The Sunday Ishmael: 24/11/2024

 Young People all nutters is - official

Always suspected it, what with sticking knives in each other and being all surprise when they don't get up again, going boo-hoo at Yooni when told to read 3 books a week - each week, and stoning speakers saying men have penisuses and women have special lady  parts. Now official. Lady minister Liz Kendall, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, said so. On telly. Today. So must be true. 

But Liz is just a secetry, so surprise she is on telly talking to Laura Nosa, just like bloke politician. Tell she is secetry, as legs all cross up for hold notebook for writing down what Bloke says. She must work for Bloke in charge of handing out dole to idle fucking bastards who won't go to work. And she is cross about idle fucking bastards, but in a lady-like, Labour Party way.  So has threatened to Help them. 

"They is 870,000 people aged between 17 and 24 not in work, school or training. That is Not Good. It costs my Bloke money to pay the idle fucking bastards to stay in house and eat burgers and fries brought to them by old deliveroo drivers. And the cheeky fucking bastards say they has mental health. 240,700 of them says they has anxiety, depression or autism. Old buggers not working is all wore out - they has physical health. Not bothered about them - all used up. My Bloke will Help cheeky fucking young bastards to cheer up and get back to work, by phasing out their dole.

Phasers on no burgers and fries. 

They'll like it at work. Better be doing crap job wipe bottoms of wore-out old buggers and not County Lines and dole money.

I explain, using Higher Mathematics. You has not got two oranges. Neither has you. 

Therefore I add up your no oranges and I has 4 oranges.

 -2 + -2 = +4 

add two negative numbers and what do you get? A positive number. Simple. Good for Economy."

Even now
I mind the coming and talking of wise men from towers
Where they had thought away their youth. And I, listening,
Found not the salt of the whispers of my girl,
Murmur of confused colours, as we lay near sleep;
Little wise words and little witty words
Wanton as water, honeyed with eagerness.

 

translated by E.Powys Mathers from from Black Marigolds, 11th century 

So - what else is news this week? If you've got a great-granny, inconveniently wasting your inheritance on care home fees, don't bother writing to your MP, urging him (or even her - equal opportunities MPs nowadays) to vote for the Assisted Dying Bill - they've got a free vote, means they can vote according to their conscience, always supposing your average whoreson MP has a conscience.

There's a blind chap called Sean Dilley who has been assisted for 25 years to get around by a succession of gorgeous dog-blokes. Sean is a journalist and has been social-media-ing about taxi-drivers, restaurateurs and Tesco's who have denied him access to their taxis, caffs and shops because they don't like dogs, even though it is a breach of the Equality Act 2010 to discriminate against a disabled person because they have a guide dog with them when accessing businesses or services.

This is Shawn, Sean's assistance dog, dressed in his working clothes. You can see he's a chap who takes his responsibilities seriously. He's not going to have a poo in a taxi, eat the sausages in Tesco or upskirt lady diners in the caff. Nevertheless, his dad, Sean, has been refused service when Shawn is with him. Sean, when trying to gain access to such services says he has been challenged to justify why he would want equal treatment, and been threatened with violence and death. When he has written about this illegal discrimination on social media, commentators have threatened to punch him and kill Shawn. He was told to "be careful". One bright spark said his mother should be raped. Could well be that these social media commentators are all liberals, especially in the light of the threats to kill the dog. The police seem uninterested in enforcing the law or in policing this aspect of incitement to violence. 

Unlike their activity in relation to a complaint they received about a post written by journalist Allison Pearson. The complaint was reported to the Metropolitan Police as a potential breach of the Malicious Communications Act. It was then passed to Sussex Police, which marked it as a possible non-crime hate incident. Sussex Police passed it to Essex, where Allison Pearson lives. Essex made two assessments of the complaint before opening an investigation under Section 17 of the Public Order Act 1986, relating to material allegedly "likely or intended to cause racial hatred". Then they sent two police officers round to Ms Pearson's house on a Sunday morning to tell her she was under investigation in relation to her tweeting, but wouldn't tell her which tweets. 

 "No, we are not telling you." 

They wouldn't tell her who the complainant was, either.

 "No, we are not telling you."

 There was quite the fuss, on account of accused persons having the right, in British law, to know what they are accused of and who their accuser is. Well, that was the law, but it would expose the maliciously-motivated to having to prove their accusations in a court of law, so it has been changed to protect the righteously anti-racist. Bit like a totalitarian regime. Anyway,  because of the fuss, the Police have backed right down, to the probable fury of the original complainant. 

Sean Dilley has clearly been complaining about the wrong sort of discrimination and threats against him, his mum and his dog. Britain is really not keen on disabled people. Obviously inconvenient, taking up the best parking spaces, messing the place up with dogs, just embarrassing, really. As for wheelchairs - you try accompanying a wheelchair user around the place and you'll soon find out that Britain does not readily accommodate wheeled humans.

