The Sunday Ishmael: 26/02/2023

 Check sky for avians, if clear all, go down in garden, keep wary eye  for birds drop from sky, kick bird body aside, remember disinfect boot after, 

look for turnip in weeds, take firm hold and heave, ignore scream as turnip root showers head with claggy old dirt - easy mistook for bird launch nuclear strike on head, driven mad by avian flu, doesn't mean not manly. Repeat until run out of turnips. Stagger into kitchen and dump turnip, dirt, weed and slugs on table and call for Olga, happy bride. 

What's this then? Is table not compost bin.

No, is for eating British Veg to make Britain Great.

You is mad. British don't eat turnip. British eat asparagus from Peru, tomatoes from Spain and push lettuce to side of plate.

Scottisch people eat Turnip.

No, Scottisch people throw rotting Turnip at politicians.

What about NeepsnTatties?

Stopped eat NeepsnTatties after discover freeze-dried Pea and McCain's keep families together Oven Chip.

Is Government edict. Eat More Turnip.

Thérèse Anne Coffey (born 18 November 1971) is a Conservative politician serving as Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs since October 2022, after a stint as (yes, I know its hilarious) Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from September to October 2022. This week she used her platform in the House of Commons to exhort the British to eat local seasonal produce. Especially, for some strange reason, turnips.

Apparently wholly unacquainted with  the range of magnificent foods that can be grown in Britain, she opted for turnips. Probably the first thing that sprang to mind.

For our non-UK domiciled Ishmaelites, you may not be aware that shelves in British supermarkets have been empty of fresh fruit and veg for a couple of weeks now. In Orkney, of course, we are used to it, as our supply ferries won't run when there's "adverse weather conditions" - bloody big waves. One winter, the locally-owned Pentland Ferries managed to get a container of fresh food across when the Government-subsidised Northlink ferries couldn't cross the Pentland Firth. The snow was so bad, though, that the container lorry couldn't make it out of St Margaret's Hope and across the Barriers, until an enterprising fairmer towed the container lorry with his tractor into Kirkwall, to the general jubilation of the scurvy Orcadians.

Them spoiled English, though, are just not used to the old empty shelves routine, clearly not accustomed to stocking the freezer and getting some tins in, and they are outraged. Where's our Pak Choi, they caw, our beefsteak tomatoes, our fresh peaches, grapes, peppers, cucumbers and chilies? How do you expect us to keep body and soul together without our out-of-season fruit and veg? And how have you allowed this to happen? the middle class indignantly demand. Not the wuckin' class, obviously, cos they just eat mushy peas, famously mistaken by Peter Mandelson for guacamole (mashed up avocado). The excuses reasons given are - extraordinary weather in Spain, snow in Morocco, and, of course, Brexit - our local farmers can't be bothered to plant veg under industrial-sized polytunnels because they have no European slave labour to harvest it and they can't employ British labour at the minimum wage because the public won't pay the additional costs of producing fruit and veg under humane levels of pay and conditions. For the most part, however, with the occasional dissenting Cassandra, the real reason for the shortages is not given. 

We are at war. 

Into the second year of a major European land war. I seriously think that all those Brits waving blue and yellow flags, sending old jumpers and blankets and the occasional gung-ho son itching to shed blood, had no idea at all that they themselves might be adversely affected by supporting plucky little Ukraine. They don't understand why their electricity and gas prices have gone up, why the cost of living is soaring and their food choices have to be constrained. They will still be completely bemused when the missiles come crashing into our air space.

Given that we are at War, here's a handy recipe from the last major war:

Lord Woolton’s Pie 

During the Second World War (1939 to 1945), Britain depended on vital supplies of food, equipment and raw materials from overseas, notably from North America and the Empire. These goods were transported in thousands of merchant ships, which were vulnerable to attack by German submarines (U-boats). As there were not enough warships to protect thousands of individual merchant ships, they were grouped into convoys with naval escorts, making them difficult to attack.
Merchant shipping was placed under Admiralty control on 26 August 1939, and the first convoy sailed on 2 September. During the course of the War a total of  450 convoy series were run - not much to equip a nation at war. The British population was dependent on the food it could produce itself. Gardens were converted into food growing - but there was always the "Hungry Gap" when the supplies from last year ran out before the food crops started yielding in late spring. There was little meat to be had, food was rationed and the Government set about teaching the population to cook using available produce, issuing a series of leaflets with recipes. Lord Woolton’s Pie is an example of a dish that was so successful, it became a legendary wartime recipe. As overseas supplies became increasingly threatened by the war, there was a push towards home-grown produce and self-sufficiency.

