The Sunday Ishmael: 23/02/2025

 For the benefit of our overseas readers, and home-grown ishmaelians who can't be bothered, and who, indeed, can blame you; Sunday morning is politics morning in Britain, with politicians doing the rounds of live interview shows to harangue, justify and defend, whilst interviewers do their damndest to get a straight answer to questions backed up by actual facts and statistics, whilst trying to get a word in edgewise into the torrent of nonsense, circumlocution, avoidance and persistent talking-over-tactics. Laura Kuenssberg fronts the BBC Sunday Show.

Today, her panel comprised three silly old fools who have really not aged well and appear to be waiting at the station for the Dementia Express.

First up was Stephen Fry, a very large figure indeed, like a soft teacake with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.  He seemed to have no control at all over his back hair, which stuck out defiantly,

as he shared his worries about  Fascists. They are everywhere, he earnestly warned us. Fascists to left of us, Fascists to right of us, as for the Valley of Death, well, it's stuffed with Fascists. He probably has to check under his bed for Fascists each night, after his hot milk.

Fascists is one of those terms that means whatever people want it to mean, like Hard Left and Hard Right (these are not road directions, but reference the seating arrangements in the National Assembly Hall in 1789, when delegates supporting King Louis XVI sat to the right of the presiding officer, whilst the new revolutionary politicians seated themselves on the left of the presiding officer. So here's a handy tip to understand the terms: Hard Right means God Save our Gracious King, Hard Left means Off With his Head.)

Fry regards the ubiquity of Fascists in the New World Order as a Bad Thing, by which you'd think he'd be a Putin supporter, Putin having gone to war, as he said, to overcome Fascism in Ukraine. Putin wouldn't be very keen on Fry, though, especially if he's read Hippopotamus, Fry's 1994 novel suggesting there wouldn't be so much rape if women just enjoyed sex more, and tackling under-age sex, horse abuse and bestiality in a style midway between Wodehouse and Kingsley Amis.  Fry's dislike of whatever it is he means by Fascism is not shared by the majority of British people aged between 13 and 27 - a recent poll, ‘Gen Z: trends, truth and trust’, conducted by Craft of 3,000 adults of all ages, found that 52%  of Gen Z (those aged between 13 and 27) believe the UK would be a better place if a “strong leader was in charge who did not have to bother with parliament and elections” and 33% thought the UK would be better off if the “army was in charge” whilst 47% believe the organisation of society “must be radically changed through revolution”.

Which meets the definition of fascism pretty well. "A political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation above the individual and stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, economic and social regulation, and forcible suppression of opposition."

Really, though, people, like Fry, just throw the word fascist at anyone they disagree with or want to insult. Which is fairly fascist.

The second member of the old duffer panel was a woman rejoicing in the name of Zanny Minton-Beddoes, (you can just tell she's a member of the British Establishment. The name is the clue), editor of The Economist, which is suggesting that diplomatic talks between Trump and Putin are a nightmare. 

I wasn't quite sure why, other than that  Zanny seems to be of the persuasion that Europe and Britain are - or should be - Important Players, Ukraine is not a deeply corrupt nation led by a dwarf from the circus whose support has dwindled to 16%, whose democratic mandate to lead his country ran out last May, and who has spaffed quite a lot of money he didn't have on defying Putin on behalf of Dementia Joe instead of making a beautiful deal. 

Zanny has the problem illustrated here - heavy earrings have dragged down the holes in her ears, which will shortly split apart. You see it a lot in old women who are addicted to wearing earrings. 

You'd think that at the first sign of trouble, the afflicted woman (especially if she was intelligent or connected enough to edit The Economist) would stop wearing earrings - but no - the whole earring thing stems from sexual display because earlobes are erectile tissue that engorges and flushes when the earlobe owner is sexually aroused, thus signalling to the target of your amorous intent that you are ready, willing and able. Keeps the plastic surgeons busy. They cut into the earlobe, exposing flesh under the skin, then stitch it together. And charge you lots of money for your stupidity.

And the third member of Laura's day trip out from the old people's memory care facility was, dear God, a former Conservative Whip. Again, for our foreign readers or those who etc etc, the Whip is not an adherent to the sado-masochistic basement dungeon arts. (Although, looking at some of them.....) No, as Wiki tells us,  The Chief Whip is a political leader whose task is to enforce the whipping system, (Stop it, mrs ishmael, this is far too titillatory). The whipping system in British politics aims to ensure that MPs in the Whip's (stop saying whip. You've been warned) Party attend the House and vote on legislation as the party leadership prescribes.

This particular former Whip was Simon Hart, 

who, in addition to appearing terminally depressed that Trump has left Britain out of the negotiations to restore peace in eastern Europe; although unimaginatively attired in shades of blue (his care worker probably thought if he dressed Simple Simon in blue he would remember that he was a Conservative) attended the Panel of Three in a grease-spotted tie. I've helpfully marked the stains with a Conservative blue dot.

In the midst of what we are told is now a Hot War, we can only be thankful that Boris got us out of Europe just in time. Although Kuenssberg's Panel of Three probably wouldn't agree.

The other thing that annoyed me this week was Hamas' performance when  handing over coffins to the Red Cross. The earlier hand-over of the starved hostages was appalling. A brain-washed liberal of my acquaintance solemnly explained to me that the reason that the hostages were so extremely thin was entirely Israel's doing because Israel had denied the population of Gaza any food. She seemingly had not noticed that the Hamas soldiery, under their black clothes and bandannas were plumply well-fed. Hamas' utter stupidity was evidenced by their failure to keep their negotiating chips that they had gone to all that trouble to pluck out of Israel on October 7th 2023, fed and healthy. But this week's handover, dominated by a childish representation of Netanyahu as a vampire, for fuck's sake, and accompanied by the usual jubilation, demonstrated that they had allowed their visceral hatred of Jews full rein and murdered two babies with their bare hands - then lied about it, clearly not understanding that an autopsy would reveal the true cause of death. As it also revealed that they had sent to Israel the corpse of an anonymous Gazan woman, pretending, for some mad reason, that it was the body of the mother of the two babies. They had a good look around after that and found the remains of Shiri Bibas.

The handover of four live hostages on Saturday was accompanied by requiring two unreleased hostages to watch the humiliating ceremony. Israel halted the return of 620 Palestinian prisoners after that performance. The sheer numbers of Palestinian/Hamas terrorists held in Israeli prisons demonstrates the continuous attacks that  Israel has endured.

Trump Towers by the Sea. Bring it on.

Here's something calming.  Sasha and Volodya raise high the roof beam, in the snow, without a single pre-fabricated A frame. 

Don't forget your copy of one of the four splendid anthologies of the writings of mr ishmael and stanislav, the young Polish Plumber. Or buy the set as a luxurious indulgence for yourself or as a gift for a broad-minded friend. The anthologies have been compiled and produced by editor mr verge, the house filthster, in answer to the appalled and bereft reaction of ishmaelites to the passing of mr ishmael in January 2020.  

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.