The Sunday Ishmael 9/10/2022

 

 This utterly beautiful, 12 mile long bridge, the longest bridge in Europe, comprises a pair of parallel bridges, one for a four-lane road and one for a double-track railway. It cost $3.7 billion. Construction of the bridge started in February 2016. It was opened for vehicular traffic in 2018, the first scheduled passenger train crossed the bridge in December 2019 and it was opened for freight trains in June 2020. Such a feat of civil engineering should have achieved the status of a wonder of the modern world, just as the Faro Islands undersea roundabout, part of the 6.8 mile tunnel network connecting Streymoy and Eysturoy, should be so regarded.

I like bridges more than tunnels, though. A soaring testimony to humankind's best abilities, conquering challenges and gravity, requiring deep understanding of stresses, materials and weather conditions, knowledge gained painfully over millennia - don't we all remember from our Latin lessons stories of Roman soldiers breaking step in order not to tear bridges apart with the vibrations of their marching feet, and the salutary sight of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse in 1940?

I think it was my dad taught me to appreciate bridges. A Clerk of Works, with a trade background in building, stone masonry and brick work, he would draw my attention to the built environment and especially to bridges. He reckoned that Yorkshire had the best motorway bridges in Britain. He would have loved the new Edinburgh bridge - the Queensferry Crosssing:

A bridge is the most amazing testimony to human ingenuity - real clever monkey stuff. So I found the images of that beautiful 12 mile long bridge being destroyed to be heart rending.

Kerch bridge destruction

 Ukrainians were reported as being "cock a hoop" at the destruction. Which leads one to the conclusion that the world's future is in the hands of destructive toddlers.

In reprisal, Russian missiles were fired into the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzia.

 

Volodymyr Zelenskyy denounced the  attack as ‘absolute evil’. Oh, come on, Vlod, what did you expect?

Is there anyway back from this? Is there anywhere safe from this? 

 

I've long seen the relationship between Ukraine and Russia as a parallel with the relationship between Scotland and England. Ukrainians and Scots seem similarly emotional, maudlin and hyper-nationalistic. Both are client states to their larger, more powerful neighbours. Both have border areas - the Donbas in Ukraine and the Borders in Scotland, where the language, accent and culture of the larger neighbour prevails. The populations of both border areas are subject to  discrimination by the majority population. Western Ukrainians hate Russia, Central Belt and northern Scots hate England. 

Both Ukraine and Scotland have massive problems with alcohol and drugs. The National Institute of Drug Abuse states: "Substance abuse has been of epidemic proportions for the last 15 years in Ukraine. .. The consumption of alcoholic beverages is estimated to be responsible for about nine percent of the total disease burden within Ukraine. Drug addiction in the Ukraine has its peculiarities. While in the majority of countries drug consumption is an individual matter, it has a group character in the Ukraine. Opium poppy straw extract continues to be the main drug of choice. Marijuana is growing in popularity among young people and use of synthetic drugs is appearing with increasing frequency."

The Scottish Government's website states: "Scotland has a troubled relationship with both alcohol and drug use. Since the 1980s, we have seen substantially increased alcohol consumption, and consequently, high levels of alcohol-related harm. In 2018, Scots bought enough alcohol for (all) adults to drink 19 units of alcohol per week. That is equivalent to nearly 40 bottles of vodka or around 100 bottles of wine in one year. It means that, on average, every adult in Scotland is drinking 36% more than the UK-wide lower-risk guidelines of 14 units per week. The number of people using illegal drugs (is) in the range of 55,800 to 58,900. Problem drug use is defined as the problematic use of opioids (including illicit and prescribed methadone use), and/or the illicit use of benzodiazepines. It also implies routine and prolonged use as opposed to recreational and occasional use. Higher-risk drinking causes around 686 hospital admissions and 22 deaths a week. In total, there were over 1,136 alcohol-specific deaths and 1,187 drug-related deaths in Scotland in 2018."

Both Ukraine and Scotland have ambitions for self-determination yet both want to immediately subsume their independence within a larger economic bloc: Ukraine has its European and NATO ambitions, Scotland is desperate to scramble back into Europe. 

