The Sunday Ishmael 29/01/2023

 

As Shifty Zawari shuffles off to spend more time with his money, 
we shake our heads in awe at the power of the Sunday Ishmael to change Richi Sunak's mind. All together, now, everyone, concentrate, ishmaelites: "time for a general election, Richi".

I suspect that Wriggly Richi thinks he is displaying firm leadership, taking decisive action and setting high standards in public life by sacking Shifty out of hand, but the question asking itself in minds and public houses up and down the land is - why appoint the dodgy bastard in the first place? One glance should have been sufficient

for Richi to realise that this is the kind of guy who will send his nephew into the dangerous cave to retrieve the Magic Lamp and is not to be trusted with the nations' money, nor indeed, the chairmanship of the Conservative Party. Whatever could have attracted Richi to Abanazzer Shifty in the first place?

Funny, that. Pretty, Straight Guy Tony also found himself mysteriously drawn to the filthy rich. 

Anyway, if I was Shifty's Trade Union Representative I'd advise him to lodge a complaint of Unfair Dismissal with the Employment Tribunal. After all, mr mongoose has pointed out the Spanish Practices of HMRC, Shifty was done for Carelessness, not Criminality, and there was no Due Process in his dismissal. And I could do with a good laugh. 

What Fresh Hell is This?

Andrew Burns

Adam Graham

These two gentlemen are currently held as prisoners in the Scottish Prison Estate. 

Andrew Burns has a series of violent convictions. Whilst incarcerated, he has assaulted inmates, security officers and female nurses in various jails. He has self-harmed, swallowed razor blades and opened veins with his teeth before squirting blood at prison officers. He has been held in isolation within a men's prison. His applications for transfer to a women's prison have been refused until recently, when the application was granted.

Adam Graham has been convicted of two rapes of women, using his penis, which is still attached and functioning. Whilst on remand, he was held at Cornton Vale, the Scottish facility for both remand and convicted female prisoners. Cornton Vale has the design capacity to hold a maximum of 119 prisoners, along with a separate Mother and Baby Unit with 7 spaces. He has been found guilty and is awaiting sentence. Nicola Sturgeon has finally found the sense to transfer him into the male prison estate.

Both Mr Burns and Mr Graham have adopted female names and cross dress. Mr Burns is clearly a deeply disturbed individual. Mr Graham's former wife believes he has adopted a female identity in order to manipulate the system to avoid incarceration in a men's prison and to be housed in a women's facility.

Mr Dolatowski, a violent paedophile, has convictions against a 12 year old girl, filming her in a supermarket toilet, and a 10 year old girl. In the latter offence, the 10-year-old went to the supermarket toilets while her father waited outside. He heard his daughter screaming and she then came running out saying that “a crazy man with long hair was in the bathroom and had grabbed her face and pushed her into a cubicle, before demanding she take her trousers off.” The court heard that when the girl came out of her cubicle, Dolatowski had shoved her back in and told her there was a man outside who would kill her mother. The girl managed to punch Dolatowski in the face, stomach and groin and escape to her father and siblings waiting just outside the toilets. Her mother told the court that the girl was hysterical after the attack and continued to suffer flashbacks. Mr Dolatowski, 6 foot 5inch self-identified trans woman who calls himself Katie, has been accommodated in women's hostels and refuges in Scotland and in Leeds, and is currently on remand in Cornton Vale for an assault.

This is madness, surely? I know full well that life in the male prison estate is deeply unpleasant and can be dangerous, but housing mad, bad and dangerous to know self-identified transwomen with intact meat and potatoes in the female prison estate poses a risk that is not manageable given the instincts and behaviours of what Nicola euphemistically calls "bad actors". The solution, of course, is to build  trans prisons to house Scotland's 15 trans prisoners and the 230 trans prisoners in England and Wales.

mr ishmael had this flagged up in the Drafts as something rather special. And it is. This is Mandy Patinkin singing Over the Rainbow. Made me cry, anyway. The man's vocal range is astonishing. I've been watching him in Dead Like Me,  an American comedy-drama television series starring Ellen Muth and Mandy Patinkin as grim reapers who reside and work in Seattle, Washington.

You can find both seasons on Prime. It is one of those shows that the Americans do so well - an ensemble piece, with sharp dialogue. I suppose it is a coming-of-age show, or a coming-of-death, more accurately. Live every moment as though it is your last, and one day you'll be right.

It is still winter here, mr mike, but, mindful of your love of Spring, I've found you some spring flowers.

I also thought you might like to see Yesnaby. When I was new here, I complained to a colleague about the boring Orkney topography. You need to get up Yesnaby, Nasty Little John said. It has one of those Thelma and Louise roads, running straight through fields up to the horizon - a folie de grandeur invitation to jam your foot down ont' accelerator and sail out into the blue. It is a popular suicide spot, attested by the cellophane flowers from time to time. There are concrete machine gun emplacements and rotting buildings and lots and lots of air moving rapidly about.  The Orkney blurb says it is one of the most spectacular stretches of coastline in Orkney, and should definitely be on your list of 'must see' locations during a visit to the islands. Found on the west coast of the Orkney mainland, this wild location offers stunning sea views. During a westerly gale you can see huge waves crashing into the cliffs. The cliffs are incredibly high, but I've been there when the white sea fret is blown across the cliff tops, and you struggle to stand upright. Best not to let the dog off the lead. Later in the year the wild flowers on the tops include the tiny and rare Primula scotica, and down in the steep valley the wild yellow irises are thick in the stream bubbling down into the sea.