That need led to the creation of this pie, one of the most popular wartime recipes, which was named after the wartime Minister of Food. It’s a root vegetable pie, including the infamous ‘Doctor Carrot’ and ‘Potato Pete,’  blended with oats and topped with a pastry crust. Note that there is no fat used in the recipe and the pastry doesn't get an egg-wash.

Ingredients – filling

• 1lb seasonal vegetables such as potato, turnip, swede, cauliflower and carrot
• 3–4 spring onions
• 1 teaspoon vegetable extract
• 1 tablespoon oatmeal
• Chopped parsley

Ingredients – pastry

• 8oz flour
• 1 level teaspoon baking powder
• Pinch of salt
• Pinch of powdered sage (optional)
• 1 pint cold milk and water

Method 

Dice the vegetables and spring onions. Cook together with the vegetable extract and oatmeal for 10 minutes with just enough water to cover. Stir occasionally to prevent the mixture from sticking. Allow to cool.

To make the pastry, mix all the dry ingredients together then stir in the milk and water, and roll out the mixture. Put the filling in a pie dish and sprinkle with chopped parsley, then cover with the pastry.  Bake in a moderate oven until the pastry is brown and serve hot with brown gravy.

Note that the enemy was Hitler, not Putin. Russia was Britain's ally during the War, which could not have been won by the Allies without massive loss of Russian life and their dogged determination to beat Nazism and resist territorial incursion.

I saw the 3-part Putin documentary available on i-Player. As always with these documentaries about events that have happened during my recent lifetime, I'm left astonished by how much that was going on I had no clue about. Was I not paying attention, or was the News very carefully curated? Anyway, I highly recommend the documentary. It reinforced my conviction that we have been made Russia's prime enemy in order to support America's concept of the global world order and Boris Johnson's hubris and his attempts to save his career. A small exchange between Putin and David Cameron stays in my memory. Call Me Dave attempted to chide Putin on his stance against gay marriage. Putin robustly told him - "we have a demographic crisis. There are not enough babies. If we let men marry men, there will be fewer babies". The accompanying look spoke volumes. Why don't you know this? Don't you also have a demographic crisis? What's the matter with you? Putin is a man of sentiment and logic. He cried when he was elected President, but he wouldn't allow sentiment to hinder the requirements of the state. It's worth remembering about Putin. If you let men marry men, there will be fewer babies. The state needs babies.

 If you are taking steps to eat seasonally and locally, can I remind you that it is wild garlic season? Brilliant in soups, stews and sauces, it also makes fabulous pesto. This is my wild garlic patch - note that it is soon to open its little white flowers, so it is perfect for harvesting. 

You don't need a garden - this stuff grows abundantly in the wild - by river and canal banks, under trees in woodland - just take yourself out for a walk and follow the garlic perfume.

The snowdrops and crocus are in glorious flower and the daffodils are about to burst from the bud. You can't eat them, 

but the orange stigma of the crocus is saffron, much prized and most expensive.

 

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.

 

No, I've not forgotten about the SNP Leadership Contest, I'm just frightened of Ash Regan.

The Sunday Ishmael:19/02/2023

When I was a child, being educated by the Sisters of the Cross and Passion, we were encouraged by the nuns to bring pennies to school on Monday mornings, extorted from parents who themselves had hardly a pot to piss in, to buy Holy Cards. Here's a fine example of a pale-skinned, blondish Jesus, displaying His Sacred Heart, encircled by thorns, dripping blood onto his nice pink dress. A Jesus for North Europeans. A heart-throb Jesus for little girls with pigtails to swoon over. There was fierce competition amongst the girls to collect new Holy Cards, and some swapsies. The Holy Cards were reverently placed between the tissue-thin pages of our Missals, and gazed at during the lengthy and incomprehensible Latin Masses that we were required to attend to avoid committing a Mortal Sin and going to Hell. 

