We've been having some snow here in the Bracing Isles. For more than a week, snow has fallen, snow on snow, in the bleak midwinter, but not long, long ago. Now. I last battled into Kirkwall on Monday, 15th January, in order to get some supplies in, as the weather forecast was appalling.
On Monday and Tuesday the schools were open but the school transport wouldn't go. On Wednesday the schools closed for the rest of the week. Everything was cancelled. There were no flights. No ferries. Radio Orkney ordered us not to drive.
When it wasn't snowing, it was galeing, the wind driving great waves of snow across the fields, dropping birds out of the skies.
On Saturday, it had more-or-less cleared, so I went to Tesco. And so did everyone else. There were no bananas in Tesco, but Lidl had some. Doing two supermarkets rammed with people who had been confined to their cabins for a week was exhausting. Everyone wanted to talk and share their snowed-in experiences. One acquaintance told me she had been delayed in Aberdeen for four days, waiting for a flight that only arrived yesterday. One chum was buying large plastic storage containers for her husband who had been driven by the extreme weather into sorting his stash in his man cave. They turned out not to be for storing his dismembered body, (as I saw him later in the car park), but for his car parts. Everyone scrutinised each other's trolleys, to see what they'd managed to glean from the still-sparse shelves. Nobody said global warming. It was too damn cold.
Weather, of course, is not the same as climate. Weather can do all sorts of terrible and temporary things. Like the Frost Fairs, held on the River Thames when it froze solid - a combination of bad weather, the absence of embankments on the Thames, so that it flowed slowly, and the narrow arches of the old London Bridge, which allowed ice to form and to dam the river.
Londoners being entrepreneurial Londoners, they set up booths, sold food, and during the 1814 Frost Fair walked an elephant across the river and had an ox roast. Earlier frost fairs also featured the blood sport of Cock throwing. A rooster was tied to a post, and people took turns throwing coksteles (special weighted sticks) at the bird until it died. A contributor to The Gentleman's Magazine in 1737 was of the opinion that cock throwing arose from traditional enmity towards the French, for which the cock played an emblematic role.
If the bird had its legs broken or was lamed during the event, it was supported with sticks in order to prolong the game. The cock was also sometimes placed inside an earthenware jar to prevent it from moving. (Bastards!) In 1660, an official pronouncement by Puritan officials in Bristol to forbid cock throwing (as well as cat and dog tossing) on Shrove Tuesday resulted in a riot by the apprentices. The past, as they say, is a foreign country, where they do things differently. Whatever you may think about football, and personally speaking, I don't think about it much, but I have a friend who does, if pushed, I'd say that football is a huge improvement on cock throwing and cat and dog tossing.
Despite the above video being widely shared on social media, the Ministry of Defence is sticking to its "Nothing to see here, move along now" story. Just when we need all our warships to protect our shipping from the Houthi pirates,
HMS Chiddingfold reversed into HMS Bangor while docking in an unnamed Bahrain port. Both are specialist minesweeper vessels, trying to ensure the safe flow of trade through the Middle Eastern waters. The Royal Navy said: "We are aware of an incident concerning two minehunters alongside in Bahrain. There are no casualties as a result of this incident and it would be inappropriate to comment further whilst investigations are ongoing,"
That didn't stop Rear Admiral Edward Ahlgren saying the cause of the collision "is still to be established. We train our people to the highest standards and rigorously enforce machinery safety standards, but unfortunately incidents of this nature can still happen. In the meantime, the UK will continue to play a key part in ensuring the safety of merchant shipping in the region."
Whoever was reversing HMS Chiddingfold into the Bangor needs a refresher high standards training course - especially as it is the second time the Chiddingfold has attacked a sister ship - she crashed into HMS Penzance in 2021 off the coast of Bahrain.
Whoever was reversing HMS Chiddingfold into the Bangor needs a refresher high standards training course - especially as it is the second time the Chiddingfold has attacked a sister ship - she crashed into HMS Penzance in 2021 off the coast of Bahrain.
The Bangor sustained a large hole in her fibreglass hull. She was due to be decommissioned next year. It is all very embarrassing.
Talking of embarrassing, the Covid-19 Inquiry has now moved to Scotland. The Inquiry is an ongoing, independent public inquiry into the United Kingdom's response to, and the impact of, the pandemic, and to learn lessons for the future. It was instituted by Boris Johnson in May 2021 and public hearings began in June 2023. Much has been revealed of a government chaotic and unprepared, and of former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock's foul language and high handed contempt for practically everyone.