Here you go:

George Mackay Brown (1921 - 1996), the Orkney writer and poet, was big on Yesnaby - it's just up the coast from Stromness, where he lived and worked. And drank. Stromness was a dry town from the 1920s, its citizenry having voted to keep the place teetotal. Young George, growing up, never tasted alcohol - "lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine". When Stromness voted in 1947 to allow the demon drink back in again, George had a revelation. The first bar opened in 1948, and George first tasted alcohol. He found alcoholic drinks "a revelation; they flushed my veins with happiness; they washed away all cares and shyness and worries. I remember thinking to myself 'If I could have two pints of beer every afternoon, life would be a great happiness". Alcohol played a considerable part in his life, but he says, "I never became an alcoholic, mainly because my guts quickly stalled." That's always the problem - the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Imagine that - no alcohol until you are in your twenties. It would be like the stars appearing "one night in a thousand years, how (then) would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature and Selected Essays

Mind you, there was this brilliant short story by Isaac Asimov: Nightfall, in which he predicates a planet which is lit by two suns, no night, until the orbit of the planet around the suns takes them into darkness once every thousand years - and chaos ensues, in which humans are driven mad by the appearance of stars, tear down their civilisation, kill, burn, rape and pillage, beat their breasts and ululate. Bit like George Mackay Brown and alcohol. 

No, I do the fellow a disservice - its just that G.M.B is a bit of a cult around here, and you know how I am with organised religion.

 

thanks to editor mr. verge, there are now three anthologies of the collected works of ishmael smith:

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack  and Ishmael’s Blues are all 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 :

Thanks to editor mr. verge, there are now three anthologies of the collected works of ishmael smith:
Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack  and Ishmael’s Blues are all 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 :
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.
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.

The Sunday Ishmael: 22/01/2023

There's this crazy Liverpudlian,  Michael Cullen, 58 years old, who has been keeping himself busy walking the length of Britain in a state of undress, to raise money for Charidee. His latest achievement was a five hour climb to the top of Ben Nevis, in minus 18 degrees of C. temperatures, through the snow, wearing swimming trunks and carrying an odd assortment of bits and pieces, including a scottish flag and what looks like a blue kite. He got to the top on Monday.

He's on the shores of Loch Lomond at present, heading South. His lifetime achievement of money-raising is estimated at one million pounds. He says he's doing it to "give back" to society for all the help he received following a collapse into alcoholism and mental illhealth.

Shifty Zahawi, au contraire, never had any intention of "giving back". He was determined to hang onto as much as he possibly could, despite the laws of this country, a country his wealthy banking family adopted having migrated here from Iraq, when he was 11, to remove themselves from Sadam Hussein's early years of power and any possible objections to the accumulation of massive personal wealth, his grandad having been the Governor of the Central Bank of Iraq and his dad a business man and investment banker. Just speculating, here. Like Shifty. 

Anyway, he can't call in aid him being a Swarthy Levantine, a stranger here and not to the manor born, on account of he received a typical British privileged education at King's College School and University College London, where he took his degree in Chemical Engineering. (As a side bar with myself, them chem. eng. blokes are worse than med. students - I've seen them in full carouse down the main bar in the Students' Union. Kind, gentle and caring, they are not. Braying, misogynist drunks, they are). Oh, yes, and he was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time. I know, only for five minutes, 5th July to the 6th September 2022, having been thrown out by Tank Girl Truss for his Boris affiliations, despite being him being very keen on low taxes. In order to "steady the ship and stabilise the economy". But, still, Boris clearly thought the man knew enough about taxation to head up HMRC along with his other onerous duties and responsibilities. After all, he had stoutly denied knowing that he was under investigation by the Serious Fraud Squad, the National Crime Agency and HMRC. He said that he was being smeared.  

Smeared or not smeared, he's been fined for an error in his tax affairs that was "careless and not deliberate". "Careless" has a specific meaning to HMRC - you are not supposed to be careless. It is not as bad as tax evasion, which will put you in prison, but it is there on the naughty step. Shifty needs to sack all those highly expensive accountants and tax lawyers who have been careless with his tax return. And how much has this cost him? The surmise is that he has 

 agreed to pay several million pounds to HMRC in a penalty for his carelessness in his use of an offshore company (the Gibraltar-based family trust Balshore Investments) to hold shares in YouGov. 

Several million. Didn't make much of a saving there, then, with all that tax dodginess. 

Several million? Kind of makes poor mad Michael Cullen's naked mountain-climbing lifelong Charidee fund-raising efforts of a mere £one million look like a whole big waste of time. 

Then there was the story this week that, allegedly,  Richard Sharp helped Boris to secure a loan of £800,000 from Canadian millionaire, Sam Blyth. The three of them allegedly had dinner together at Chequers to sort out the details, with Richard Sharp allegedly acting as  "go-between". It’s no secret that, despite his very healthy wage supplied by the taxpayer, Boris Johnson ran into some financial difficulties whilst in office as Prime Minister. Funnily enough, a few weeks later, Richard Sharp was appointed Chair of the BBC, a position earning £180,000 per annum.

