The Sunday Ishmael: 12/05/2024

Did anyone else see the Laura Kuenssberg Show this morning?  She (or her producers) had assembled a veritable rogue's gallery to inflict their opinions on us. For the government we had David Cameron, Baron of SomewhereorOther, Foreign Secretary and Nadhim Zahawi, MP for Stratford on Avon.

Remember him? Used to be Chancellor of the Exchequer and Conservative Party Chairman until his attempt to protect his millions was scotched by the HMRC. He apologised to  the nation this morning and said he had bought off the tax authorities with just under £5million.

For the opposition, we had Jonathon Ashworth (who looks like a nice boy but has a really nasty sneer when provoked) 

and Zarah Sultana, MP for Coventry South. Sultana is a piece of work, and no mistake. Still identified with the passions and delusions of the young, although, at 31 in October, she is getting a bit mutton for that demographic, Sultana turned up for her Kuenssberg gig with a jotter filled with hand-written notes, highlighted with two different colours - red and yellow, like an industrious female fourth former. 

is that a chip on your shoulder, or are you just really happy to see me?

Belligerent, opinionated, rude and verbally incontinent, she clearly owes her allegiance to an intolerant international religious movement and is outspoken in her condemnation of the British government and its refusal to allow Hamas to wipe out the state of Israel. You'd better get used to her, though, because she is wildly popular amongst a certain sort: in May 2023, she was ranked 47th on the New Statesman's "left power list", which described her as a "rare" "genuinely viral politician" with the highest number of TikTok followers of any MP, 438,000, along with 273,000 Instagram and 324,000 Twitter followers. She made me reflect on the unenviable position of Sir Keir Starmer, who has to smile and smile and smile again at the lunatics he has to accommodate within his broad camp, and remind himself that it is better to have them in the tent pissing out than outside, pissing in. She is obviously unmanageable. She must have ignored the memo from Sir Keir, instructing his unruly flock to hail the defection of Nadine Elphicke, formerly Conservative MP for Dover, as a PR triumph, and she loudly stated her undying contempt for the newly-minted Labour MP in the following terms: “[Elphicke] was a member of the [Eurosceptic] European Reform Group; she voted for Liz Truss in the leadership; she’s at odds when it comes to fire and rehire; she has attacked trade unions and their activities; [she’s] not great on the environment either. So unless she’s had the biggest Damascene conversion ever, I just don’t buy it.” 

There's actually a lot to raise eyebrows about in Elphicke's Damascene conversion ( Christian simile, much?). A lawyer who specialised in housing policy, she succeeded her now former husband – the disgraced former Tory M.P. Charlie Elphicke – as the MP for Dover. He was convicted and jailed for sexual assault in 2020. 

She announced weeks before the 2019 election that she had been “unanimously” selected to fight the seat, but it was later revealed that the local Conservative association had put Elphicke forward as the only candidate. She was also temporarily suspended from the Commons and told to apologise after being found to have tried to influence a judge presiding over the trial of her ex-husband, Charlie Elphicke, who was jailed for two years in September 2020.

So Sultana's refusal to toe Sir Keir's party line puts her firmly in bed line with dear old David Cameron, who announced: “(Elphicke) was actually quite a rightwing MP, who had absolutely no affinity with Labour policies or Labour people or Labour philosophy. (The fact that) they welcome her in, I think it says a huge amount about the Labour party. If you don’t have a plan, if you don’t have policies, if you don’t have things you stand for, you will literally fall for anything.”

Baron Munchauson of Chipping Snoredum acquitted himself as a conviction politician of integrity, whose values are firmly in place. He spoke with sincerity and passion and defended Britain's decision not to resume funding for UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East). You'll recall that Israel alleged that at least 12 UNRWA employees were directly involved in the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7th, that another 30 supported the attack in some way, and as many as 12% of the organization’s staff were affiliated with Hamas. 

I had to go and have a little lie down, after that lot. Well, I am recovering from another bout of bloody Covid, thanks to a shedding chum who'd been abroad. No respiratory symptoms, this time. Swollen fingers, sore hips, can't stand up for very long, head sweats, extreme fatigue, sore eyes and the head staggers. Maybe this creeping feeling I'm getting that the Conservatives, despite their manifest self-interest, over-moneyed privilege, grandiose sense of self-importance, sense of entitlement, lack of empathy, self-belief, arrogance and haughty behaviours (woops, that the definition of narcissistic personality disorder, mrs ishmael. Yes? And your point is?), despite all that, the Tories are better behaved than His Majesty's loyal opposition. Or maybe that's the Covid talking. 

