If he had hoped to take advantage of my absence on holiday to sneak in with his announcement of the date of the general election, then Rishi should have brought an umbrella-wallah to the party in order to avoid ridicule. As it was, the snail-trails of rain down the lapels of his superfine worsted did all my work for me. I don't know - take a week off and the Tories are making arses of themselves the minute my back is turned.
Wearing sincere face despite the soaking, Sunak told the nation: "Now, I cannot and will not claim that we have got everything right."
Too true, young Rishi, too true.
But - exciting times ahead - the return of politics and promising and a crossword from mr. mongoose!
The best promise so far is the Conservative's announcement of conscription for 18 year olds should the Tories win the election. It's a brilliant move - how wildly popular will that be! The nation is terrified of 18 year olds - the little bastards with their knives and guns and drugs and video games and scatter-gun firing of photos of their genitalia. Not to mention sexual strangulation to achieve enhanced orgasms and a bit of old-fashioned rape, sometimes with a side-order of Rohypnol. In the last 12 months, the Office of National Statistics tells us, knife crime went up by 7%, gun crime up by 9%, robberies up by 13% and shop lifting up by 37%. Big, bearded, black Jimmy Cleverly, Home Secretary, said that this was because of the disproportionate impact of Labour-led London on the crime stats. Not his fault, guv, honest - but not so, as the BBC fact checkers rapidly ascertained. They are up everywhere. Why, a 34 year old woman was knifed to death and a 38 year old woman gravely wounded on a Bournemouth beach on Friday - police have arrested a 17 year old male.
So the nation will be clamouring for the super-rapid implementation of conscription - get our rabid young off the streets and beaches and subject them to the tough love thing that parents and teachers are woefully incapable of implementing.
On closer inspection, of course, it turns out to be a typical Tory wishy fudgy wudgy washy bollocks - only 30,000 places for a year available in the military, for those 18 year olds who fancy it, and the rest of them having to turn up at weekends for a spot of volunteering. How's that going to promote national unity, pride, patriotism and the wearing of clean, pressed underwear? Of course, we don't actually want to provide these homicidal, drug-dealing, knife-wielding teenagers with state of the art weaponry - but some military discipline and regular bowel habits would be infinitely preferable to a bit of volunteering down the charity shop with Gordon Brown on a Saturday morning. And how will the scheme be enforced? Will the Courts be flooded with prosecutions against refuseniks, will they be sentenced to Community Service/Payback Orders, which they will equally not do, or sentenced to prison - and, as we know, Britain's senior police officers have instructed their grunts to make no further arrests because the prisons cannae take it? Full. No, better to load the recalcitrant teenagers onto planes and send them to Rwandaforfuck'ssake, where their propensity for extreme violence, misogyny and drugs will be greatly appreciated. Help build the nation.
Year after year of cutbacks of military personnel have left the British armed forces incapable of meeting its NATO obligations to provide battalions in the field. As the Secretary General warned the other week, all NATO member nations should consider introducing conscription. And with Nigel Farage committed to assisting Donald Trump into office - and we know how effective Farage is - he swung the Brexit referendum - then Trump will be a shoe-in and he has vociferously and repeatedly stated that he is fed up of America having to do all NATO's heavy lifting and we had better start providing for our own defence. And Russia warned this week that it will strike British targets "in Ukraine and beyond" because it is fed up with Britain's interference in the Ukrainian war.
So this "National Service" scheme of the Tories stands revealed as conscription of the better sort of young male gun fodder for the upcoming war - while doing it on the cheap, because, as it is a scheme rather than a restoration of the size of the military under its agreed pay and conditions, the kids will not be quite as expensive. And hiding it under a mask of general benevolence that includes volunteering.
Then there's the tricky business of the increase in diagnoses of autism. Research conducted by Newcastle University in collaboration with the Universities of Cambridge and of Maastricht reported in 2021 that one in 57 children in the UK is on the autistic spectrum, following a study of more than 7 million children. What will Big Bearded Cleverly do with them? He enjoyed every day of his time in uniform, is a decorated Lieutenant Colonel and an Army Reserve Officer, but probably did not have to overcome some of the disadvantages of having an autistic personality.
The political enemies of the Tories are denouncing the National Service scheme - it is expensive, it is contrary to human rights - well, its just not liberal. Given the massive popularity of such a scheme and the general British loathing of teenagers, Sir Keir would do better to stop bad mouthing it, instead declare that it will be a corner stone of Labour policy, but doesn't go far enough. The Labour Government could pledge to round up all the little buggers, including the illiterate and innumerate, religious fanatics, knife-wielding County Lines dealers, those missing limbs or a moral compass and incarcerate them in training facilities in the Scottish Highlands. Give them a nice warm uniform, make them polish their shoes and eat porridge. You'd have to surgically amputate their phones to prevent them from sending pictures of their genitalia to each other, of course. Now that sounds like a plan that I'd vote for.
Sycamore Lives Matter
I'm particularly fond of sycamore trees. The young leaves in spring are the most tender copper colour.
The canopy is magnificent in summer
and the autumnal shades are very fine indeed (not in Orkney, obviously, where the equinoctial gales blow all the leaves off before they can turn red and gold).
Here's a nice little video about a year in the life of a sycamore tree:
Sycamore is native to central, eastern and southern Europe. It is thought to have been introduced to the UK by the Romans, but other reports suggest it was introduced in the Tudor era around the 1500s.