Are we paying our politicians enough, if they have to resort to fiddling their taxes and rewarding helpful chums with prime jobs? I suspect that the answer is that there is not enough money on God's good earth to satisfy the avariciousness of those who rule o'er us. The Labour Party, who've been kicking up the usual fuss about greed and corruption, were well into the trough during their days of office, and following - look at poor little billionaire Tony Blair. Have I ever told you that I was once in politics myself? Okay, Trade Union politics, but we've got Trade Union politics to thank for Pieman Prescott and the Ginger Growler (sounds like the title of a Victorian penny dreadful). I was paid for 17.5 hours a week plus expenses and nobody ever offered me a bribe, advantageous loan or suggested a nifty tax carelessness. I worked many more hours than the 17.5, and was motivated by a sense of indignation about injustice, though the wearing of nice clothes, status, power and rubbing shoulders with senior management and the fixers are rewarding in themselves. I can easily see how the life of a politician becomes self-perpetuating entitlement, even when the motivation for entering politics is to make a positive difference to people's lives, as opposed to getting a well-paid job with connections. Maybe there's an argument for Parliamentary representation by lottery, remunerated at the average national wage and for a fixed term of three years, subject to a two year extension if you behave yourself. When your number comes up and it's your turn to sit on the green benches, your friends and family will commiserate with you, and say, never mind, soon be over, you're doing your bit for the country.

Westminster avariciousness and pre-criminality feed straight into Gnasher Sturgeon's narrative of bad, sick England exploiting pure, simple, hard working Scotland.

She's reckoning on that the Westminster Government, in particular, Alister Jack, Secretary of State for Scotland, has declared War on Scotland by making an order under Section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998, preventing the Scottish Parliament's Gender Recognition Reform Bill from proceeding to Royal Assent. She says it's a cultural war. Possibly because the English want to be nasty to men wanting to pass as women, whereas your whoreson Scot, being deeply misogynistic, wants to mock women by donning false boobies and wigs and gain access to women-only spaces and sporting competitions. No, she's really cross because Westminster has flexed its muscles and put Holyrood firmly into its place. 

So, its War, d'ye ken, we'll no tolerate English interference in Scottish affairs any longer, we'll tak' some o' they Leopard tanks the Germans won't give to Ukraine and roll on down to London.

Here's mr ishmael, with an imagined political interview:

 

Gnasher Over London 12th February 2015

First Minister Gnasher, you lost the referendum, didn't you?

Well, Andrew, I think we won but that's a debate to be had. But not here.

Why not here?

Well, Andrew, as I said, and as the Scottish people so clearly said,  in the referendum, that's a debate to be had but not here.

But they didn't....

They didn't what, Andrew....

They didn't say anything about a debate to be had, not now, not anytime. You lost the referendum...

Well, Andrew, that's a debate to be had. Un-preeec-edented numbers of people voted for Independence, un-preeeec-edented numbers...

Yes, but more voted against Independence. Doesn't that mean anything to you, the fact that you lost?

 Well, Andrew, lose, win, that's a debate to be had but not now.

Woddawoodsay, though, Andrew, is that, setting the result aside, the numbers of votes,   we clearly won the referendum, un-preeec-edented numbers of people voted for Independence and it's only people like you English who refuse to acknowledge that fact.

But I'm not English....

Well, Andrew, let me put it like this.  Did or didnae ye vote for Independence?

I didn't have a vote. Either way. The SNP didn't allow me to vote. Nor millions like me.

 

There ye are, Andrew, that makes ye English by my reckoning. In fact, woddawoodsay, Andrew,  is that anyone who isnae in the SNP is English and therefore not entitled tae vote in the next referendum.

(breathes heavy sigh) I'm too old for this nutter shit. Alright, then, you're not gonna answer my question. What about the oil price, you all staked your political souls on the fact that it could only go up.  It has gone down, massively, the economy of Aberdeenshire and indeed of the whole of Scotland is tanking. Do you wanna take this opportunity to apologise?

Well, Andrew, that's a debate to be had but, quite frankly, now is not the time to have it........

Are you, First Minister Gnasher, are you unable to apologise? 

 Well, Andrew, not only can I but I can't, gggrrrrrrrrrr,  not only should I but I shouldn't as well,  it is a debate to be had but not here,  oil is just.....ggggrrrrrrrrrrrr, gnasshhhhh gnassshhhhh, ggrrrrrrrrrrrrrm, grrrrrrrr.... nhs scotland in meltdoon,   ggrrrrrr, gggrrrrrrr, ggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, SNP ruling for some  but not the majority,  grrrrrrr-gggrrrrrrrrrrrrr,  Trident, over my deid, nasty, wee body  gggrrrrrrrrrr-grrrrgrrrrr, coalition wi' Miliband  ggrrrrrrrrrrrr not only will I but I won't, yadadadadada,  I demand a half a per cent per whatever increase in whatever to bring aboot nae austerity, ken, aye and balance they books  ggrrrrrrrrrrr-grrgrrrgrrrrrr aye, an' Scottish votes on English matters gnashhhhh-gnassshhhh-gnasshhhh, the Scottish people voted in un-preeec-edented numbers for Independence and it is only the frankly discredited Westminster politicians, Andrew and lickspittle journalists like yourselves who are denying us our historic ggrrrrrrrrrr......ggrrrrrrrrr

 

 

thanks to editor mr. verge, there are now three anthologies of the collected works of ishmael smith:

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack  and Ishmael’s Blues are all 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 :

Thanks to editor mr. verge, there are now three anthologies of the collected works of ishmael smith:
Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack  and Ishmael’s Blues are all 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 :
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.
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.

The Sunday Ishmael: 15/01/2023

 Politics is Show Business for Ugly People

See what I mean? 

This is Stephen Flynn MP, before he defenestrated Fatty Blackford as Leader of the SNP at Westminster -

 and became Mekon Flynn, Member of Parliament for Aberdeen South, an oil industry constituency. 

