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.

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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.