Volodymyr Sturgeon has declared her intent of holding an independence referendum in October 2023, whatever the Supreme Court rules next week on the legality of such a move. Should she sail ahead and pronounce a Unilateral Declaration of Independence next year, and invite Europe to become England's northern shared-border neighbour, what will be England's response? Would England follow Russia's example and attempt to reinstate the union of the nations by force? One would hope not. 

 

"The United Kingdom – at least until now* – has been considered a voluntary union of countries. Scotland is a nation, not a region of a unitary state. In line with the principle of self-determination, therefore, the people of Scotland have the right to determine our own future – in the words of the Claim of Right for Scotland, to choose the form of government best suited to our needs, including whether or not to become an independent country."

Renewing Democracy through Independence, published by the Scottish Government, July 2022 

* my italics.

 

I wouldn't be bothered, but I live in Scotland, I'm employed here, I own property here, my pension is lodged here. I was born in Yorkshire, and spent much of my adult life in the Midlands. Mr Ishmael was born in Belfast and spent much of his adult life in the Midlands. When we moved to Scotland it was in the same spirit that we had moved between Yorkshire, Belfast and the Midlands - different parts of the United Kingdom. We had no intention of migrating to a foreign country and I don't want to live in a foreign country. Despite her implacable determination to reinvent Scotland as a foreign country, Sturgeon does not carry a mandate from the people who live in Scotland. The latest monthly polling averages on Scottish independence show ‘No’ campaigners to have a  lead of around 5% over ‘Yes’ campaigners.  Excluding those who declare themselves to be undecided (currently around 5% of the electorate) the latest polling places the ‘No’ side at 53% and the ‘Yes’ side at 47%. You wouldn't know that to listen to her. SNP conference is on at the moment. The best you can say for it is that it isn't the omni-shambles that was the Conservative conference. 

 
It is worth reminding ourselves of mr ishmael's thoughts about Gnasher, Independence and the SNP, back on the 30th November 2014. The referendum question put to people living in Scotland on the 18th September 2014 was: "Should Scotland be an independent country?" It yielded 55.3% voting against independence whilst 44.7% voted in favour. The turn out was 84.6%. 

REFERENDUM LOSER, NICOLA STURGEON, 
ANOINTED FIRST MINISTER OF SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE.

Nobody likes Gnasher Sturgeon. Men don't like her. Obviously. Who among us could like anyone who did what she did, did that thing, the thing that's the reason she's called Gnasher. Women don't like her.  

 

Those wee jackets. Always the same. Lifeless.

  Sexless. 

 Couture managerialiste.

 

 That wee haircut.  

That horrid wee frowny mouth.

 

That tinny, wee, reproving Fishwifey voice,

 unshutupable,  smugly I-Know-Besting;  harsh and  ear-bleedingly discordant.  
That voice, Fuck me, Jesus, if Benjy NetanNazi wanted to end his woes with Palestine all he need do is invite Gnasher to Tel Aviv and beam her on telly to Gaza, speaking some of her Scottish Truths and see the Palestinian population, in millions, hurling itself despairingly into the Mediterranean. 

Gnasher's voice, not Gordon Snot's, won the Referendum for we Togetherists.  Now the silly tribesmen bastards have put her in charge.

 That's how clever they are, like she was a Queen in triumph, instead of a loser, the SNP, a caravanserai of misanthropes and fuckwits her loyal liegemen. 

Yet if you polled Scotland, asking whose voice the nation preferred, Gnasher's or Thatcher's, it would be a close-run thing which Whisky Maggie would probably win.  Tribesmen, though, think that because they adore the skriking wee rodent, Gnasher, everybody must, still don't understand  the difference between a minority and a majority, think that arithmetic is a form of cheating, that numbers mean whatever Salmond-Sturgeon say they mean;

Och, well, if you think a majority trumps a minority it just goes to show how wedded you are to Project Fear, isn't that right, wee girl?

 
Aye, Daddy, so it is.