Interviewed by Martin Geissler this morning on the Sunday Show, he assured the Scottish nation that his constituents were perfectly fine with no new oil licences being issued and if we don't need to pull oil out of the North Sea then we should let it lie. With the decline of the oil industry, Aberdeen's prosperity has nose-dived, but Mekon Flynn reckons that Aberdonians are so alive to Green issues and the need for renewables to replace oil that the streets are paved with noses cut from spited faces.  Even though two days ago he was backing the Cambo oil field development to go ahead, contrary to the SNP/Green position that it "should not get the green light" and Madam Sturgeon has vowed that there would be no more new oil explorations in her energy strategy.

.All those bulging brains barely contained in that big shiny head have spit out Mekon Flynn's considered opinion that Gnasher McSturgeon is the most outstanding politician of her generation in Europe,  subtle, intelligent, far-seeing, successful, dugget, and what she says goes. 

I think she's had a word with him. 

He's also rock-solid on Gnasher's policy of using the next general election as a "de facto" referendum on Scottish independence. The thinking of the most outstanding politician in Europe goes like this: 

A referendum on Scottish independence was held on the 18th September 2014, the electorate being told that this was a once in a generation opportunity to throw off the shackles of union with England, Wales and Northern Ireland. 55.3% of voters said No, we want to stay British. A generation is generally reckoned by demographers and statisticians to be 25 years. Simple arithmetic, however, is not part of the SNP skill-set, for eight years later (not 25),  in June 2022, Sturgeon announced plans to hold another referendum on 19 October 2023. Boris refused permission. This is not a devolved matter.  So Gnasher Sturgeon referred the question of whether a referendum can take place without the UK government's agreement  to the UK Supreme Court, which ruled in November 2022 no, you can't. So now she says that if the Scottish National Party get a majority in the next general election - unlike their present position, shored up in Holyrood by the Greens, that such a result is a declaration of intent to leave the United Kingdom. This is, of course, bollocks, would have no binding effect on the Westminster Government and make no difference whatsoever to the Westminster position. It just means that there would be MPs of an SNP persuasion in Westminster. Just like now. Gnasher, of course, seems not to have grasped the difference between her devolved administration in Holyrood and the Government of the United Kingdom.

And Mekon Flynn has the job of defending this gibberish. Or he'll be defenestrated like Fatty Blackford, that simple, crofting, Merchant Banking former SNP Leader in Westminster.

I wouldn't give a toss about any of this nonsense, and I'm sure that you don't, you Gentlemen of England now abed, holding your cheap manhoods (not quite right, mrs. ish), but I have skin in the game. Being a British citizen, living, working, owning property in, getting and spending in Scotland, part of Britain.  

Talking of skin in the game, Rishi Sunak ain't got no right to be pontificating about the NHS - not until he's got a dog in the race. Last Sunday, on the Laura Kuennssnose Show, squirmy, little, wriggly, dwarfy, cross-eyed Sunak point blank refused to say whether he used private medicine. We know he does. Can you imagine him down his local GP surgery, queuing in the waiting room, waiting on a trolley in an NHS corridor, going round the chemist's with his scrip, whilst his security battalion surround him, fending off the outraged complaints of fellow-patients - wot's he doing ere, taking up time with our doctor, get round Harley Street, you, and get a good gravy dinner into you.

Why won't you tell us, Prime Minister, whether you use private health care, said Laura, politely but implacably.  That's private, he said. His ears told us the truth, though. Have you noticed, that when he tells lies, or gets embarrassed, his ears grow, start flapping and turn red? Have a look, next time he's interviewed or at PMQs - dead useful little tell, that one.

He's subsequently confessed. though. Turns out he has used private health care. Well, who'd have thought it? 

He also wouldn't be drawn on whether he'd help the Royal Family to sort out its current domestic difficulties. I'm not talking about the Royal Family, he said, even when Laura Nose told him John Sodding Major had gone in for a bit of go-betweening with Charles and Diana back in the day.

It was Keir Starmer's turn to face the same questions this morning. No mucking about, though. Straight forward and manly under fire. Have you ever used private health care?

No.

Would you help out the Royal Family with a bit of counselling?

No, I wouldn't do that.

Laura's got Gnasher Sturgeon under interrogation next Sunday. Maybe she'll get asked about her Gender Recognition Reform Bill - which will impact on UK law thusly: English bloke goes up to Scotland. I'm a woman he says, and I promise I'll live like a woman for 6 months. Okay, here's your Gender Recognition Certificate, off you go. Goes back to England. I'm a woman, he says, and this certificate proves it and you can't stop me going in women's toilets, in battered wives' hostels and in women's prisons. Yes, I've still got my full meat and potatoes, want to make something of it?

Anyway, Keir Starmer, who has got both skin in the game and a dog in the race, is going to sort out the NHS when he gets into power in two years time. He's sick of being in opposition, he says, and he's going to make a difference. Well, thank goodness for that - someone needs to do it, the NHS, sort it, that is. A man of high ambition. 

