in the making of Molotov cocktails. The BBC is slavishly reporting all this, with no hint of a Really? Really?? and is giving a platform to anyone who would like to be interviewed about how horrid Putin is and how nasty war is. Nowhere is there a hint that the course of wisdom that would prevent bloodshed and prevent the Western world being drawn into a devastating war is for President Zelenskyy to enter into constructive discussions with Putin and embark upon a peace process in which Ukraine relinquishes its NATO ambitions.

Instead we have the BBC stirring up war fever, and providing camera time to Tank Girl Truss yet again.

War-Mongering Lizzie put her foot down on the Sophie Show today. Bloody scary, the thought that she might have anything whatsoever to do with what she describes as Putin's War. "More sanctions, tougher sanctions, tighten the ratchet, hit list of Russian Oligarchs we are targeting, squeezing bank assets, new legislation, taking apart every part of the Russian system. Prosecute them as war criminals. Nobody ever thought there would be a war on European soil."

Really? Aren't you Foreign Secretary? Did you really have no inkling, when you were swanning about Red Square in your Fur Hat?

Sophie encouraged her to speculate that Putin might launch a nuclear attack. Tank-Girl was right up for that. Wouldn't rule it out.

So why the hell do you not advise Dancing Zelenskyy to stop with the emotional belligerence? Save lives, save the planet. Mind you - a nuclear winter would put paid to Global warming.

Tank Girl also thinks it entirely acceptable that Britain will be hit by the Sanctions Backlash; that poor people in Birmingham, in Glasgow, in London - yes, there are some poor folk there as well - will be faced by a soaring rise in the cost of living, will be cold and hungry, because we are fighting for Freedom of Democracy and it is right we take, as she says, an economic hit. She also encouraged Britons to go to Ukraine and fight as individual volunteers. Honest, not Invent.

There's a Russian oil tanker due in to Flotta (Orkney's oil terminal) on Tuesday. The Sanctioning Powers are going to turn it back.

The editorial position at Call Me Ishmael has not changed since the last Ukrainian difficulty in 2014. The Tories were in charge then as well, the Right Honourable Miscarriages Hague having the Foreign Secretarial gig under CallMeDave Cameron. Cameron and Hague, who called in aid his wife's gynaecological records to refute scurrilous rumours that he was as gay as a May morning, though, were not a patch on Johnson and Truss.

COOKING WITH THE CAMERONS. CHICKEN KIEV

This is the six o clock news from the PBC, the home of institutionalised noncing, AND Chris Patten, with me, Huw Welshman. And the top story is the rioting in some Russian shithole - angry ragheads, angry neo-nazis, angry communists and angry lesbian pop groups, I shouldn't fucking wonder. Oh and some braindead, angry cops. Gay most of them, coppers, same the whole world over. And as for fucking Russia, well it's run by gay gangsters isn't it, look you, boyo. And Vladimir Putin? Don't start me talking, bent as a nine-bob note, as we used to say back in Merthyr Tydfil, when I was a lad, isn't it. Over now, anyway, to Downing Street and that fucking numptie, CallHimDave.

Now listen, lessbeclear, just like everyone else, Mrs prime minister and I like nothing more than sitting down watching Cruelty TeeVee, and having the butler serve us a plate of mini chickenKievs, on a bed of Evesham asparagus, with some Dauphinoise potatoes on the side, washed down with a nice Mouton Cadet Rothschild. Now, lessbeevenmoreclear, the Ukraine capital, Kiev, is named after this very tasty British chicken dish, created in, Oh, I dunno, Melton Mowbray, isn't it, and we cannot sit idly by and let all this happen, whatever it is; the police probly attacking the citizens. 'Snot as though Kiev is London, after all, where that shit happens all the time, no, certainly not, lessbeabsolutelyclear, the mini chickenKiev industry is vital to our economy, countless highly skilled and poorly paid workers are engaged in reclaiming all the under-utilised bits from chickens - the lips, the eyes, the beaks, the claws and the bowels and so on, all perfectly delicious -