The nuns, their nice white faces encircled by nice white starched wimples, told us that our pennies would be sent to Africa, to help the black babies.
God knows those black babies needed all the help they could get. Decade after decade throughout my life, they have popped up on my telly, scrawny limbs and distended bellies, too near death to suck on the flat breasts of their malnourished mothers. We little northern girls had ice flowers on the inside of our bedroom windows in the winter, chapped legs from the cold wet tops of our wellies, and thought that the frozen cream standing proud of the milk bottle top in the snow was a great treat, but at least we didn't have flies in our eyes and clean water came out of our taps.
And it never seems to get any better. Decade after decade, suffering black Africa remains a constant, with its famine, drought, disease, war, corruption, flies in their eyes, despite all the pennies from nice little Catholic girls, all the Oxfam flag days, Live Aid, famine relief, Save the Children,  government international aid. And still there are the unspeakable adverts on my telly. I swear the footage is recycled - I'm getting to recognise the emaciated babies with huge bellies full of worms and the little girls scooping out water from some filthy hole in the ground to fill a container that they carry for miles on their heads. Today there was a wailing, snotty baby, with flies crawling into its eyes, with neither the mother nor the cameraman doing a damn thing to wave the flies away. The advert exhorted me to send  some money to treat the babies for the ensuing ghastly eye disease. There's only one sensible response to this blatant charity banditry
Fuck Africa.
Whatever we do, whatever we give, despite Saint Geldof, it gets no better.  Judging from the TV adverts, it is getting worse year by year. 
Fuck Africa.
You know Henry Ford's maxim? “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
Fuck Africa.
Maybe then they will sort themselves out. Maybe then they will agree a form of government that doesn't syphon off international aid for personal enrichment. Or maybe not. But as things are getting worse, we need to stop doing what we've always done. As we're making it worse.

Here's a snippet of mr ishmael on the worthlessness of the life of an adulated pop singer dead at the age of 69 after a life of self-publicity and debauchery:

"Did his years of self-absorption advance medicine, for instance; did he bring peace to places of fiery conflict; did he bring clean water to the thirsting black children with flies in their eyes, was he successful, even by the self-referential standards of Art?

The Barbarian is at the Gate. And he's wearing a dress."

What is a life well-lived? It is a phrase bandied around a lot these days, especially in respect of dead celebrities. Dead celebrities, who made a lot of money doing what they liked to do, is that to live a life well? Or maybe just keeping on keeping on, going to work every day to a job that is, at best, boring, and at worse, life threatening, keeping a roof over your family's head, food on the table, clothes on their backs, walking the dog, sitting by the hospital bedside, doing the ironing, going shopping and washing up - maybe that's a life well-lived. A friend approaching retirement confided in me her sadness about her lack of achievement. Started out well, went to University, but the career didn't really happen. Achievement - that concept is in itself an indulgence not achievable by the majority of the people in most countries. Staying alive, keeping out of prison and performing the grunt jobs that keep society functioning is the most achievement most of us can aspire to. When we were in business, restoring and retailing antique furniture, mr ishmael would be approached occasionally by relatives of the recently deceased wanting their loved one's house cleared for a wad of cash. We hated that work, loathed and detested it because it was so depressing. Going into some ordinary little house, still filled with old person's smell, Utility furniture, worn out carpets and drawers filled with bills, old photos, bits of string, mismatched cutlery, the detritus of a life well-lived - heart-sink stuff. mr ishmael stopped it entirely after one encounter - a harassed youngish mum, who told him the Council wanted her gran's house cleared by next week and could he help, and there was some really old furniture that would be worth a lot. We met her at the house that had been her gran's home and mr ishmael gently explained that the furniture was made after the War from the cheapest materials available, that the sideboard her Nan had lovingly polished for years until age and infirmity prevented her, had no value at all, that if he took it away, all he could do with it was to take it to the tip. She clearly thought he was negotiating the price down and she said that she had been hoping for a good price to pay the funeral expenses. mr ishmael gave her fifty quid because he was sorry for her and we took the furniture to the tip, where we were charged to leave it. 

More from mr ishmael on a life well-lived and the relative worth that society ascribes to different occupations:  

"In a corner of the British Museum, today, a team of sound archivists was retrieving and safeguarding historical recordings from all over the world, it may have been a fragment of a Florence Nightingale address,  recorded on wax in 1870, a conversation with  Jung,  the mating calls of species now extinct;  wire recordings, wax, deteriorating 70's vox-pop cassette tapes, or remember-me flexidiscs recorded by UK soldiers, serving in Egypt in World War 2 and sent to their relatives, on the Home Front.
I drove here, to Dundee, today, on roads generally in good repair, white-lined and cats-eyed, cambered for drainage, well sign-posted;  I could have continued to Land's End and back again at a speed undreamt of, even fifty years ago. Had I spun off the road emergency services would have done what they do, tired young doctors would have done their best to stabilise me, if alive. Anaesthetists and surgeons and  physiotherapists, dieticians, pharmacists, porters, nurses and cleaners, ambulance drivers and paramedics and eventually community nurses and occupational therapists would have put me back together, as best they could.