The National Health Service is the term for the  publicly funded healthcare systems of the United Kingdom, set up in 1948 and funded from general taxation, apart from prescription charges in England. In 1948 the population was considerably smaller than now, the treatments available were limited and the ambitions of ordinary people to lead long, healthy lives, with their own teeth, good glasses, hearing aids, contraception, assisted conception and transgender surgery were similarly limited. These days, people expect planned pregnancies to result in healthy, viable babies, and if they don't, then they expect the NHS to ensure that foetuses that would have died in the womb or shortly afterwards survive to become long-lived adults with all their extensive and expensive medical needs paid for from general taxation. Instead of living a mere 5 years after retirement, folk expect to do nothing economically productive for 20 years after retirement and be maintained in good health. They demand that general taxation pays for the damaging physical consequences of dodgy  lifestyles - addiction to alcohol, tobacco, sex, drugs, chips, extreme sports, gardening, the internal combustion engine and victory knee-slides. Oh, yes, mr mongoose wants unwise cricketing manoeuvres added to the list.

If I was Sir Keir, Sorting Out the NHS, I'd start with replacing the General Practitioner with ChatGPT,  an advanced Artificial Intelligence chatbot which interacts in a conversational way. Its trainers say that the dialogue format makes it possible for ChatGPT to answer followup questions, admit its mistakes, challenge incorrect premises, and reject inappropriate requests. Totally unlike the average GP. I tell you, having seen medical students in the general bar of the Students' Union of Birmingham University, I think a Chatbot is the way to go. Especially if it can do blood tests, which seem to have replaced the average GP's diagnostic skills. As mr ishmael used to advise - the person most likely to kill you is your doctor.

Poetry Corner:

‘Mortal,’ said the sprite, ‘be wary; shallow learning is unwary;
Heed the perils of reliance on machin’ry’s mere compliance.’

The couplet is by chatbot ‘Claude’, who was asked to write a poem about itself and the impact of machine intelligence in the style of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Raven’.

27/05/2009 Stanislav, An Outpatient, Speaks

Go down local hospital today for laser surgery, on old mince pies, Fuck me, gently. Not hurt a bit says eyebloke. Cunt. Not hurt him a bit but is like some bastard hammer hot nails in stanislav eyeball, fucking dreadful. Is OK? says eyebloke; No, is not OK, is fucking murder, is on special extra fucking hot setting, eh? ten million volts? best leave off for a minute. Have had laser surgery before, few time, and never hurt like this bastard, is exfuckingcrutiating. Edinburgh Royal College of Surgeon-Extortionists says that doctor working in Highland and Island is often alcoholic, drug addict or misfit; this bloke look like all three bastards. Scotland is best part of England and can see doctor very easy, is just that is maybe crap and dangerous; dirty, drunken mentalcase with hand shaking and bad breath full of garlic, often has huge beard and hair everywhere, like fucking Hobbit and would sooner cut own throat than wash hands between patient. Anyway, to start off with, eyebloke puts stanislav head in iron mask and is damning and fucking because nothing works, turns out he has the lens in the wrong way round; good job, says stanislav, it didn’t fucking work, else you’d a had laser in your eyes, innit, and serve you right. Maybe was wrong thing to say. Anyway stanislav not want to be seen as ladyman or wuss but after few seconds is in agony, can’t see and both eye is streaming and head is exploding. Can do Zen shit, meditation and self-hypnosis, just sort of empty mind of Now and tranceout, feel no pain, or little pain, but not with this bastard. Have you got much more to do, maybe can put up with if nearly finished is? You've had 56 shots. And how many is more to come? Is a thousand altogether. Oh fuck me, nine hundred and forty four more bastard nails hammer in fucking eyeball, fuck that shit, can't put up with, is like some bastard set fire to inside of head and bombs going off in eyeballs, sweat like fucking Paddy Fawkes in confession box with noncing monsignor, another nine hundred will vomiting be and shit pants like demented old bastard on Tory backbench caught with fingers in till and cock in rentboy. Fuck it, can go blind and get dog, like Blunkett, Buster is dear old friend and best boy but is crap for walking about with, does great tripping-up even when stanislav can see, and even if didn't trip up and smash face on pavement would pull arm from socket in pursuit of other dogblokes. Can be blind plumber, stanislavplumbcheap4u in Braille. Anyway get money off government if blind is. Not fucking much, not as much as Mr and Mrs Balls or Mr Duncan, but is few quid and can always tune piano for living. Have had blind piano bloke come in gaff and tune-up Joanna. Is all horrible miserablest fucking bastard ever – this piano, Sir, is very out of tune. They all say that, like was crime against disabled bastards. Yes, is out of tune, that’s why stanislav sent for you in first place, you pianobloke is, if stanislav could tune piano, you wouldn’t be here, innit, can do most thing, but tune piano is job for blind bloke with fuck all else to do but listen, innit, is shit job, is only fit for blindbloke with special listening skills, so maybe it just SEEMS so out of tune because you is listening like a bastard and to me is just fucking out of tune, I mean, it doesn’t matter if is one note out of tune or eighty-fucking-eight out of tune, is same difference, piano sounds like shit, only takes is one note and whole thing is fucked, unless of course piece of music doesn’t have that one note in, which it might not, if was Three Blind - no offence – Mice, but can’t sit and play Three Blind Mice forever and ever, people come round for dinner and you say Oh Fuck me, guests, I’ll just play you Three Blind Mice, a few times, like last time, pretty soon run out of dinner guests, who wants to come and hear Three Blind Fucking Mice, year after year, and here in Scotland can only really invite expatriots because Jock is savage and no fucking manners has got and would smash gaff up if only was Three Blind Mice by way of post-prandial divertissement, so really either piano is in tune or is not in fucking tune, can’t be very in tune and so can’t be very out of tune either, and, matey, have had hard day with head down toilet so not fucking me about be anymore with this Piano Is Very Out Of Tune Shit, like was Blind Boy Monty Python and Parrot, only piano instead; have got topjolly Yamaha keyboard and never go out of fucking tune and sound more like piano than piano. Have got Yamaha acoustic guitar and Yamaha electric guitar, is like fucking Yamaha factory, could have fucking Nipponese orchestra in here and don’t fucking care if you tune piano or not, is only affectation, acoustic piano, Yamaha is much better. Don’t need all this shit, got plenty of shit without bad-tempered accusatory pianobloke coming in here and giving me more shit. Do you wanna tune out of tune piano, like it says in Yellow Pages or have you come round here to bully people? What is it with you blind fuckers? ‘snot my fault. Try to give you some work to do and is better than weaving fucking basket and only can whine about piano out of tune being, as though stanislav took front off from Joanna and twist all the tuning pegs with fucking molegrip just to piss you off ? Honest, not invent, is true conversation. 