It provides food for a variety of animals, including bees, pollinators, caterpillars, birds, and insects. The leaves are eaten by caterpillars of a number of moths, including the sycamore moth, plumed prominent and maple prominent. Sycamore seeds are eaten by birds, such as greenfinch and goldfinch. Sycamore bark is eaten by insects, including sycamore lacewing and sycamore aphid. The flowers provide a good source of pollen and nectar for bees and other insects, and the seeds are eaten by birds and small mammals.
Sycamore trees provide habitat for a variety of animals, including birds, mammals, insects, and fungi. They are popular nesting sites for blackbird, robin and blue tit. They also provide shelter for small mammals and bats. Sycamore trees are home to a wide variety of insects, such as species of ladybird, butterflies and beetles. They also host a variety of fungi, such as the sycamore bracket fungus and sycamore toadstool.
Sycamore generally has a lifespan of 200-400 years in the wild. However, in cultivation, they can live for much longer, with some specimens known to be over 500 years old. Mature trees are extremely tolerant of wind, so are often planted in coastal and exposed areas as a wind break. They are among the very few tree species that thrive in Orkney.
There's a 200-year-old sycamore in Kirkwall, called the "Big Tree", because, well, there aren't many really big trees.
It has rotted away inside and is supported by internal scaffolding. In 2017 it won a national competition run by the Woodland Trust and was named Scotland's Tree of the Year. The Big Tree was nominated by members of the public. It is a well-known and much-loved landmark in Kirkwall. During the Napoleonic wars international trade collapsed and the kelp industry boomed in Orkney, producing ash to be made into soap and glass. A number of Orcadians became very wealthy and built grand houses in Kirkwall. One of these houses had a walled garden in which three sycamore trees were planted. In the 1870s, a new owner felled two of the trees causing a public outcry that saved the third. As Kirkwall grew the Big Tree eventually found itself in a street rather than a garden. The People's Postcode Lottery provided the prize, a £1,000 care package for the winning tree.
In ancient Greece, the sycamore was associated with the goddess Hera, queen of the gods and goddess of marriage and childbirth. In Celtic mythology, the sycamore was associated with the world tree, a sacred tree that connects heaven, earth, and the underworld. The Celts believed that the sycamore was a home to fairies and other spirits, and they often planted sycamore trees near their homes for protection.
In Norse mythology, the sycamore was associated with Freya, goddess of love, fertility, and war. Freya's chariot was said to be drawn by two cats, and she was often depicted sitting in a sycamore tree.
In Christian mythology, sycamore is associated with the story of Zacchaeus, a tax collector who climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus. When Jesus saw Zacchaeus, he called him down and invited himself to Zacchaeus's house. This story is often interpreted as a symbol of God's love and forgiveness for all people, regardless of their social status or past sins - like collecting taxes. This might, actually, have been a different tree- as there's a possibility of a mistranslation.
In addition to its mythological and religious significance, the sycamore tree has also been used in traditional crafts and customs. In Wales, sycamore trees were used to make 'love spoons' - decoratively carved wooden spoons that were given to your lover. In some parts of the UK, the winged seeds of the sycamore tree, known as 'helicopters', are used in flying competitions and model-making by children.
Sycamore timber is hard and strong, pale cream and with a fine grain, and is excellent for carving. It is used to make furniture and kitchenware, such as ladles and wooden spoons as the wood does not taint or stain the food. The wood is particularly suitable for making stringed instruments, particularly violins.
However, despite all this, there are people whose life mission is to pull up and destroy sycamore saplings, on the basis that they provide competition to Britain's native trees, because they are fertile and successful and are not native here nor to the manor born. It's a sort of tree racism. Hence my new slogan:
Sycamore Lives Matter.
Talking of violins, whilst I was on my holidays, I was taken to a Fiddling Concert. Honest, not invent. I had to sit on a hard pew in an improvised concert venue and listen to a drunken Norwegian fiddler.
Leastways, I think he may have been drunk, on the evidence that I'd seen him in the pub earlier that day (whilst I was searching for lunch) with a pint in hand, he was wearing very odd clothes, I couldn't understand a word he said, he didn't stand up, but crouched over his fiddle and made truly dreadful music. Alexander Aga Røynstrand is famous, though, in fiddling circles. The blurb said his solo performances have allowed him to craft unique interpretations and convey his personal sentiments through his music and he takes it upon himself to introduce this enchanting music to a diverse array of listeners. Right.
This was followed by Rant - four badly dressed fiddling women from various parts of the Highlands and Islands,
who played diddly-diddly music, a lot of very fast reels, to the delight of the audience, who expressed their pleasure by banging their feet on the ground, making whooping noises, doing a sort of dance on their buttocks whilst seated and punching the air. One woman ceased breastfeeding her large and mobile toddler, to his noisy displeasure, so entranced was she by the raucous performance. My companions enquired afterwards if I had enjoyed it. I cautiously replied that the women were very talented musicians but the concert had been ruined for me by the bad behaviour of the audience. What bad behaviour? they enquired, obviously puzzled - so I mentioned the buttock dancing, whooping, feet banging, screaming toddler and breastfeeding. Ah, they kindly explained, that is audience appreciation. It is what you expect in Folk Music.
If, instead of my drivel, you would like to read some original ishmael or stanislav, then the four-volume Call Me Ishmael oeuvre, collected and curated by editor mr verge, is available on Lulu and Amazon.
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.
IIshmaelites 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
With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.
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