In Belgium, which has had legislation allowing assisted dying since the beginning of this century, twin brothers Marc and Eddy Verbessem were 45 year old cobblers who were deaf and going blind. They died in January 2013 at the hands of their doctor, David Dufour, who believed that he was doing them a kindness as they were determined to die. Belgium also allows doctors to end the lives of terminally ill children, those with dementia and the mentally ill. There is a requirement in Belgian legislation that the applicant for death must experience constant and unbearable suffering that cannot be alleviated and that is caused by a serious and incurable medical condition. That, of course, is a matter of interpretation, of resources available to assist the disabled, the mentally or physically ill, the social stigma that may attach to certain conditions and to the old inconveniently tying up the resources that the next generation would like to prematurely get their hands on.

Westminster may motor ahead with the Assisted Dying Bill next week.  You know how mr ishmael always said that the person most likely to kill you is your doctor? Until now, that was always through malfeasance, neglect, incompetence or unexpected and unwanted drug effects. If the Bill gets onto the Statute book, then doctors have permission to legally kill you. No doubt you could cite to me many, many instances of people dying horrid deaths in undesirable circumstances. And all I could say in response is "hard cases make bad law". Once the principle of assisted dying is allowed in, then Britain may find itself with Canadian or Belgian outcomes. Given the phenomenal numbers of Britons unable to work through ill-health - well, its one solution to all those NEWT young people with "mental 'elf, innit."

Given Biden's successful attempts via ATACMS to subvert any future peace process that Trump intends brokering, by escalating the conflict between Ukraine and Russia - and where Biden leads, Britain trots readily along; our young men need to double down on their consumption of burgers and fries. In both Ukraine and Russia the war-averse young simply ran away, but there's an exciting new strategy in South Korea for keeping away from the guns and mines. In South Korea, all able-bodied men over the age of 18 are conscripted into the military. One chap, who ate his way into the non-able-bodied category, began binge-eating before his physical assessment for the draft. He increased his weight to 16 stone - a fine figure of a man in the West, but morbidly obese on a petite South Korean frame. He was prosecuted for trying to avoid military service by gaining weight and was given a one-year suspended sentence. He can serve in a non-combat role in a government agency. His mate, who devised the weight-gaining diet received a six-month suspended sentence. 

I do hope our young men remember this tip, should they not wish to serve the penalty for being a conscientious objector, or be averse to being blown up, should the time come. Mind you, no doubt our legislature would hurry into law some anti-obesity legislation, sentencing folk to Ozempic, and issue arrest warrants for deliveroo drivers.

Here we are, General Sir Bufton-Tufton Go-Lightly Carter. 

Medalled up to fuck, with a handy gold noose slung around his shoulder. No, Officer, not an incitement to violence, just satire, sarcasm and a dollop of snark. Emblematic of the Donkey Class. 

I would like to share with you a poem by  Du Fu (712–770),  a Chinese poet and politician during the Tang dynasty. It seems relevant to our troubled times. And you could say - twas ever thus.

Ballad of the Army Carts

 
Wagons rattling and banging,
horses neighing and snorting,
conscripts marching, each with bow and arrows at his hip,
fathers and mothers, wives and children, running to see them off--
so much dust kicked up you can't see Xian-yang Bridge!
And the families pulling at their clothes, stamping feet in anger,
blocking the way and weeping--
ah, the sound of their wailing rises straight up to assault heaven.
And a passerby asks, "What's going on?"
The soldier says simply, "This happens all the time.
From age fifteen some are sent to guard the north,
and even at forty some work the army farms in the west.
When they leave home, the village headman has to wrap their turbans for them;
when they come back, white-haired, they're still guarding the frontier.
The frontier posts run with blood enough to fill an ocean,
and the war-loving Emperor's dreams of conquest have still not ended.
Hasn't he heard that in Han, east of the mountains,
there are two hundred prefectures, thousands and thousands of villages,
growing nothing but thorns?
And even where there is a sturdy wife to handle hoe and plough,
the poor crops grow raggedly in haphazard fields.
It's even worse for the men of Qin; they're such good fighters
they're driven from battle to battle like dogs or chickens.
Even though you were kind enough to ask, good sir,
perhaps I shouldn't express such resentment.
But take this winter, for instance,
they still haven't demobilized the troops of Guanxi,
and the tax collectors are pressing everyone for land-fees--
land-fees!--from where is that money supposed to come?
Truly, it is an evil thing to bear a son these days,
it is much better to have daughters;
at least you can marry a daughter to the neighbour,
but a son is born only to die, his body lost in the wild grass.
Has my lord seen the shores of the Kokonor?
The white bones lie there in drifts, uncollected.
New ghosts complain and old ghosts weep,
under the lowering sky their voices cry out in the rain."

There are four splendid anthologies of the writings of mr ishmael and stanislav, the young Polish Plumber, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster. There's proper stanislav, unlike my poor pastiche in today's first couple of paragraphs.  You can buy the Quartet from Amazon or Lulu. Here's how:

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.

ATACMS - Damn American baby-talk - Attack'ems, for fuck's sake.