No, mate, don’t care if you is doctor or not, stanislav is not coward, has had loads of this shit before and is OK, sting a little bit and eyes water but this fucking torture is, you from MI fucking 5? Can take laser and shove-up arse of BMA, is fucking rubbish, come in NHS to get rid of fucking pain, not get fucking torture to death, can go on waterboarding vacation in Cuba and is not so fucking bad as this shit, can smell fucking eyeballs burning. You done this before ? Oh yes, am consultant, if is hurting you like fuck I can give you local anaesthetic. You mean needle in fucking eyeball, innit, is not good day for stanislav, nearly have eyes blown out through back of fucking head and now is fucking get eyeball stuck with hypodermic syringe, like in fucking nightmare, you know how Jack Nicholson says I Would Rather Stick Pins In My Eyes Than whatever it is? Well stanslav has had pins stuck in eye, or needle, which is same thing, only worse, and is shit thing to have, can't even, obviously, close fucking eyes and hope for best because is looking straight at needle coming towards eye in shaking hand of drunken misfit dope-fiend called Sandy or fucking Angus. Want local anaesthetic and carry on scorching eyeball ? No fucking thank you very fucking much. Got enough doctorshit with mad bastard wants to stop heart and rip to pieces and patch up like fucking inner-tube on bicycle, scar down front like Grand fucking Canyon and is only little bit of angina and can live fine with few pills and just as long as poor eviscerated surgery victim and probably longer and don't want some fucking eejit sticking needles in my eyeball, today. Hooligan-Sadist doctor not apologise, Fuck me, no, not say Just relax, be better soon, was pissed off, bureaucratisation of NHS has no room for individual, hyper-sensitised patient and says stanislav can go in day clinic, fly to big hospital, still get needle in eyeball but can do it in more caring environment than grubby little office, and lasershots won't hurt so much, is only pain and fuck all compared to what Afghani Wedding guest gets from Uncle Sam, but he is wog, innit, and doesn't matter, stanislav can go in bed afterwards with nice cup of tea and Jock nurse, big like elephant, keep check on observations and say There-There, Hen, There-There. 

Scotland, best part of England.

 

thanks to editor mr. verge, there are now three anthologies of the collected works of ishmael smith:

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack  and Ishmael’s Blues are all 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 :

Thanks to editor mr. verge, there are now three anthologies of the collected works of ishmael smith:
Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack  and Ishmael’s Blues are all 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 :
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.
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.

Reflections du Temps Perdu

 THAT'S ANOTHER YEAR UP THE JUDGE'S ARSE, 

as the Lifers say.

There you are, banged up, with some dodgy stranger, your every bodily noise witnessed, and not by an indulgent lover - for fuck's sake, but by someone who will inflict serious harm unless you can sweet-talk him into momentary acceptance. When the night cramps and the night lusts strike in a little room 13 foot by 7 foot by 9 foot high, you'd better be shit hot at talking. And you'd better forget about sex and drugs and rock n'roll. 

HM Prison Birmingham, known locally as Winson Green, was built between 1845 and 1849 in the west of Birmingham. Initially the Birmingham Borough Gaol, it had in total 321 cells for men, woman and juveniles. Now housing more than a thousand male prisoners, it was designed on the “Panopticon” principle by Birmingham architect Daniel Rowlinson Hill, with four wings radiating from a central rotunda. The main gate was designed to resemble a castle.

 It opened on the 29th of October 1849 and its first governor was George Glossop who was rapidly succeeded by Captain Alexander Maconochie. He experimented with various prison reform ideas before he was sacked in 1851 for being too lenient.

We're not talking TVs, mobiles and laptops.

It now looks like this

Well, they shoulda thought of that before they did whatever they did.

Shouldn't we all?

If only we could link consequences to actions. If only we could avoid the I'll get away with that thinking. If we could be charismatic, beautiful, charming, wealthy....

Anyway, that's another year up the Judge's Arse. Another year of being played and played....

Here's how it goes, the ecumenical year for the Brendas and Eddies:

January/ February: doleful, dietary, eat out of the freezer

Easter - Buy and eat chocolate

Summer - Holiday, holiday

Autumn - Guy Fawkes, Hallowe'en

Fucking Christmas again

And around and around we go.

We're supposed to do reflecting on 2022.  I could give you snapshots of the year in politics - dear Boris, mad Liz,  utterly scary Richy, but the msm have given you that. We could shake our heads about identity politics, about the end of freedom of expression and the whole AnimalFarmery of it all, about the risible clapping for the NHS coupled with the contempt for workers whose wages fall way beneath inflation, of Richy's solution for industrial unrest being further restriction of the right to strike - but it really doesn't matter. 