In schools up and down the country teachers teach, when not dealing with the social fall-out of fifty years of rotten govament, despite the insult hurled at them by the insufferable "Jamie" Oliver and his grisly cast of celebrities, like  the cheesy, embittered cocksucker, Starkey, famous for his needs-a-punch-in-the-face rudeness and little else. Some teachers go home shattered by behaviours learned at GlobaCorp's  University of Consumption, others go to hospital, Oliver and his bunch of  celebrity filth go home tens of thousands of pounds better off and with the floor manager's Darlings, you were wonderful, ringing in their ears."

Nicola Sturgeon thinks she's had it hard, suffered misogynistic insults, personal attacks and threats that are reserved for female politicians. That social media bubbles and boils with hatred of women. I would assert that in this blog at least, mr ishmael lavished his most excoriating attacks on male politicians - who can forget Gordon Brown in a nappy on a rocking horse or Ming, sitting gingerly on his pile of cushions, with his back firmly against the wall, having been fucked up the arse by his entire Party. 

I would accept that I haven't been respectful of wee Gnasher - but that's satire. Playing the misogyny card is similar to playing the racism card - special pleading cos I is a woman/black/disabled/gay/transgender. Bollocks.

She's throwing dust in our eyes - she hasn't resigned because politics suddenly got brutal, nor because she's suddenly realised that her reign has been polarising the Scoatisch people .  The SNP's finances are under investigation by the police. Just saying.

So who's next? The fact that there isn't an obvious successor goes some way to show that this resignation is something that she was forced into. She didn't intend relinquishing power and she didn't have time to groom her successor. Over the next few days, we'll see which of the mome raths will be thrusting themselves forward to be insulted by social media. 

Will it be The Jub-Jub Bird?

Katie Forbes, Wee Free, anti-abortion, anti Gender Recognition Reform

Or the Frumious Bandersnatch?

The Right Honourable Angus Robertson, MSP, whose expenses in

2015 included a television costing £1,119, a £400 home cinema system,  a £500 bed, a £20 corkscrew and a £2,324 sofa bed. The home cinema system was initially denied by the expenses office; however, Robertson appealed this decision and it was subsequently awarded.

Or the Mimsy Borogove?

Twice married Humza Yousef, who made the honest mistake of driving a friend's car without insurance and had a £300 fine and 6 penalty points to learn him.

At least we know that The Slithy Tove has ruled himself out

John Swinney, faced votes of no confidence in 2020 and 2021

I went to a lecture down Edinburgh once by The Swiney when he was, briefly, Finance Secretary- very sincere, very compelling, well prepared, with a Power Point - an ocean-going politician, with subscriptions, in fact. He told us all about The Red Wedge, a financial model, which meant that everyone was poor and had to pay for the global banking cock up, yea, even unto the third generation and in perpetuity. I hates him. But that's not misogyny. Because he's got a prick and ball set.

If only it could be wee Fat Alex- and that's not misogyny, because he, too, unbelievable as it may seem, has also got a prick and ball set, no, it's 'cos mr ishmael has left us a wealth of satire at his expense. I suppose Wee Fat Aleck  could propose an extension of the Independence Coalition - Greens, SNP and Alibaba party, and front it all up - he's got a lot of front ....

And he's a bit of a tosser - and that's not misogyny, either, again because of what he's allegedly got up his kilt.

In case anyone doesn't know his Lewis Carroll - an Oxford poet, mathematician, paedophile and the author of Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, here's the full text of Jabberwocky, which is, I think, my favourite poem, rich in satire, but not misogyny.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
   Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
   And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son
   The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
   The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;
   Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
   And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
   The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
   And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
   The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
   He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
   Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
   He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
   Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
   And the mome raths outgrabe.

 

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.

This isn't misogyny either - it's Art.

Looks like we've slain the Jabberwok, boys!

 

Beware the Jabberwock, my son

   The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!

She's been thinking it over and decided it's time to go. Hurray, we cry, we agree! 

It was the reverse vending machines and 20 pence on the price of oor wee tinnies that did it. Messing with our god given right to drink oorsel's to death! First the miminmum unit pricing for alcohol, and noo the twenty pee. There are limits! We could stomach the multiple rapists bein locked up with the wimmin - well, they're a bad lot; and we don't care if some tranny wants to call hisself a woman and get a sustificate to get into women's refuges and put some cock about, cos they're a bad lot too - wouldna have to hit 'em if they didna deserve it, but messin' with oor Buckies is the last straw.