mixing it all up in a big sort of bowl thing, adding some chicken flavouring, colourings and stabilisers and what-not, rolling it into tempting little balls, dipping it in delicious crumb coating and then injecting it with a garlic-flavoured synthetic butter product, quite ingeniously made from petroleum by-products

so that all the busy housewife has to do when she comes home from her badly paid zero-hours contract employment is pop the delicious little chicken Kievs in the microwave and have her butler prepare the asparagus and les pommes dauphinoise, best to let the Mouton Cadet breathe for a while, so the footman can probably do that before the working Mum gets home. It's easy to see why a Russian city would want to name itself after such a delicious part of British cuisine. Team Nigella? No, no, I shouldn't think so. Don't think she does mechanically reclaimed meat. Unless you mean her tits and her big fat arse. Cocaine??? Instead of garlic?? Now look. Let me make this clear, I am on record as saying that we have all done things when we were younger which should never be mentioned. How much younger? Well, yesterday. Simply not fair to quiz me about what I said or did yesterday.

And I'd just like to remind people of the other aspect of BrandKiev which is that while it may be true that the employers in this fine, traditional British industry are too mean to pay the workers a living wage and so the taxpayer has to help them out with scrounger-benefits this doesn't matter because with the money they save on wages the employers are able to make significant donations to the Conservative Party, so, the country, in a very real sense, gets the money back. Tax? No, I don't believe you have your facts right, they actually pay a rate of 0.010 per cent and not the 0.001 per cent you wrongly stated. I am sure you will agree that this is a huge saving to the Treasury and further evidence that the Chancellor, the Governor of the Bank and the CBI are all lying from the same hymn sheet. Mr Coulson??

Well, as I've already said, I believe in giving people a second chance, And a third and fourth and fifth. But only, lessbeclear, if, like myself, they work for Mr Murdoch.

And they help me stay fit and trim, those mini Chicken Kievs.
I mean, look, how can we let some rioting Russian gay people jeopardise such a vital part of our, um, thing, the GD wotsaname. 'Snot as though I didn't invent gay marriage for them. I did. But, and it is in my judgement a very big but, lessbefair, miniChickenKievs are bigger than all of us, gay, straight or Hagueish.
So that's that, then. As a scholar, myself, and a distinguished military historian I am happy, not only to have been able to rescue the nation from whatever it was that we are all together against, but to have been able to deliver this small lecture on history and geography, and, of course, gastronomy; if only Mr Gove could recruit teachers as able as myself; if only, some might say, poor Mr Gove was in his right mind, and not a dribbling, delusional, spit-flecked nutter.

That was the unelected prime minister for you there, outside number ten Downing Street and FuckMeJesus he really is as thick as pigshit, isn't he, all that money squandered on his education. That other cunt's at it again, too, the Yorkshire Fairy, William Miscarriage, he's gobbing-off, look you, like he does, about what he will and will not put up with, like anybody gives a fuck; Syria all over again. Emphatic this, emphatic that, stupid cunt, blustering his poxy arse off. Mark my words, viewers, and I don't want to put you off your teas or anything, isn't it, but some big Russian fairy'll grab him and give him the old Balalaika Shuffle up the jacksie, that'll shut the stupid fucker up, look you, boyo.

HIGH NOON IN KIEV.

Sings: Do not forsake me, oh my Rentboy.

I must say that in my judgement an international response is necessary to all this homosexual rioting, blahblahblah, especially the dykey ones and I and my fellow foreign ministers are discussing sanctions and immediate and far-reaching changes. Just as we did in Syria, which we don't talk about now, even though it was a triumph of diplomacy. For Mr Putin and his team. The United Kingdom condemns these actions whatever they are in the strongest terms. And thank fuck to get out of Westmister for a spot of bumtourism. By permitting such action to take place, the Ukrainian government is putting itself at odds with reasonable opinion all across the world; he blethered.