This is what matters.

Being Left, Right, Centrist, a bit Green - largely irrelevant.

How are you on Pacifism? Willing to be locked up for it? Ready for that small cell in Winson Green? Fuck's sake, I'm hardly brave enough to speak up at a Dinner Party.

No, mrs ishmael, if the Germans were invading Britain, wouldn't you fight for your patch of land?

Well, I'd hope the law would protect my title.

No, the soldiery'd be busy raping your daughters and drinking your single malts.  Wouldn't you die in defence of your country?

Well, if I was dead, I couldn't defend anything.

Wouldn't you fight and kill to keep what is yours?

Well, I don't think killing is acceptable. I'd give someone a slap, no bother, but killing is a whole step up. One person would be unfucking believable, but 25 is really beyond belief. Someone I know, ordinary person, like, ordinary husband, bloke in his fifties, goes to the supermarket, caught short, goes to the toilet, sitting in the  cubicle, when some kids come in, largeing it, banging on the doors, piss on his shoes for a laugh, like, he comes out, says  which of you punks did that? And they object to that. The 14 year old slices into him with a knife from his mum's kitchen drawer. Lucky strike, straight into the heart, through skin, fat, past ribs, into the heart. You don't know you've had your death blow, hold your chest, blood coming through your fingers, say no, I'm not good, and die. On the supermarket floor. Just meant to get a bottle of wine and a light bulb. Wife at home thinking where is he? Didn't he swear he'd come straight home? Glass of wine and a little endoftheweekpassion? What's that car outside?

No, really, mrs ishmael,  say Germany invades England.

Not likely, really, not these days. They gave up that ambition in 1945. No, it's more like Scotland and England.

What?

Scotland secedes from the United Kingdom. There's all these pillocks - like you, like me, high and dry, English, came to Scotland to make better life, tide went out, suddenly Scotland isn't part of Britain any more. This English rump, bum, disenfranchised GoodLifers, high and dry in a Scotland that always regarded them as braying, over-privileged fuckers that have dinner parties, for fuck's sake, rather than popping round for tea. Hey, we don't want them in our jobs, voting for our politicians, squatting in our best housing, best round them up for their own safety. And England, aware that their nannas and uncles on the oil rigs are having a tough time, square up to Gnasher Sturgeon and say Hey, Let my people go.

No, mrs ishmael, you're off your head. We're talking Russia, here. It's like Satan. Bad, Evil. Orcs and stuff. 

So. Pacifism. It's like Vegetarianism. I couldn't kill the animals but I'll sure as hell eat them, sliced up and in a little plastic tray from the supermarket and make it large like this is organic shit, the beast had a perfect life and just loved us until we snuck up and  fucking sliced its throat and it has been braised in good olive oil (not crap olive oil) and good red wine ( yeah, not crap etc). The ultimate hypocrisy is little Harris being encouraged to eat less favoured animals - come on, darling, here's a little organic chicken with a soupcon of wild salmon, come on, baby, eat for mommy, cos mommy loves you. You need to keep your strength up. 

Some people we kill. Some people we eat. Some people we kill and feed to people we love. But, hey, we hate Russians, right?

Oh, for fuck's sake. That's your round-up for 2022. I'm thinking of starting my own religion. Do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the law. Or what you can get away with. Oh, no, that's taken. How about this?

Or this?

 

 

Evensong: for ten years we've been on our own....

 I can't remember if I cried when I read about his widowed bride, but something touched me deep inside, the day the music died....

Angry Ginger Bastard - at the request of mr mike

 

Timeline:

Early 2008 : 10 weeks in Afghanistan (tour presumably curtailed when the press got wind of his deployment.)


20 weeks late 2012-early 2013 : second Afghan deployment, this time as an Apache co-pilot/gunner.

 

2008 :

If AngryGingerBastard was really at the sharp end, was that not a monumental misjudgement by Brig. Gen. Rupert Golightly-Jock-strap? And have we ever heard such brown-nosing praise from a C.O. to a miserable 2nd Lt? Fuck me, it was like five more minutes out there and our young ginger ninja woulda had the war, as they call it, won, and fuck all these other commoner bastards, eh, shipped home in shreds to an indifferent, cost-conscious NHS future?

Had AngryGingerBastard been killed or worse, captured, vulnerable to torture and head-chopping, all broadcast on the global net, would that not have been a catastrophically damaging propaganda victory, liable to galvanise volunteer Jihadists in huge numbers and thus, inevitably, result in even more dead Tommies, and even Joe Bloggses in the UK?

Can we imagine the scene in Oxford Coroner’s Court if, conversely, Lt AngryGingerBastard, up the sharp end, found himself, as is not unknown, collateralised unto fertiliser by Uncle Sam’s shoot-em-up air corps?

This is Bird Dog One to Bird Dog Ground Control; think we fucked up here, Colonel, big time - think that was AngryGingerBastardLimeyFoxtrotWindsor we just napalmed.

Bird Dog Control here; never mind, son, just jettison the video-tapes and fly yer asses back here. These fucking Limeys’re always bitching. Let me fucking worry about that pansy Coroner; he’s always on my ass.