And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
   Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
   He chortled in his joy.

We just have to watch out for the frumious Bandersnatch now.

Salmon and Swinnie - two frumious Bandersnatches

The Sunday Ishmael: 12/02/2023

 Woops, she's done it again.

Having been knocked back by the Government of the United Kingdom in her attempt to introduce the Gender Recognition Reform Bill, which could only have an adverse impact on biological women and cause gender-recognition-certificate-seeking English men to flood across the border to pick up their own vital piece of paper that would give them undisputable access to women's toilets, changing rooms and domestic violence refuges; Mrs. Fish has embarked upon a policy that will increase the cost of the weekly shop, further drive hard-pressed Scots into penury, cause the closure of innumerable small businesses, allow Councils to stop recycling collections and give English producers a huge advantage when selling goods into Scotland. Pretty damn good, eh? Of course, it will all be Westminster's fault when it steps in to end this fresh madness, as we must hope it has powers to do.

The thing is, people living in Scotland are uniquely filthy, scoff-law, anti-environmentalist, lazy drunkards, or so we are told by Circularity Scotland, the Greens and environmental campaigners, and need legislation to make them behave like Norwegians, who are really, really good at picking up after themselves. Now, this may be true of the Weegies, of whom I'd believe anything, but I walk Orkney beaches pretty regularly and I can report that there are masses of dead birds, dead seals and great hillocks of seaweed tangled with fishing net offcuts, but not so much in the way of discarded cans and bottles. Unlike down Scarborough, where they train elderly people as litter-pickers, issue them with protective equipment, waterproof trousers, gloves, bags and those Grab and Grip litterpicker tools,

and encourage them to patrol the beaches and the streets, filling their litter bags and then to write reports. It has to be elderly people because younger people are too busy, creating the litter, so that the elderly people have something useful to do in their declining years. I know this on account of I have chums in Scarborough and I've seen the bands of pensioners roaming the streets and beaches, PPE'd up to fuck, groaning under the weight of their litter bags, fighting off other pensioners to get to the best litter. Come to think of it, it's probably a subgroup of EuthanasiaULike, and when one pensioner shuffles off, their colleague pensioners circle round, redistributing their litter between them, before joining forces with their Grab and Grippers to tidy up their mortal coil.

By the way, did you know that the avian flu is now the avian and seal flu? It's jumped species. Probably best to keep away from beaches and always carry a raised umbrella to ward off birds with flu dropping on your head as you go out with your Grapn'Grip litter pickers. 

A Grabn'Grip tool sounds like something that might retail along with the fluffy pink handcuffs at the Anne Summers shop, but no, it is a serious bit of kit, that you could wave at the avians, and even use to pluck the frailer ones out of the air and stuff into your bag, before writing your report.

Talking of Anne Summers and the elderly, did you know there's a thriving service in Maebashi, Japan, operating from the Tone Shoten "bookstore" chain?

It assists elderly men with their end of life planning, by buying their porn collections. In November last year, Tone Shoten started a monthlong promotional campaign targeting male senior citizens.

The store paid an extra 1,000 yen ($7) to people who brought in at least 10 DVDs for appraisal. They also received an Amazon gift certificate worth 500 yen if they filled out a questionnaire about their concerns and requests for the disposal of adult DVDs. Over the last two years, they reckon they have bought at least 140,000 DVDs from old chaps who needed to de-clutter before moving into care homes or wanted to avoid the embarrassment of their families finding out, post mortem, that grandad was an old wanker. The porn collections are then resold "in line with the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals in the adult entertainment industry". Honest, not invent. All that cherry blossom and pretty tea-ceremonies. Who would have thought that Japan was a country committed to industrial-scale wanking? Well, I suppose the clues have been there in plain sight - they invented the term bukake, after all. Why have a word if you don't have the practice in the first place? It's just not wholesome. But then, neither is this:

Katie Price, model and celebrity, formerly known as Jordon.

