Good Evening, Huw Welshman Yere

 

Oh, Do Fuck Off.

The Sunday Ishmael: 28/07/2024

 It is said that travel broadens the mind. But who would want a broad mind? Keep an open mind and people throw rubbish into it. What we need are narrow minds, with laser-like focus, bringing a honed intelligence  to issues of values and ethics, not those flabby, cellulite-pocked broadened minds. And a GSOH, of course. Anyway, I'm back from my holidays. The ishmaelette's little dog brought a flea infestation back with her, don't know whether or not her mind was broadened. 

Bradford grew wealthy on the toil of the white working class in its textile mills. It has some nice Victorian show-off civic buildings in the centre, which nestles in a bowl, the markets, slums, fishnchip shops and pubs climbing the hill-sides of the bowl to the less dense suburbs on the tops. John Betjeman once did a documentary about Bradford's Victorian markets, with their glass domes, wrought iron, Pie Tom's and Morrison's little stall. All knocked down now - I think its a carpark. We went there as a memory-lane trip, to show the ishmaelette her roots.  It was hot, so the windows were down, and, as we started down the Bradford bowl, past the back-to-back terrace housing, the ishmaelette demanded the windows be closed, despite the heat: "it stinks! Mu-thurr - it smells of curry". And it does. The whole city was redolent of warm garlic, cumin, turmeric, coriander, fenugreek and chilli. I'm quite fond of an occasional curry, despite the subsequent intestinal havoc but for a whole English city to reek of curry on a July Sunday afternoon was both disconcerting and disorienting. When I lived there, apart from Lumb Lane; Bradford was a white northern, industrial town, with David Hockney, black buildings and black sparrows (when I went south to University I was astonished to see brown sparrows). Here's the tourist blurb about Bradford these days:  "If you are looking for a diverse and vibrant destination that combines culture, history, and nature, then Bradford is the place for you....... You can enjoy a variety of delicious dishes from different cuisines here. And if you want to escape the city, you can discover the beautiful countryside of the Bradford district, with its moors, valleys, and villages. Bradford is a destination that will surprise and delight you with its rich and diverse offerings." And it smells of curry. Just saying.

They seem to have flooded the Town Hall square and called the resulting paddling pool City Park:

It certainly doesn't look like the city where I went to school - which seems to have become embedded in a south Asian district. Little wonder that in a speech for the National Conservatism Conference in Washington DC, J.D.Vance recounted a conversation with a friend:
“I was talking about, you know: what is the first truly Islamist country that will get a nuclear weapon?” he said. “Maybe it is Iran, maybe Pakistan already kind of counts, and then we finally decided that it’s actually the UK – since Labour just took over.”

This caused, predictably, outrage amongst Labour politicians, all busily denying that Starmer is in hock to the Muslim vote.

When I was studying for my A levels, we were informed by our Miss Jean Brodie careers teacher not that we were the crème de la crème, but that we were among only 15% of the population to attend university. Back then there were only 45 universities. In 2022, there were over 2.86 million students at UK Yoonies, and amongst people aged between 30 and 34 in the UK, half were educated to a tertiary level.  There are around 176 universities. I don't think that this means that the population is getting cleverer - indeed, all available evidence seems to suggest the reverse. Many universities are struggling financially and are heavily reliant on foreign student fees. Maybe it is time to question the purpose of University education - is it to prepare young people for a career - a vocational purpose, as in medical or law schools; is it to train minds in an academic method which is then transferable into a variety of fields of endeavour, is it to make money from foreigners, or is it to provide jobs for academics who can have their books as required reading by these bright young minds? And  is training 50% of the population in higher education a good idea when there aren't enough carers, plumbers, builders, mechanics and electricians to go around? In fact, is it civilised to take kids from the ages of 18 to 21 away from home and support structures, allow them to mix only with their fellow incarcerates and incur huge debt against the promise of earning £10 grand a year more than non graduates? I really liked the National Service idea - get them usefully occupied and then, when their brains have finished growing, if they still want to study at a higher level, the Open University offers excellent educational materials and support for learning - which is more than my law lecturers and tutors ever did, as they shambled into lecture rooms and read out the same notes year after year, boring even themselves. 