What a pair of freaks. 
If one ever sought proof of the adage that politics is showbusiness for ugly people, look no further. If they weren't so blindingly, willfully, proudly  stupid, you could feel sorry for them.

 Women don't like Gnasher because her look is so sterile, managed, asexual, looks like the only time she ever handled a cock she was so disgusted that she nearly bit it off. Which, so it is said, is what she did, although in a fit of dwarfish See-You-Jimmy hetero-jealousy rather than from any innate radical carpetmunchingism.  Most of the women in the Scottish parliament resemble women, whereas Gnasher looks and sounds like an android, an angry android. 

Gnasher has never worked, been in the Tribesmen's party since she was sixteen;  think of  all the things which we abhor in the current careerist political shit-fest and  Gnasher is all of them, a non-stop gabshite,
 
looks like a construct, chilled to just above freezing-point. Women  don't like her because, like the dear, departed Alec Salmond and his Mrs,  she has nae  bairns;  

Aye, we'll jus' borra theses weans, pretend we're normal folks, d'ye ken.

that may be because he or she cannot conceive but most would bet good money that  as far as the mad wee bitch is concerned  it is an informed career choice.  Women don't like her because at her Inauguration everybody had to cheer her Mum and Dad. Round of applause for the First Minister's Mum and Dad, eh? Women don't like her because she's never done anything else, for a living.  She claims to have been a lawyer but the cleaners in MediaRood and MediaMinster probably claim to be lawyers, too; everybody in politics claims to be a fucking lawyer. 

Her inaugural speech wasn't about the values of public service, no, Gnasher's speech was all about Gnasher, how great she is. Women don't like that.  Oh, of course it can be seen to be part of a pro-equality agenda but it is one  to which only the fuckwits in meeja adhere. Women don't like that, their particularised objections being hijacked by more powerful women. And women don't like it that whilst they struggle with sharply declining wages not only does Gnasher draw two public salaries and pensions but  she is married, if that's the word,  to the administrative head, the CEO, of the Tribesmen's party.

Mr. and Mrs. SNP

women won't like that, won't like the fact that between them, Mr and Mrs Gnasher own the SNP, are effectively Scotland's Royal Family. A normal family,  a family without kids, and two six-figure salaries.   

Gnasher's inaugural speech wasn't about public service, it was  all about her own personal ambition, about how,  having stuck her pointed, angry wee head through the glass ceiling she is automatically a great role model; but, as mr verge says, the only people who believe in role models are those who see themselves as role models. But Gnasher's achievement has been to disappoint and  now and  for evermore she is destined to disappoint.  Further disappointment to fervent YesEnPee-ers, is that Nicola Sturgeon will prove to be an interruption to the fervency of their collective and now never-to-be-completed hand-job; Referendum lost, orgasm denied; the SNP, now the party of national erectile dysfunction.

For they have been wanking themselves silly, the Yessers, fantasizing hither and yon about a fancifully bogus historical  destiny, just about to come.  Almost there.  And then there's a knock on the door, Nicola Sturgeon, offering the same fantasy, encouraging all to start all over again, her sour, pinched  wee face, talking dirty, baby.

But even if she was likeable - which she isn't - Gnasher is not Alec. Alec had the best of it - his were the free prescriptions,  his the toll-free bridges, his the free university places and his the permafrosted-over council-tax.  Alec even, outrageously, in a farewell bribe, unilaterally cancelled the historic debts of poll-tax evaders,  now that (through their electoral roll registration to vote Yes in the Referendum) they have been identified and rightly pursued by  the authorities. Bribes for votes.  Poor Gnasher will have to weather the considerable if quiet storm of outrage now felt by those of us who did pay our lawful, if unpopular taxes - behaviour which is now deemed by the SNP's inescapable logic to be unpatriotic, unScottish, fearful and scaremongering. Always with the scaremongering, is the SNP high command.  Och no, we as the govament, as the keepers of the sovereign will a the Scottish People, we maintain that in  a sovereign nation, Scottish people should only pay the taxes they agree with, d'ye ken?  Anything else is just Project Fear.