Anyway, circling back to wee Nicola's latest attempts to sink Scotland's economy, drinks manufacturers and retailers have a week in which to  register with Circularity Scotland. Should they fail to do so, they can not sell drinks in single use plastic, PET or glass containers in Scotland. Registering commits them to the Deposit Return Scheme. Ishmaelites of a certain vintage will remember small boys with little trucks knocking your door and asking for your empty bottles that they would then return to the corner shop to claim the deposit, thus accumulating a tidy sum that they would spend on cigarettes. Hilarity Scotland's scheme does not depend upon an army of avaricious small boys, although I daresay they will work themselves into the transactions, at some point. No, it's a tad more complex. From August 16th this year, all retailers of drinks will be required to have a reverse vending machine (again, honest, not invent), into which you post your empty can or bottle and the machine will return you a 20p coin, log it onto your credit or debit card, or print you a voucher. The machine costs £17,000, the cost to be met in full by the retailer. 

What's 20 pence, you may say, merrily,  I throw these nibbets onto the side, with my car keys, when I come home, to avoid wearing out my trouser pockets or them disappearing into the alternative universe of down the back of the sofa. (Do you watch that Sort Your Life out with Stacey programme? The premise is that the team, under the toothy direction of Stacey Solomon, descend on a messy, hoardy, cluttery family, pack all their stuff into several pantechnicons, transfer it to an aircraft hangar, where they lay it all out, in shameful rows, on pallets, tables, clothes rails and groundsheets, then make the family spend days deciding what to keep and what to chuck, whilst their home is professionally cleaned, decorated and enhanced with built-in storage units. Then, having Marie Kondo-ed their life's stuff, the meagre remnants are returned and beautifully, but sparsely,  arranged and everyone goes Wow. Just brilliant TV. True cruelty and nosiness masquerading under Caringness. Anyway, the last episode I saw, Toothy Stacey found a total of £2 grand down the back of the sofa, in jacket pockets, lost wallets, and uncashed cheques.)

So, what's 20 pence? Remember that the 20 pence is levied on every can. So if you buy a six-pack of Coke, that's £1.20. If you buy a case of Bud, that's £6.00. Certainly adds to the cost of the weekly shop. And you don't get it back unless you go back to where you bought it and feed it into the reverse vending machine. If the small boy army got to your bottle stash first, then that's that. It is what it is. Down the Swannee.  Councils will cease their roadside plastic and bottle recycling collections, as the consumer is putting in the miles to get to the reverse vending machines, so all the jamjars, coffee jars, baby food jars will go into the general rubbish. Dundee City Council has already announced this cost-saving service reduction. 

Drinks manufacturers in other parts of the United Kingdom will have a 20 pence competitive advantage over their Scottish counterparts, as they will be able to sell their products into Scotland without levying the 20 pence deposit. And that's where Westminster might step in, thus saving artisanal Scottish breweries and gin manufactories, as Nicky's scheme will place Scotland in breach of the UK Internal Market (UKIM) Act, which puts the ‘market access principles’ of mutual recognition and non-discrimination in law to ensure there are no new barriers for businesses trading across the UK. 

It will be spun as Westminster flexing its muscles, exerting control over Scotland and therefore Scotland needs to be independent. The crazy thing is that Sturgeon has been warned of this in a legal report and her own MPs have raised objections in Holyrood. The scheme is being introduced in England in 2025, so the Internal Market Act objection falls away then - but Sturgeon presumably wanted the glory of getting there first, and she is under the Green goad to maintain her death grip on power. 

Scotland - best part of England. 

Whilst we're on the subject of drink, did you notice the wet hostels for homeless alcoholics that Scotland has introduced? Seems to be an excellent, pragmatic scheme. Traditional dry hostels do not meet the need as street alcoholics must drink to avoid withdrawal symptoms, which can be life-threatening - seizures and Korsakoff's Syndrome. The wet hostels provide their residents with measured doses of alcohol at regular intervals, to maintain blood alcohol levels, thus avoiding both withdrawal and damaging binges.

Scotland's relationship with alcohol is toxic and lethal - I've heard the figure being bandied about of 3,700 alcohol-related deaths per year. And now there is a campaign to ban the advertising of alcohol products entirely and to require shops to stock it on shelves behind shutters, just like tobacco products.  That will probably fall foul of the Internal Market Act as well.

The Dwarf Zelensky has been on a surprise European tour this week, begging for additional lethal aid and Wings for Peace in his mangled English and clumsy phrases. It did serve to remind us that he is, first and foremost, a performer. The effusive and embarrassing welcome given him by Mr Northern Speaker and the Parliamentarians, elbowing each other aside to get selfies with the great, but tiny, war hero (unfair, mrs ishmael, he is no shorter than Macron or Putin), can only have confirmed Britain's position as an enemy of his state in Putin's mind. 