Talking of boredom, I don't suppose you were able to miss the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris. Which was the best bit for you? Did you enjoy all the headless aristocrats and the talking decapitated head of Marie Antoinette in the windows of the Conciergerie, followed by the coup de theatre of thousands of red ribbons streaming down the walls to mimic the gallons of blood shed in the Revolution? Or did you like the zombie faceless torch bearer in billowing white grave clothes and corset lacing running through the unsavoury bits of Paris and along the roof tops? Or how about the blasphemous and tasteless depiction of the Last Supper by a bunch of drag queens? My best bit was the troupe of jolly French matelots bearing aloft a large chest down some steps by the Seine - just cos I hoped one of them would slip in the rain and the chest would bob about on the waves until the lid popped open and Macron emerged, like a stripper from a cake. 

But, alas, non - he remained, diminutive and dry, nobly bearing up during the three and a half days of the procession, his tiny GILF at his side. 

I have to confess that I turned it off after the first five and a half days of grinning, wet, Olympic teams clad in Pac-a-Macs on a variety of boats chugging their way through the Seine's filthy waters, so I missed the denouement, but I'm reliably informed that the damn thing continued until 10.15pm and that none of it was as good as the late Queen Elizabeth II parachuting into the London Olympic stadium, ably supported by 007.

Should I be worried about Stephen Fry? There he was on the Laura Kuenssnose Show with Victoria Derbyshire this morning, having a bit of a rant about the need to renationalise Britain's water, when he threw his glass of water down his pretty pink shirt. Now, it could have been intended as a visual aid, but, judging by his aghast expression, I think not - he just missed his mouth.

He then buttoned his jacket over his embonpoint and strategically draped his arm across his chest in an attempt to pretend there wasn't a large wet patch under his chin. He did have a 6 foot fall from the 02 Arena stage at an AI conference last September, breaking his leg, pelvis and several ribs, so maybe it is the after effects of the fall and not Parkinson's. Or maybe the fall was suspicious in and of itself.

Mr Mongoose's Election Crossword- 

The Solution

Congratulations to all successful crossworders and many, many thanks to mr mongoose.

• 
  
• If  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

  
  

  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.

mrs ishmael is on holiday again.

 

Now that the election is out of the way, I'm off to England for a couple of weeks. Sir Keir will just have to manage without me. I anticipate posting the answers to mr mongoose's crossword towards the end of July - so that's lots of time to solve it.

Oh Brave new world that has such bastards in it.

 

Didn't Farage do well? More than blew the bloody doors off. Worst election results for the Tories since 1835. This is what they were wearing in 1835:

And, yes, the blokes were wearing corsets.

So, a long time ago - but not long since Boris secured for them a massive majority and they frittered it away with their sneaky little deals to subvert the Brexit settled will of the people by importing cheap labour, by their taking ways, by driving the economy into the mud, and, basically, not giving a hairy pig's arse about the working class, despite re-dubbing them "hard-working people" and conveniently forgetting about the people not able to work by reason of age, infirmity or the crashed state of the economy.

That's the wealthy wife, standing a few paces behind the defeated Sunak, pressed up against the Downing Street railings. They neither of them know how to dress themselves, but they do learn - Mrs. Sunak, clutching an umbrella firmly, is determined to avoid another wet suit disaster. I did advise him previously to employ an umbrella-wallah.