My cock remains on the table, I mean my options, we are ruling nothing in and ruling nothing out. It is not right to describe protesters as terrorists, although it is exactly how we describe strikers and poor people back in the UK. And disabled people. You may say that ay great many of them are simply seeking ay better future for their country but in fact, mr tiny speaker, what they are doing is seeking to subvert the efforts of ay democratically unelected govament, consisting of talentless, criminal hypocrites such as my right honourable and determinedly heterosexual self.
I think the European Union has to act in a way that helps to stop the violence. There has to be an international response to what has happened over the last few days, whatever it is, fucked if I know.
It is time on all sides for people to turn away from violence, apart, obviously, from the very necessary violence towards vulnerable people which is the hallmark of any responsible govamant, but the Ukrainian government bears a particular responsibility to take the lead in making sure that happens. So there. And I would remind people that I speak as a sixteen-pints a night man.

It is one of the more distressing aspects of my later life that this revolting creature, Hague, head polished, teeth filed and corseted into his ridiculous suit'n'tie outfits minces round the world claiming to speak for I and my ordinary fellow citizens. Like the obnoxious, blackmailing fairy, Mandelstein, before him, Hague is the darling of MediaMinster's degenerate horde; oh, I could wet myself when I hear him speaking, so clever, so erudite, say most Tory MPs. And he's fit, too. Fuck him, the freak; fuck all MPs, I hope he dies of the arse-pox.

Young-ish love in happier days, young Chris with fists clenched, perhaps in memory, perhaps in anticipation, perhaps both.

Yes, Chris and I sleep together but just to save money on hotel bills, says millionaire homosexual.

mr ishhmael, February 2014

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Now, just because we are not keen on total global nuclear meltdown, think that NATO provoked the crisis by its remorseless Eastward Expansion and believe Dancing Queen Zelenskyy should grit his teeth and do the Balalaika Shuffle, it does not mean that we think Putin is safe, cuddly, or that he is anything less than a very successful dictator. He certainly overcame a little local difficulty in 2011. Here's mr ishmael:

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY, THE TIMES OF INDIA, RUSSIAN DEMONSTRATORS SAY FUCK OFF PANSY PUTIN. 26/12/2011

LET ME RIG YOUR VOTES FOR YOU, COMRADE-DEARIES.

MOSCOW: Tens of thousands of protesters gathered here on Saturday for a second large antigovernment demonstration , as a wave of new activists struggle to convert an inchoate burst of energy into a durable political force.
Organizers hope to build on the success of the Dec 10 protests, which mobilized a broad collection of previously apolitical middle-class Russians angry over parliamentary elections earlier this month that many rejected as fraudulent and slanted in favor of the ruling party, United Russia.
If the movement can sustain its intensity, it could alter the course of presidential elections in March, when Vladimir V Putin plans to extend his status as the country's dominant figure to 18 years.
The crowd began forming more than an hour before the beginning of the protest, for which city authorities granted a permit for up to 50,000 people. Organizers estimated the crowd at 120,000; the police offered a lower estimate of about 29,000.

The protests have shaken the Kremlin, which has not encountered widespread public resistance since Putin became president in 1999. (The Times of India)

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Against the dreary, OCD media backdrop of the Dow-Jones Index, these events are startling and must foster optimism, all these Occupy this and that movements in the West, the violent protests in the Middle East and North Africa - aside from those owned by NATO - and now the Russians are expressing their righteous discontent with their own version of political musical chairs; something is happening, worldwide, and I wish I knew what it was; wish I had the strength and courage to go and join something.