The truly dreadful pictures of devastation and death in consequence of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria demonstrate  how frail and vulnerable human life is, in the face of geological events and jerry-building. Life is tough enough, without War adding to the burden.

 Time to sue for peace, not ask for weapons and support to further extend this war into its second year. 

Here's something to cleanse the palate:

Andres Segovia plays "Leyenda" also known as "Asturias" composed by Isaac Albeniz.

It has been a long, dark, cold winter - the gales have been ferocious, the seas high, hail and hard rain thrown at my windows like buckets of ice - but, lo, the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.

 

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 5/02/2023

There has been much speculation in Ishmael Towers over the last couple of days  regarding the Chinese balloon drifting its stately way across America. Over a glass of wine, my friend thought that the reason our American cousins were not shooting it down was that it was filled with a lethal Covid virus variant. But no, I cheerily rejoindered, they are worried about the debris landing on someone - you know, like the toilet seat from the Mir space station killing that girl.

That's not real, my friend patiently explained. It was on Dead Like Me - you were watching that before you started going down 'Alifax with Sergeant Cawood.

Well, I said, they could send up a couple of planes with a net stretched between them to catch the debris. Or there's this great machine, with big saucepans on extendable arms that could catch the bits. They had it in the Second World War to catch the bombs.

They decided in the end to wait until it drifted over the ocean, diverted all the planes away from the vicinity, in case it was booby-trapped, and shot it down. Did you see the explosion? Looks like my friend was right -

just hope that the wind isn't blowing that virus-cloud in my direction.

There's another one on the way. Coming up from South America.

 

We can predict mr ishmael's Chinese thoughts, from this little piece back in October 2014:

 China having two-and-a-half-million men under arms, 

 

with two-and-a-half million in their Territorial Army; having ten thousand tanks, 

 

three thousand aircraft and

 

 five hundred warships.

 

China, depending on who you believe,  has between two hundred-and-fifty and three thousand nukes of the inter-continental variety. We have our own aircraft carrier capability,  the one without aircraft.

The Pentagon is worried about the defensibility of its gazillion-dollar carrier fleet, no longer the four-acre fortresses they thought they were; vulnerable, it seems to Chinese smart missile attack. 

NATO, not even NATO can pretend that a Chinese colony is part of NATO, as were so many other unlikely places.  Maybe that joker, Gob Rassmussensen, head of NATO, could sort-of backdate Hong Kong's membership of NATO, as he did with the undemocratic gangster republic of Ukraine but if he did the chances are that Brussels - and him - would be toast in minutes.

All of the West's Ruperts, then, accustomed to fighting tribesmen  riding around in circles  in rusty Toyota Landcruisers and firing popguns in the air, they won't like this, will be hoping that this Chinese-Hong Kong difficulty just fizzles-out.  Freedom and Democracy are all very well, old chap, but hardly worth losing one's career over, much less one's life. Those Chinks, there's fucking millions of them, little yellow bastards,  billions, maybe and they're all tooled-up to fuck, fucking Mig fighters, tanks, guns, hundreds of fucking aircraft carriers, nukes, bug-bombs, death-rays and fuck knows what else.  You see that cunt Cameron and you tell him to stick his No-Fly Zone up his arse.

 I mean, Look, bullying some nig-nogs is jolly good sport but fighting an actual war, against a proper army,  fuck that for a game of soldiers.

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

The thing is, are the Americans going to pay the Chinese for destroying their balloon? If not, it may be the Sarajevo moment that starts the 2025 Sino/U.S. War, predicted by the Chatty Gut of General Mike Minihan.

Chatty Gut is worried about the Taiwan impasse.

The head of the US Air Mobility Command (AMC), Gen Mike Minihan, sent a memo, saying : " “I hope I am wrong. My gut tells me we will fight in 2025. Xi’s team, reason, and opportunity are all aligned for 2025.” It was the latest prediction of a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan, in order to reunify Taiwan with the Chinese mainland, a prospect the United States is not keen on, nor, indeed, are the Taiwanese people. There's been quite a bit of posturing, harassment and coercive targeting of Taiwan by Beijing, and the rather tense situation was not helped by Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan on August 2nd 2022, in which she threatened Xi Jinping with the United States' "unwavering commitment to supporting Taiwan's vibrant democracy". In case he hadn't quite got it, she said: "We take this trip at a time when the world faces a choice between autocracy and democracy. As Russia wages its premeditated, illegal war against Ukraine, killing thousands of innocents – even children – it is essential that America and our allies make clear that we never give in to autocrats."