Gnasher now has nothing left to give away in electoral bribes, not even  that Get Out Of Poll-Tax Free Card. Alec stole even that from her;  under Gnasher,  people will have to start paying for stuff, maybe even demanding that council tax goes up, so's workers can have a pay rise - y'know, that economics thingy, in  which the SNP claim such expertise. 

Where I live,  there is a legislative anomaly, on the outer isles vehicles may be driven without a current MOT,  shockingly poorly-paid care workers cannot afford to purchase a roadworthy car in which to visit vulnerable people in their homes so the council, cash-strapped  by the Salmond-Sturgeon council tax freeze, permits and thus encourages its  employees to travel, on official business, in dangerous vehicles, because they don't get paid enough, because of the SNP council tax freeze.  SNP dummies, 

The dizzy heights of SNP activism

 

living in inner-cities, inebriate and hysterical,  don't, of course, give a fuck about this electoral betrayal because it leaves them more money to spend on body art, piercings and drinks and come to-morrow, come Independence,  they'll all be put in charge of  hospital departments, run universities and be Ambassadors, in Ibiza and posh, foreign places like that, once all they English basturds've been kicked-out.  And the traitors who voted No, voted against the sovereign will of a noisy, anti-democratic minority, they'll just disappear.  

Sadly for Gnasher,  even though  up to forty million people have joined the SNP, before we know it, their subscriptions'll be due again and her new core vote doesn't do bill-paying, why should it, when all of its oil money goes to England? Maybe Sturgeon's  Scottish Executive will devise some means to fine the No voters the total amount which it costs this rising tide of Yes-voting SNP  members to join, well, to join the SNP, it cannot be right, in this exciting climate of undemocracy to expect a minority sovereign nation to pay its own political subs, now, can it?

Poor Gnasher, having bribed and bought a membership, she must now find regular treats to pop into its decayed mouth, lest it desert politics once more, for Smack and tonic wine; Gnasher must generate an excitement equal to that of the lost referendum, the provision of which can only come from another referendum, something which nobody in their right mind would tolerate.

Sadly for Sturgeon, the Holyrood Chalice is long poisoned;   Alec has cast her as Gordon Brown to his Tony Blair. And legged it, leaving her to dodge all the chickens' vengeful homecoming. As it did with Gordon, ambition has blinded Gnasher to the obvious truth -  after Alec, she can only disappoint. Scottish NHS is beginning to unravel in resignations and scandals; the SNP-frozen council tax has resulted in tens of thousands of sackings, demotions, pay-cuts and  the withdrawal of  many vital services, the absence of  which now results in vulnerable people squatting in hospital A&E departments. Oil prices, despite Alec's instructions to the fossil fuel world, are falling and deflation threatens the European economy with a potentially fatal contraction.  Most importantly,  it was not just the alcoholic, illiterate, cross-dressing, wife-beating, child-molesting, ginger, tattooed NED and his grandchildren who were galvanised by the referendum, it was also the ordinary Scots,  those diffident and self-effacing souls who pay their bills and their taxes, cultured and respectful, industrious, conscientious and public spirited, the un-noisy ones  have now seen, close-up,  how disreputable  and dishonest is the Salmond-Sturgeon Project, have seen how, despite insistence that in the event of a Yes vote, one vote would carry the day but in the event of No, half a million votes do not,  have seen Gnasher's grubby little tantrums,  attempting to turn her unquestionable Defeat into  glorious Victory, really. 

Increasingly, Nicola Sturgeon sounds like an angry wee fart, squeaking and whistling  indignantly its malodorous complaint, sickeningly unwholesome, polluting first the room and eventually the nation; the Highlands, the Lowlands and the Road to the Isles.

Those whom she attempts thus to short-change will be as unimpressed now by her wee suit, her wee ambition, her wee haircut and her wee vision as they were in September and they will harry her as they never did Salmond. And that's not to even think about those in the parliamentary SNP - a formerly socialist party - now miffed by Gnasher's unchallenged, nepotistic Coronation. And women, Scottish women, many of whom are English, will see her off.