Having seen the overthrow of the Soviet Union, modern Russians are less in awe of the repulsive criminal Putin than he might think. Vlad and his chums, trading positions every few years, of course echo the deal in MediaMinster, where, only once in a blue moon is a non-party, independent individual permitted entry to the legislature, the levers of power passing, otherwise, more or less seamlessly from one dinosaur party to another. The BBC and skymadeupnewsandfilth have always ruthlessly suppressed or ridiculed any alternative political catechism, any on-air voice raised in dissent is Dimblebied with extreme prejudice and audiences are compelled to dutifully applaud a panel of their thieving tormentors - slaghacks, dimwit entertainers and shiteating politicians, all pontificating emptily, yet carefully within the envelope. The BBC has been doing this shit forever, forming stooges into a panel which then selectively addresses approved questions, vetted by the producers, the governors, the board of trustees and whichever crime family is occupying Downing Street.
I bought a two British pounds, Christmas Eve, hard copy of the Daily Filth-o-Graph, a 'paper I read through most of the 'nineties and it was just a big, papery bundle of rubbish - the news, or what passes for the news, was out of date before it was printed, the op-ed was Home Counties, jingoistic, God is British claptrap, neither informative nor provocative, as the Filth-O-Graph used to be; the property section was for multi-millionaires, as were all the elite consumer products, Oh, and they have a blonde cookess, called Xanthe, they would have, wouldn't they? I have been wondering who on Earth buys these things; having long ago broken my own newspaper addiction, I had assumed, nevertheless, that the broadsheets must still contain material by authors and in a form that one simply cannot acquire on CyberStreet, I was wrong - everything is online - and since I stopped buying them, the physical form of the newspapers has become, to me, at any rate, just fucking irritating, the pages stick together; if you don't have a valet to iron them, they are dirty with ink; if you pick them up or set them down carelessly they fall apart, never to be correctly reassembled; to get to the serious stuff you have to wade through pages littered with out-of-date images of old crows, lady writers, once someone's bright, shiny niece or mistress, now scrawny and embittered, grinding a shedful of axes, Vicki Woods, Rosa Prince; who knows, maybe they started out as buxom, blouse-bursting schoolgirl porn on the Filth-O-Graph's famous A-level results front pages, and now they write columns moaning about the quality of the help - us. Oh, yes and there are vital pages of closely-printed stocks and shares prices - the Daily Lie - which, let's face it, will be flashing away, updated to the second, on the various multiscreens of those interested in committing such offences. In a way, it was, despite my loathing of the Barclay Twins and most Filth-O-Graph writers, a bit of a disappointment to find that it really was the dead, DeadTreePress, good for fuck all, and more expensive, even, than proper firelighters.

But even though our own mass media are rotten and corrupt, I have always been suspicious of the Twitter Revolution, the Facebook Fifth Column and am even moreso having watched Emily Maitless schmoozing the Facebook Founder, wotsisname, Jabberwocky, another autistic, bulletheaded American bleating about Freedom while working for the CIA and Wall Street. The idea that consumerjunky hand-held devices might spark and enflame revolutions has always seemed risible to me - I can't come, I'm just so not up for it, I don't have that civil disobedience app, but can we catch up over a latte; just as likely, it has seemed to me, that James Dyson and his infinitely recurring vacuum cleaner are the key to true human fulfillment.
But something is going on, something, some movement or movements utterly indifferent to leaderwriters, broadcasters, legislators and all the other forms of Filthlife are undermining the JerichoWalls of political certainty; it is axiomatic, I guess, that revolutions are not recognised as such until they are over, one way or another.
Maybe not all the youth obediently watch Strictly Celebrity Factor, are not habituated to the soma-banality pumped at them relentlessly by GlobaCorp, maybe, despite the very best efforts of their creators, the handheld devices will help people to burn down the mission, rape the nuns, kill the children and poison the well, or whatever it is that revolutionaries do in addition to putting govaments up against the wall.
I heard Fat King Alec Salmond of Scotland, a while back,

smirking in best PutinSpeak, to Scotland's abnormally compliant journalists about what he called political attack blogs; these, opined the fat, greedy, cross-dressing bastard - to, naturally, not one word of protest from the McHacks - were not what the Internet was for - I think he said...and of course, political blogs are not what the Internet was invented for. Worth savouring for a moment or two, that one, from the leader of Free Scotland, your betters will decide what should be on the Internet.
If, even here in the Mutha of Parliaments, an elected politician can, as did McFatMan, get away with that sort of mediaeval claptrap, then we must send our best wishes to those currently oppressed in Russia by the thinly disguised hand of the KGB.
Is Putin gay? It really doesn't matter, what matters is a new Russian Revolution. All the wealthy bandits and murderers and torturers can all come and find sanctuary in London, where they are, apparently, most welcome. London, the New Havana.
Apples an' pears, apples an' pears, frog an' toad, trouble an' strife; diamond geezer, that Roman Abramovitch, an 'onorary Cockney, that's what 'e is.

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Anagram Corner:

The solution to last Sunday's four anagrams was:

war by other means.

I believe that mr. verge has already apologised.