The Coroner would go fucking nuts. He’d wanna see every piece of paper ever written in the history of the British Army, declare martial law and blockade the Pentagon. No Angry Ginger Bastard getting  buried round here, not until I get some fucking answers…

Brenda’d go apeshit, gold-braided caps’d be rolling down the Mall. Equerries and flunkies and aides de camp would be shitting themselves. Fuck me, Phil, I only said he should go there and shake a few hands, dazzle some fucking dimwit, media-studies cocksucker graduate from the Peeb. Shoot his gun in the sand a bit. Snot like we was fighting the Argies, most of whom went to Sandhurst. No, Phil, fuck me gently, these ragheads is fucking nutters, chop a bloke’s balls off soon as look at him. We didn’t say nothing about the drunken little git being up the sharp end.

The tabloids and the Dimblebys would have a field day, of course. John Shitbrain from the Sun would be glowering : Hanging’s too good for these Yanks/Ragheads/Anybody. The Sun says Torture the Fuckers Wot Killed Our Own AngryGingerBastard, Or Any Other Bastard, It’s Wot The People Want. Turn on the idiot-box and it’d be…

And now. As the sombre cortege. Files past. As it did so poignantly. With his late mother. The Princess. Some called her. Of Tarts.  A stricken nation. Bids farewell. To a suddenly favourite. Right royal. AngryGingerBastard. Reflecting on. The very great. Some say unpayable debt. That the poor owe. To the rich. Like myself. And my entire family. His late mother, the deranged NHS Stalkerwoman, used to say that there were three in the marriage. But. As it turned out. There was only one in the coffin. But, for now, we mourn Wotsisname. Slain in the line of Duty. By whoever. Join me for Question Time when my guests will be the usual bunch of cunts. Lembit Opek, Caroline Flint and some other tossers. From the Cenotaph.  Back to you in the studio.

It was criminally irresponsible to deploy him to Afghanistan, regardless of what the mouthy little prick, himself, wants. I think, for reasons above, that it was inevitable that he would and should be shepherded and protected in the national interest. Although any part of Afghanistan is more dangerous than UK, claims of heroism are a little overblown and unjustified.

At first the national interest, articulated by the Chief of Staff, was held to be that there was no way AngryGingerBastard could serve in Afghanistan, for this, this, and this reason. And then, presumably after pressure, he secretly countermanded those orders. Literally thousands of people, in the press, in the regiment, in the MOD, in the snooty wine bars will have known about this; it was not a state secret, and given - according to Blunkett and Schmidt and M15 - the massive penetration of thousands of mad Jihadi conspirators, it is almost inconceivable that someone from the Other Side would have not deduced, even by his absence from the drunkards’ circuit, that His Ginger Nibs was on active duty.

He never should have been allowed to set foot anywhere in which he might, by his death or capture, enflame things further or endanger genuine soldiers; he is a deeply obnoxious, spoilt little prick who has been able to bully a personal PR triumph out of a Senior Command which should have known better, and the connivance of what we still call the press in this load of fucking rubbish is deeply offensive, even by their standards. Nancy Brown, presbyterian lunatic, slithering around, praising the troops he has consistently betrayed, is just another ladling-over of self-interest from the most disgusting crew of media-political slags in history.  Knighthoods and medals all round.

 

2012 :

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY

PRINCE DICK-OUT TO RISK LIFE IN WOGISTAN

PARTY PRINCE IN P.R. EXERCISE : SEND HIM VICTORIOUS

After a meeting with Head of the Royal Playing Soldiers Brigade, Brigadier General Sir Rupert Golightly-Jockstrap (Eton, Sandhurst and the Chelsea V.D. Clinic) it was announced that the nation’s  favourite Prince, Harry Knobhead, has agreed that in order to clean up the mess left by his latest FuckTrip to LA, he has to start pretending again that he is actually a serving army officer, and not a pampered, idle playboy git, like the rest of his family.

The pretence must be maintained that His Grace, said the Brigadier, is mad keen to get his royal arse blown off by some raghead freedom fighter, that he is gagging for it, any opportunity to bounce up Everest on his arse, or what’s left of it, with some poor people, that’s what is uppermost in His Excellency’s mind. His brother? No, I should jolly well think not. Flight Lieutenant Gormlesss, the future king, is fully occupied rescuing commoners from the Irish Sea, when he is not unavoidably on holiday, that is…

Asked how much danger the popular young prince might find himself in, Brigadier Golightly-Jockstrap said Not very much, hardly any, in fact; depends on how much we can mock up in the studio and how the other young pilots co-operate. I suppose that if we  actually let him near the controls of an Apache he might crash it, like his father would, or fall out of it, but that’s not likely to happen, not without him being detoxed fully, over about six months, and then being taught to fly the damned thing. And anyway there’s probably someone down below the cockpit, actually operating the controls while Hairy’s up top, waving; or maybe we do it remotely. Queen’s grandson killed in some MickeyMouse war about oil?  I should bleedin Cocaine, I mean Co-Co.

6th January, 2023

In his memoir, Spare, which was released in Spain on Thursday, the Duke of Sussex details how he flew on six missions during his second tour in Afghanistan in 2012 and killed 25 Taliban fighters. 

The Taliban, who returned to power in Afghanistan last August, reacted with fury to the statements. 

"Prince Harry will always be remembered in Helmand - Afghans will never forget the killing of their innocent countrymen," said Khalid Zadran, the Taliban’s police spokesman in Kabul.

"The perpetrators of such crimes will one day be brought to the international court and criminals like Harry who proudly confess their crimes will be brought to the court table in front of the international community."

Mr Zadran added that Prince Harry’s description of those he had killed as "chess pieces" and that he was "neither proud nor ashamed" of his actions, was "cruel", "barbaric" and that such actions had legitimised the Taliban’s deadly insurgency against Nato troops in Afghanistan.