So it isn't very surprising that the Chatty Gut is predicting a Sino/U.S. war - as Nancy helpfully pointed out back in August, the U.S. is rather busy on the Ukraine/Russian front, so it is a great time for Xi to get his island back.

 Flat Earthers, accustomed to a Eurocentric depiction of the world,

might wonder what any of this has to do with America - after all, it is a long way away (but when did that ever stop the military and political ambition of the Unites States), failing to realise that the left hand side of the map joins up with the right hand side, round the back, so to speak, and suddenly things look very different:

It is all a question of perspective, as mr mike was telling us t'other day. We need more of these maps, where Britain is nicely tucked away in the top left hand corner,  well away from the next war zone. Does The Chatty Gut have anything to say about the Pacific running red with blood? Chatty Gut needs to pay some serious attention to mr ishmael's military statistics and stop escalating conflict.

The Chatty Gut puts me in mind of the Brahan Seer, a Scottish prophet from the 17th Century, who looked through a stone with a hole in it and saw visions of the future. He lived near Inverness, and as a lad from Lewis, Inverness must have seemed an impressive metropolis. It isn't, believe me, although it has four Tescos, which is really pretty good. This is why his prophecies are fairly Inverness-centric. Here are some:

1. Pointing to a field far from seashore, loch or river, the Brahan Seer announced that a 'ship' would anchor there one day. “A village with four churches will get another spire... and a ship will come from the sky and moor at it.” This took place in 1932 when an airship made an emergency landing and was tied up to the spire of a new church.
2. The Seer announced that when there were five bridges built over the River Ness then there would be 'worldwide chaos' and, in 1939, the fifth bridge was constructed, Hitler invaded Poland and World War 2 started.
3. The Seer foresaw that when the ninth bridge would be constructed over the River Ness then "fire, blood and calamity" would ensue. The ninth bridge was finished in 1987 and the following year the Piper Alpha disaster took place.
4. "Long strings of carriages without horses shall run between Dingwall and Inverness and more wonderful still between Dingwall and the Isle of Skye... great black, bridleless horses" that would "belch fire and steam" across the Highlands. The railway was constructed between 1860 and 1897.
5. "Strange as it may seem to you this day, the time will come when full-rigged ships will be seen sailing eastwards and westwards by the back of Tomnahurich near Inverness". The Caledonian Canal was constructed between 1803 and 1822.
6. “When two false teachers shall come across the seas who will revolutionize the religion of the land, and nine bridges shall span the river Ness, the Highlands will be overrun by ministers without grace and women without shame,” We've got the nine bridges. 
The Brahan Seer's prophecies read as though he was actually seeing these things, but could only describe them, not having the cultural context to explain airships, World War Two, Piper Alpha, railways and the Caledonian Canal. He probably knew about shameless women. There was a lot of local stuff, about Clans failing, losing battles, unfaithful Chieftain's wives, some of which sounds spiteful, and the Chieftain's wife wasn't pleased about her prediction, which may have resulted in his demise in barrel of burning tar. I like the sound of this one:

"That the day will come when there will be a road through the hills of Ross-shire from sea to sea, and a bridge upon every stream. That the people will degenerate as their country improves. That the clans will become so effeminate as to flee from their native country before an army of sheep."
Here's one to worry about: "Sheep shall eat men, men will eat sheep, the black rain will eat all things: in the end, old men shall return from new lands." Couldn't be talking about Putin and Biden, surely?

While we are musing on strange things in the north of Scotland, have you heard about the mad woman creative artist, who carved a couple of footprints in a 35 kg siltstone, picked up from the shore at Marwick Bay, on Orkney's West Mainland mainland. She's a Welsh stonemason. Not native here, nor to the manor born. And dragged it to Norway, on a pilgrim path, before bringing it back to Orkney, inviting random strangers to stand in the carved footprints.

Why? Art, innit?

She's written a book about it. Stoner Will Answer

And the other bit of Northerness last week was Up Helly Aa, the made-up, not-ancient fire festival in Shetland, for which blokes grow their hair and beards all year, cosplay as Vikings, processionally march with torches in an

 intimidating, drunken sort of way  around Lerwick, pulling a "Viking Galley" with their leader – the Guizer Jarl – standing on top. When the Galley reaches the burning site, the torchbearers form a circle round it and sing the traditional Up Helly Aa song. A rocket is fired and the Guizer Jarl leaves the ship. A bugle call sounds, and the torches are hurled into the galley.

Why? It generates revenue. 

 

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.

She's back.