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Honest Not Invent and Vent Stack - anthologies of the work of mr ishmael and stanislav, the young Polish plumber - can be purchased from Amazon or 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.)

Link for Vent Stack:

https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ishmael-smith/vent-stack/paperback/product-q8jzk2.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Or...

shorter link, which might make it easier if you wish to paste it into an email and tell a friend:

https://tinyurl.com/naajavmu

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

Friday 25 February 2022

Evensong: For many are cold, but few are frozen

During this time of asserting national sovereignty, here's some nonsense from the seventeenth century, alleging the supernatural specialness of Britain. King Arthur, or The British Worthy, is a semi-opera in five acts with music by Henry Purcell and a libretto by John Dryden. It was first performed at the Queen's Theatre, Dorset Garden, London, in late May or early June 1691. A semi-opera was an operatic form in which the principal characters talk, rather than sing, at each other, and the musical interest is carried by set pieces or masques performed for the principals. Here's the story: There are two claimants to rule the Britons: the Christian Arthur, assisted by his spad, Merlin, or the heathen Oswald, assisted by his spad, Osmond. In Act 111, Osmond tries to woo Arthur's girlfriend, Emmeline, by showing her a masque acted by spirits. He conjures up a vision of "Yzeland" and "farthest Thule", waking up the Cold Genius, who prefers to remain frozen, for Emmeline's entertainment.The Cold Genius really doesn't want to wake up, and protests in the song What Power Art Thou, voice shaking with cold.

COLD GENIUS:

What Power art thou,

Who from below,

Hast made me rise,

Unwillingly and slow,

From beds of everlasting snow!

See'st thou not how stiff,

And wondrous old,

Far unfit to bear the bitter cold.

I can scarcely move,

Or draw my breath,

I can scarcely move,

Or draw my breath.

Let me, let me, Let me,

let me, Freeze again...

Let me, let me, Freeze

again to death!

Anyway, after a few adventures involving a magic wood, it all turns out well for Arthur, who gets the top job, and Britannia emerges triumphantly from the waves, which, as we all know from the Proms, she will thereafter rule over, and Britons never, never, never, will be slaves.

Sunday 20 February 2022

The Sunday Ishmael 20/02/2022: Go, Sophie!!

Fucking Absolutely Shitty Slippery Hypocritical CockWaving Bastard Turd

Just Saying.

She is growing on me, Head Girl Sophie. Thought she was going to haul off and deck him, the blithering bloated bombastic mutant, during her Munich Interview with him at the foot of a very ordinary staircase on the 19th February. At one point he lunged towards her, fist clenched, but restrained himself - not a good look, that.

Thin-lipped, shaken, but admirably persistent, she politely hammered away at him thusly:

Sophe: Prime Minister, you are under investigation by the police at home.

Albino Mutant: We are going to open up the Russian Doll, as Joe Biden explained to us last night, sort out the networks of Russian finance in London and we've given £100 million in economic support to the Ukrainians.

Sophe: What?? You are choosing not to answer questions about Partygate?

Albino Mutant: I really want to, Sophie, but I'm not allowed to because there's a process underway. Not a bean am I allowed to tell you. In the meantime, I am trying to bring the world together. As our American Friends explained, what matters is the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine. We just have to focus on the things we have to focus on. Avoid a tragedy in Ukraine.

Sophe (stunned, but determined): Do you remember the image of the Queen sitting alone at her husband's funeral? Aren't you embarrassed? Shouldn't you apologise to the Queen?

Albino Mutant: I'll answer all your questions in due course because I really want to and because we are living in a Democracy and we want to make sure that Ukrainians continue to live in a Democracy. I must protect a sovereign European country from a devastating attack. I must fight Covid. I must fight Crime. I must re-open our economy. I must encourage people down the path of home ownership.

Sophe: You are as unpopular as John Major and there is no legal impediment to you discussing Partygate.

A.M. : I have explained that all questions will be answered in due course. Once the legal process has concluded. Please focus on the fact that since the Berlin Wall came down in 1989 countries could choose their own destinies and this could be the biggest war in Europe since 1945 and the world must learn the lessons of 2014. We cannot let Putin get away with it and we cannot continue to allow European dependence on hydrocarbon fuels.