Speaking of which, amidst the controversy surrounding the Covid vaccine, ishmaelites might wish to note that if they, or a relative managing the estate of the deceased, has experienced severe illness, hospitalisation or death in consequence of the vaccine, than a claim for a one-off tax-free vaccine damage payment (VDP) of £120,000 can be made to the government. The government is keen to point out that these cases are very rare, and that the VDP is not a compensation scheme and that those affected can still take action against the vaccine manufacturer. Astra Zeneca has admitted in a High Court document that its Covid vaccine can "in very rare cases" cause Thrombosis with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome, which results in blood clots and a low platelet count with life threatening consequences. Proof that illness/death resulted from the vaccine is dependent on diagnostic tests and post mortem examinations. For survivors, there is a "60% disablement threshold".

This is a photo of Papa Westray on a nice day. The name means "Island of the Papar (Priests)"

Papa Westray is first mentioned in the "Orkneyinga Saga" as "Papey in meiri" - "the greater island of the Priests/Monks", "Papa" being the word used by the Norsemen to identify the early Christian monks who arrived in approximately 800AD. They are still there.

It is a small island off the larger island of Westray, which is an island within the archipelago of 70 islands constituting the Orkney Isles and is  a 90 minute ferry ride from Orkney Mainland. I am sure that it will look breathtakingly beautiful in the film The Outrun, on general release this year, having gone down well at the Sundance Film Festival in Texas. Based on a memoir by Amy Liptrot, a former Orkney resident, it describes how the protagonist, played by Saoirse Ronan,

having unwisely gone to live in London, became addicted to alcohol and illegal drugs and returned to her home on Papa Westray to recover from her addiction through - oh, I don't know - wild swimming, I think, maybe a bit of baking, gazing out to sea, (it's a while since I read the book), and writing a memoir. The book was picked up by the BBC, enjoyed great popularity amongst the chattering classes who like this sort of plotless, narrativeless introspective memoir with a happy ending, was sold to the  movie people and the author has gone to live happily ever after in Hebden Bridge. (Honestly, you can't make this stuff up).

We Orcadians are happily looking forward to a boom in property sales as wealthy Londoners, wanting to overcome their drink and drug problems, stuffed full of cash from the sales of their over-priced London properties, planning on sorting out their alcohol and coke problems with a bit of wild swimming; engage in a bidding war to snap up houses that have been languishing on the market. Then we can all go and live in Hebden Bridge.

A delightful irony is that the Orkney isles (not Orkney mainland), have no police force, but the population of the archipelago has an interesting relationship with alcohol. The cathedral city, Kirkwall, originally pronounced Kirkwaa, its name derived from Kirkjuvagr, meaning The Church Bay, has a population of 9, 293, and around 15 or so pubs and bars. There's two whisky distilleries, a brewery and a gin distillery, which makes a gin called Kirkuvagr. You can sample the produce at each of them. Not really the place to come if you want to get off the booze. Especially Hoy.

best not go wild swimming here

There's a colony of alcoholics on Hoy, and no police presence. The Kirkwall Sheriff Court's pages in the local newspaper frequently feature amusing and instructive stories. Here's one about a Hoy resident, 67 year old Hugh Seatter, who really doesn't like English people. He was recently found guilty of causing a reasonable person fear or alarm. He stormed into the Council's offices, threw a council tax reminder, on which he had written: English bitch at the customer services staff member, instructed her to "stick it up your fucking arse" and shouted: "You can tell that English bitch to stick it up her arse. Orkney, Orkney, Orkney! She should be shot with the greylag geese."  He then left and was arrested, after some difficulty, at the Hoy ferry terminal, where he told the officers "I didn't threaten anybody. I told them to shove it up their fucking arse". He then told the arresting officer, "I would like to head-butt you" and produced a lock knife. When the officers eventually got him into the back of the police car, he stared fixedly at PC Cuthbertson and said "They're all fucking English", before enquiring if the officers thought he was black and that was why they were arresting him. He then enlivened the journey to the police station by making pig noises. At trial, he said he hadn't threatened the officer by saying he would like to head butt him, he was just giving him a bit of advice, and that the Council tax department is "like a bloody Nazi government, or in Russia."

Mr. Seatter's case has been deferred for sentence to the 7th June, when he will appear for a separate trial for further offences of threatening and abusive behaviour to council staff.

I'm tired now and going for another little lie down, but, should you wish to read some original mr 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.

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.