  The referendum has now  revealed the SNP to be more right than left; it's greatest wish to appease its rich owners, cut their corporation tax and centralise all administrative power to itself.  Whilst trumpeting its own social justice credentials, the SNP has strangled local services, simultaneously vandalising the nation's greatest asset, its wilderness landscape, in  the service of billionaire rubbish like Donald Trump, Brian Souter and various alternative energy carpetbaggers. Whoring the very nation to unbridled capitalism, Salmon-Sturgeon take cover in socialist rhetoric about the bedroom tax or NHS privatisation. Now rightly perceived as Tory-lightists, their refusal to accept the democratic verdict of the Referendum's electorate must have  tarnished Gnasher's dodgy reputation further, among the majority, at least.

The Tribesmen for their part, already having licked Sinn Fein's scrotum,  

Aye, we are a small community, we murderers, bigots and First Ministers, but the main thing is that we hold London's feet to the Fire.

Alec, was that really you, with those big boys? Whit're you like?

may easily chose to  form company with however many Greens sandal their way into parliament.
............................................................

Prophetic stuff - SNP in bed with the Greens, for example, the inevitability of a second referendum and on and on until the electorate come up with the right answer - but sadly, Gnasher is still here, eight years later, and described by Laura Kuenssberg as the most successful politician of her generation. No, really?

  

Covid News.

Pay no attention to Joe Biden, speaking to the Detroit Auto Show last month: " The pandemic is over". No, it is not. 1 in 50 of UK residents is currently suffering from Covid. During the first 8 months of 2022, the WHO estimates that that more than 1 million people has died from Covid-19. And now, we in the global north are approaching flu season again.

 

Caption Contest Winner 

 Thank you for a flurry of entries, which much enlivened our discourse. I enjoyed all of them, and was particularly intrigued to note that mr verge has a rival for his Filthster Laureate title -   mr anonymous proffered for our amusement the term front bottom, which is even more risible than ginger growler (which I had hoped someone would apply to the belligerent Mrs Truss.)

 

Book Group

I'm currently reading The Wood Age by Roland Ennos - a history of humanity, its evolution and civilisations through the lens of  trees and their wood. Here's a little fact that the joiners, carpenters and painters amongst us will find interesting. 

Wheel design reached a peak in the chariots of the Homeric Greeks, with only four spokes, allowing the rims to flex slightly as they turned, thus giving a bit of suspension. However, the weight of the chariot caused the wheels to be bent out of shape, so Achilles had to either turn his chariot upside down at the end of a hard day's heroing, or remove the wheels overnight. The addition of iron tires reinforced the wheel, but when the wood dried out, joints loosened and tires could spring off. To prevent this, farmers often left their carts standing in shallow water to keep the wood wet and swollen and keep the joints taut, which is why the hay wain in John Constable's famous painting is standing in the river Stour.

The Haywain. John Constable

Your surname reveals the trade of your forbears: here you go, all names/trades involved in the working of wood and making of charcoal:

Carpenter,  Wright, Wheelwright, Shipwright, Wainwright, Bodger, Bowyer, Fletcher, Turner, Bowler, Cooper, Sawyer, Forester, Collier, Mason, Miller, Glazier, Potter, Smith.

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

 

Now Available
Should you need something  to cheer you up, look no further than  Ishmael’s Blues - which is now published, in both paperback and hardback editions; both editions are immediately available from lulu.com.  The paperback is also listed on amazon. Honest Not Invent and Vent Stack, the first two books in the sequence, are also available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.
Ishmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps :
 Unless you’ve done this already, please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box.  Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.
The book’s full title is "Ishmael’s Blues – further Chronicles of Ruin", and the cover you'll see is red with white titles and a picture of blogdog Buster retiring from the fray, cat gloating from a safe distance. The cover is the same for both editions.
Link for Hardcover :  https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr
Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux
At checkout, try WELCOME15 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, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.

I didn't want to go so I didn't go and I don't care, Laura