Sophe: Turning to Prince Andrew's affairs, Prime Minister, is public money paying the settlement that has been made with Virginia Giuffre?

A.M.: Now, Sophie, I can't answer questions about the Royal Family.

Sophe: It is a question about public money.

A.M. No Prime Minister can talk about the Royal Family.

Indeed, not - he can talk up a war, he can remove self-isolation and free covid testing - is there anything that this canting piece of Bullingdonia will not do to distract from his uniquely contemptuous approach to the rules that he imposed on the population with no intention whatsoever of following them himself?

I daresay that most Ishmaelites read Private Eye, the last organ of independent investigative journalism in Britain. In case you missed this story, however, from Edition 1567, you'll be interested in this further example of what fun it is to work in the partying Civil Service. In response to the Eye's Freedom of Information enquiry, we learn that the Department for Education's internet security blocked more than 1.7 million attempts to access banned websites on its computer networks. During the 90 days from September to December 2021 there were 61,900 visits to betting sites at the Whitehall Department. Employees tried to access adult sites, including porn on 31,180 occasions. Also popular were visits to dating apps, more than 150,000 attempts to play online games and looking at lingerie. Employees attempted to hide their internet activity from IT administrators, with 11,896 clicks on proxies and VPNs.

In May 2009, the number of swine flu cases in the UK reached 99 on the 1st May. On the 8th May, The Daily Telegraph began publishing, unredacted, the full copy of MPs' expenses claims. Four days later, David Cameron, then leader of the Conservatives in Opposition, said he would pay back a £680 expenses claim on his constituency home and ordered fellow Tory MPs to repay thousands of pounds in unlawful claims. On the 14th May, MPs from all parties were either suspended or announced their resignations due to the expenses scandal. A few weeks later, almost 100 MPs announced they would not stand at the next general election. On the 19th May, Speaker Michael Martin announced his resignation following widespread criticism of his handling of the expenses scandal. On the 20th May, Labour Peers, Lord Taylor of Blackburn and Lord Truscott were suspended from Parliament for 6 months apiece for breaching the code of conduct and failing to act on their personal honour in the matter of the 2009 cash for influence scandal.

On the 23rd May 2009, mr ishmael posted September 1, 1939, by W.H. Auden. Rendering it in prose increased its power. It seems particularly appropriate to re-post it today, as we sit in the shadow of another European War, British, American and Russian dictators deciding whether we live or die; a global pandemic; troughing MPs selling Questions for Cash; Civil Servants busy with their gambling and porn; the Royal Family mired in sexual scandal and in selling favours and Honours for cash and so on and so forth. Didn't someone, somewhere, somewhence say it is time to drain the swamp?

SEPTEMBER 1, 1939, by W.H. AUDEN

I sit in one of the dives on Fifty-second Street uncertain and afraid, as the clever hopes expire of a low dishonest decade: waves of anger and fear circulate over the bright and darkened lands of the earth, obsessing our private lives; the unmentionable odour of death offends the September night. Accurate scholarship can unearth the whole offence from Luther until now that has driven a culture mad, find what occurred at Linz, what huge imago made a psychopathic god: I and the public know what all schoolchildren learn, those to whom evil is done do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew all that a speech can say about Democracy, and what dictators do, the elderly rubbish they talk to an apathetic grave; analysed all in his book, the enlightenment driven away, the habit-forming pain, mismanagement and grief: we must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air where blind skyscrapers use their full height to proclaim the strength of Collective Man, each language pours its vain competitive excuse: but who can live for long in an euphoric dream; out of the mirror they stare, imperialism's face and the international wrong. Faces along the bar cling to their average day: the lights must never go out, the music must always play, all the conventions conspire to make this fort assume the furniture of home; lest we should see where we are, lost in a haunted wood, children afraid of the night who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash Important Persons shout is not so crude as our wish: what mad Nijinsky wrote about Diaghilev is true of the normal heart; for the error bred in the bone of each woman and each man craves what it cannot have, not universal love but to be loved alone. From the conservative dark into the ethical life the dense commuters come, repeating their morning vow; 'I will be true to the wife, I'll concentrate more on my work,' And helpless governors wake to resume their compulsory game: Who can release them now, Who can reach the dead, Who can speak for the dumb? All I have is a voice to undo the folded lie, the romantic lie in the brain of the sensual man-in-the-street and the lie of Authority whose buildings grope the sky: there is no such thing as the State and no one exists alone; hunger allows no choice to the citizen or the police; we must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night our world in stupor lies; yet, dotted everywhere, ironic points of light flash out wherever the Just exchange their messages: may I, composed like them of Eros and of dust, beleaguered by the same negation and despair, show an affirming flame.