Brilliant result for the SNP. Well, maybe they don't realise it yet, but now they can stop pretending to be a serious political party, stop any pretence of government and policy and get on with doing what they do best - whinging. Really good that the peepul of Scotland didn't ignore the disgraceful sight of police vehicles parked outside Gnasher Sturgeon's home, their motor-home being impounded as profits of crime and Mr. Sturgeon being charged with embezzlement. They were wiped out and Labour is back, with a vengeance. Remember Gnasher saying this election would be a de facto referendum with the peepul of Scotland being given the opportunity to declare their desire to leave the U.K. by voting for the SNP in droves? Well, they didn't. And Alba, headed up by Big Fat Smart Aleck, got no votes seats at all. None. That's zilch. So that's it for Scottish Independence. George Osborne, commentating on the ITV election coverage, summed it up neatly: a unilateral referendum has no legal validity and the only way that Westminster would allow a legal referendum, (cos the Tories would rather stick pins in their eyes than do that again),  was if a minority Labour government joined hands with the SNP in coalition. And there's really no need for that, then, is there? Talking of ITV's commentators - they had Gnasher pontificating at the table with the grown-up politicians. Gosh, she's piled on the pounds since being a disgraced politician. And to show that we're even-handed here, and not at all misogynistic, they also had Fat Neil Kinnock, who has not only grown several chins since leaving office, but he's also developed a beard that failed the struggle to hide the chins. Mind you, I think he was drunk. Could have been a combination of the Welsh accent, extreme age and the emotion of being back on national telly being treated seriously, but I think he was drunk - it was when he talked about Tony and Cherie entering 10, Downing Street and how it should have been him and Glen. Aww, bless.

The turn-out was a statement in itself. It is said that it is not apathy, but anger, keeps voters away from the polling station - you know - the lot of you are a bunch of truffle-eating establishment stiffoes and a pox on all your houses. Forty per cent of the electorate decided not to vote. That's a lot. That means that half the population has had it with parliamentary democracy. Best be careful. Didn't Stalin say of Churchill: " I'm more of a democrat than he is, and I'm a Dictator?"

So, who's gone? Practically everyone, but the bigish beasties who will be down the dole office tomorrow are:

Grant Shapps - Defence Secretary

Gillian Keegan - Education Secretary

Penny Mordaunt - Commons Leader and Sword Bearer, with magnificent hair

Lucy Frazer - Culture Secretary

David TC Davies - Welsh Secretary

Michelle Donelan- Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary

Simon Hart - Chief Whip

Johnny Mercer- Veterans Minister

For some unfathomable reason, 23.059 people in Richmond and Northallerton voted for their boy Rishi - so I suppose that means he will become an Opposition back bencher, unless he further kicks his party by resigning and forcing a by-election immediately after the general election.

Shetland and Orkney returned Big Al Carmichael for the Liberal Democrats - no surprise there. There wasn't much of an opposition, as Labour and Conservatives both helicoptered in adolescents still learning the political ropes. The Reform candidate was Orkney-based fisherman Robert Smith, who knew he didn't have much of a hope, as he freely admitted on Radio Orkney. He told the listeners that Big Al was a good man, a local man, a hard working politician who knows the ropes, whereas he, Smith, was standing just to give voters somewhere to park their opposition votes. When asked for his views on the monarchy, Smith said he would rather have Fred and Rose West than Charles and Camilla. Which was a bit rude. And may account for why he only got 1,586 votes as opposed to Big Al's 11,392. He didn't want the job anyway.

mr mongoose's Election Crossword

 

tip: print off the grid and complete by hand

Across

8   Online Monet nude brewed a bitter end. (10)
9   The Tories' are so very this, and it shows. (4)
10  Bastard buzzer makes one breed. (5,3)
11  Base but playful weaver donkey. (6)
12  Stilton and Tia Maria fuse into political philosophy. (15)
15  Support and obstruct (4)
16  Further, I hear that 16 tends to be 17. (5)
17  "Hello!" You'd have to be this to vote Tory. (4)
18  Mixed mag and reach next secondhand market. (8,3,4)
19  Zero tolerance for this coloured bad man. (6)
22  Radio soft rock mock hard man. (5,3)
23  Elect even pair switch reject. (4)
24  Arrangements can be made toes regime. (10)

Down

1   Republican-made Botox treated unpopular levy. (7,3)
2   Edge transforms the Tories last chance. (8,7)
3   Same as the old country in Papua New Guinea. (3,7)
4   Current panto through which soldiers choose brass? (7,8)
5   Questions up rump. (4)
6   Tying pork horse here? (15)
7   Reject even pair switch elect. (4)
13  Slavishly wearing false gnashers? (10)
14  Honey 8 or 27 sweeteners. (5,5)
20  Port last night causes Toxteth event. (4)
21  Therefore upset monster. (4)