Anxious to avoid future public scrutiny of the Scottish "government's" inability and incompetence, far-sighted Ken Thomson, who then held the post of Director General for Strategy and External Affairs for the Scottish Government, advised governmental participants in a "Covid Outbreak group" chatroom in August 2020 that their messages were discoverable under Freedom of Information law and told them to use the "clear chat button". He then boasted "plausible deniability is my middle name".
John Swinney, dubbed "Honest John" by The Scotsman newspaper following last year's Edinburgh Tram Inquiry Report's criticism of his "lack of candour" that called into question his integrity, and the former, allegedly disgraced First Minister Nicola Sturgeon,
So we are left to surmise what the fuck was in those messages that led Sturgeon and Swinney to conclude that their political reputations would be so damaged that it was worth defying the Inquiry's clear instructions from June 2021 that destruction of messages was illegal. I suspect the messages would have revealed their continuous positioning to appear more able, thoughtful and prepared than the UK Government and their cynical exploitation of a national emergency for their political (and therefore personal) advantage. We'll call it the Baroness Mone of Mayfair Motive.
Humza Useless, the current First Minister of Scotland and leader of the SNP, has the entirely unenviable job of attempting to render the SNP electable after the unprecedented spectacle of its three senior members being interviewed under arrest by the Scottish Police in connection with the disappearance of large sums of money and the purchase and subsequent hiding of a luxurious motorhome which was then very publicly impounded by the Police. Humza,
who seems like a nice boy, although way out of his depth with the poisoned chalice he was so keen on inheriting, has come up with a great new wheeze.
He has assured the Scottish Peepul that as Sir Keir Starmer will be the next Prime Minister, without a doubt, absolutely guaranteed, it is okay for Scots to vote SNP, and not waste their vote on Scottish Labour, as Keir doesn't need it, what with England turning out to vote for him en masse. And he's written to Sir Keir, inviting him up to Edinburgh for a chat.
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No selection from mr ishmael this week, but there's lots of sardonic wit and biting cynicism from him in the four-volume Call Me Ishmael oeuvre, collected by editor mr verge.
Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are 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
https://www.lulu.com/shop/ishmael-smith/flush-test/paperback/product-9yjvn7.html?q=Flush+Test&page=1&pageSize=4
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.
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| “It’s my birthday. The Doctor took me ice-skating on the River Thames in 1814. The last of the great Frost Fairs. He got Stevie Wonder to sing for me under London Bridge.” |
5 comments:
Batten down the hatches mrs I, you’re getting another storm, Jocelyn this time is it? named by the paddy’s. It’s been bitter cold down here in darkest Lancashire, had to buy a portable gas heater to supplement the central heating, must be getting soft in me old age.
Its summer Down Here. Not been particularly hot but it reached 38C a week or so ago. A two beer morning after golf (9am).
Boris and the cock....
It seems the knives are out for Madame La Fish. Is Salmond feasting on his dish best served cold?
Thank you, mr inmate - we had gusts of 100 miles an hour night before last - it was very noisy - and this new storm is due to hit us at 4.00pm today. My chums helped me to pick up the shed after the Christmas storm and to wedge it into a sheltered corner of the house, so I'm hoping that won't blow down again. No tiles lost and the solar panels are intact.
Careful with that gas heater - maybe get a carbon monoxide alarm.
We never get temperatures of 38C in the Bracing Isles, mr mike. We know when it is summer because it doesn't get dark and you can hear the grass growing.
Salmond launched a fresh legal case against the Scottish government last November, in relation to how it handled harassment claims made against him, to the tune of £3 million in loss of earnings compensation, plus damages and costs. He is simultaneously pushing for a "Scotland United" deal with the SNP, through his Alba Party, saying the infighting needs to be put behind them through a united independence movement. In other words, he wants back into the trough, and he's using the civil action as leverage.
As for Madame La Fish - I don't know if she is a gabby, self-promoting but naïve idealist who believes in The Cause and has been woefully exploited by the men in grey running the party, or if she really is a nasty piece of work. She has charisma, which should always be treated with suspicion.
Charisma, anthony charles lynton B liar, supposedly had charisma.
Charisma= the ability to bare faced lie, without showing guilt or remorse.
Charisma= to convince the public that killing innocents is the right thing to do.
Charisma= to pretend to be a God fearing Christian, when you’re actually the son of Satan.
Charisma= net worth £300 million on an MPs then PMs wages, aye right.
Sturgeon charisma? nah, a nasty, grifting shit, like the rest of em.
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