Massive Flying Trampolines present Hazard to low flying Drones.

Showers of Drug cargoes fall from the skies into Suburban Gardens.

Mummy, the Easter Bunny has dropped off some presents. Funny, it doesn't taste like chocolate.

It's been windy down your way, I understand. Here in the Bracing Isles, it has been weather as usual. Here's a diatribe from mr ishmael, which also includes an Orkney Weather Commentary:

The local, PBC Radio Morning Abo, it is unimaginably hateful to me - cod accents, stagey linguistic anachronism and that hissing, Presbyterian bigotry and racism, the moral compassing of the amoral Gordon Snot, that sort of snooty, son of the Manse preachiness - and the English on that show are even worse, they all sound like David and Ruth Archer, relentless, sinister bullies, determinedly earnest and sanctimonious, people Living the Quality of Life Dream, living in a hovel, with a rusty Land-Rover, vile children and a couple of sickly goats which they should be banned from keeping. They all go back South, these people, lacking the inner resources required for island life, vulnerable beyond the fortifications of the M25 and the M42. The Radio Orkney news is generally along the lines of There's a big puddle on the road to Stromness; sheep are fetching X poonds at the mart; for the fourteenth year in succession, Mrs Annie Scragg has won the neeps'n'tatties pie-making competition at the Mucksville Women's Guild; fairmers have expressed concern aboot the geese annoying the coos and eatin' the seed and the weather is set to be sunny, windy, wintry, fine, warm, very cold with sleet and snow, calm with gale force winds.

I have felt and seen hypodermic needles injecting anaesthetic into my eyeballs and so I know of what I speak when I say I would rather stick pins in my eyes than listen to Radio Orkney.

The evening show is worse; they have music on it, local music. I saw it once, in a community hall, that Jimmy Shand Polka music; I thought, not for the first time, that I had wandered into a horror film; there was a skeletal old woman, must've been eighty, thumbing away, deftly, at a huge Fender Precision bass guitar, a wee fat man wrestling with one of those fucking awful Hohner piano-keyed accordions, not a concertina, a big, shiny fuck-off thing, the only appropriate setting for which is in an Austrian Nazi oom-pah band - quite how that is traditional to the Northern Isles I'm buggered if I know - and there was a weedy teenager, snapping a Polka beat from a tiny wee snare drum. It is a matter of taste, of course but I enjoy many, many types of music, from all over the world and have even heard some amazing world music right here and yet I couldn't find a space in my mind for this stuff. I couldn't move, I felt as though I had been turned to lead.

Extracted from:

WOTSONTELLY. A TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE MIND. 21st March 2015

It is a huge relief to Orcadians that the Scottish Government has finally succumbed to the pleas and lamentations of the fairmers and has agreed to send a Geese Investigation Unit to the Isles. No doubt slaughter on a Biblical scale will ensue, to protect the fields and incomes of fairmers from hungry and weary geese, pausing on their epic planetary migrations to spite the fairmers by stripping their fields and poohing everywhere.

Anagram Corner - four from mr verge this Sunday.

worthy Arab semen

mother was nearby

erase brawny moth

seaworthy barmen

Sports Corner

UK Olympic Victory : Competitive floor mopping

Stop Press Stop Press Stop Press

Charles gives Covid to the QE11. Well, Boris says they've just got to learn to live with the Virus. Or not.

Should you wish to read the thoughts of mr ishmael and his young friend stanislav, there are two anthologies available, edited by mr verge: Honest Not Invent and Vent Stack - which 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.