The Sunday Ishmael: 16/03/2025

 Down the Swagger and Pose  to catch up with the grandiosity news. It's just across the street from the Judge's Arse - a very different establishment, where the clientele are counting down the days until they can resume their God-appointed position on the gravy train. 

I've been listening to Barclays Johnson reading his strangely unchronological memoir of his glory days, thrilling to him recounting his battles with the Tory Establishment and their determination to get Brexit Undone so they could continue to milk the European Project, sympathising with his nervous uncertainty when he stayed with the late Queen, god rest her soul - (God didn't actually agree to Her Living Forever! Forever! but certainly acceded to the constant request of "long to reign over us"), with his pregnant girlfriend in tow - would they be allowed to sleep in the same bed, in the same room? But the Queen, of course, being Aristocracy, graciously allowed them to bunk up together. Thrilling again, nail-bitingly, as Barclays Johnson sat up all night awaiting the landslide results that took him back into Downing Street with a humongous majority, because he knew What Worries the Working Class, not like the Lefty Lot. And admiring his Mayoral devotion to bicycling around London, his favouritest city in the world and his bonzo idea to get London moving - on bicycles, for which he charmed Barclays into stumping up squillions to set up the scheme. And then, when he needed as much again to continue the scheme and Barclays refused because they were pissed off that the bikes were referred to as Boris bikes, not Barclays bikes, he charmed the money out of their trousers by promising to change his name by deed poll to Barclays if they would pay up.

And did you know that only 18 of the bikes went missing and of those, one turned up at the Everest base camp? No? 

Not surprising, since it isn't true. A Freedom of Information request revealed that between 31st July 2010 and May 2021, 69,483 bikes were reported missing, of which 64,755 were found and recovered, with 4,728 missing. One Boris bike was found in Gambia in Africa in 2013 and another one was found in Jamaica in 2021.

19,470 bikes were commissioned since the scheme went live in 2010, up to September 2021. The fact that more bikes went missing than existed is because many bikes went missing multiple times. Londoners, eh? 

The cost of the scheme was £140 million to set up, including buying the bikes, creating 338 docking stations and buying a fleet of trucks to distribute the bikes between stations. Ongoing costs include the control centre staffed by 20 staff and bike maintenance. Each bike is also equipped with a radio frequency tag that registers its location. 

All this costs Transport for London £11.1 million per year, despite the sponsorship - Barclays kicked in only a sixth of the costs - and user charges. 

But why are you bothered, mrs ishmael? You never go to London, on account of it being a desperate hole where the teenagers knife each other to death, despite Boris Johnson's Mayoral pledge to remove knife crime.

Well, I'm not. Bothered, that is. Londoners can cycle into the Thames, up Everest, across to Africa and the Caribbean on their Boris bikes for all I'm concerned - I only looked into it because of Johnson's lordly claims in his memoir.

And now I'm wondering what else he has lied about? 

Anyway, leaving the Judge's Arse and crossing the street to the Swagger and Pose,

we're all back to worrying. I do appreciate that all this must be desperately exciting for the son of a tool-maker and that he basically inherited a foreign policy set up by Johnson and Biden, which has  become frighteningly unfeasible now that Johnson is writing equally unfeasible memoirs and Biden has checked into the Assisted Memory Facility. But, please god, will someone tell him that the situation has changed? That being a European is not as sensible a position as being on Trump's side? That Putin has absolutely no intention of abandoning his war aims now that he is winning and holds Britain's swagger and posturing in amused disdain? And that Britain really doesn't sit at the Big Boys table anymore? And that Putin has nuclear weapons? And that if Putin is de-throned, there are nastier and louder politicians who would replace him? And that Zelensky does not have popular opinion on his side any more?

By the way, I did think it was absolutely hilarious that Trump dealt with Macron by way of 200% tariffs on Champagne and fain wain. As he says - he holds all the cards.

There's more than Starmer worrying me down the Swagger and Pose.  

That's Ed Miliband with Starmer. He's been around forever - Ed, together with his brother, Dave. He was even leader of the Labour Party once over, and we could have had him as Prime Minister back in 2015 had he been able to speak properly, instead of sounding like he had stuffed his mouth with marbles, and, whisper this, the latent anti-Semitism of the Great British voter. There's only been the one Jewish Prime Minister - Benjamin Disraeli (1868 to 1880 - two terms, with a gap).  Miliband is not a bad egg, never fiddled his expenses, seems to be a conviction politician, with his heart in the right place. Back in 2015 he gave five pledges to the electorate, which would form his policy basis should he got into government: he was going to tackle deficit reduction, living standards, the NHS, immigration controls and tuition fees. The following month, he added an additional pledge on housing and rent. All of which remain desperately relevant 10 years on. He's tall, handsome, lean, assured...... What's the problem, then? What's worrying you? 

Well, he's looking increasingly mad -

You've got to query the judgement of anyone who would allow that to be released as his official photo. And, amidst the shininess, you can see the light of zealotry in his eyes. He loves his job. And his job is Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero. And he means it. He's committed to achieving a total renunciation of the use of fossil fuels in Britain, as quickly as possible. This is climate change politics, an ivory-tower, ideal world position in a cold Northern country. And he justifies his opposition to fossil fuels thusly: in the House on the 4th February 2025, he said: 

"In recent weeks, we have seen continuing rises in prices in global fossil fuel markets, with wholesale gas prices last month 60% higher than a year ago, which is caused by a number of factors. I want to be clear with the House: as long as Britain remains so dependent on fossil fuels, we will be in the grip of these global markets controlled by petrostates and dictators, with direct impacts here at home. The only way to get off this rollercoaster is with clean, home-grown power that we control, and that is what the Government’s clean energy mission is all about."

Maybe so - but it will take time to build the nuclear reactors to produce electricity, to build the wind and solar farms, and the infrastructure to move all this clean home-grown electricity across the country from the delightful, remote countryside where it is generated to the stinking, overpopulated cities of the south. And, in a supreme cut-your-nose-off act of economy-sabotaging wilfulness, the Right Honourable Ed, through the North Sea Transition Authority, has ordered that on Monday, concrete will be poured into Britain's last two shale gas wells in Lancashire, for the specific purpose of ensuring that the wells can never be used to extract natural gas at any point in the future. The Bowland shale formation could provide Britain with 50 years of natural gas. More than 80% of British households use gas for heating and hot water, accounting for over 75% of household energy consumption. After having had all sorts and combinations of household energy systems in the past, I now live in an all-electric house, serviced by a massive great air-to-water heat pump, solar panels and the Grid. Moving all Britain's households into that same position will take time and require financial support for households to swap out their existing energy systems. And this Government is not in a financial head-room space to provide that support, as it wrestles with the unpopular issue of reducing welfare benefits to Britain's chronically sick, elderly population and stripping out jobs in yet another NHS re-organisation in order to increase defence spending against the Russian threat.

The eye-swivelling Mililoon has firmly set out his stall: it is the Government's intention to ban "fracking for good". Even though it could create jobs, growth and produce home-grown natural gas instead of importing it at great cost from those "petrostates and dictators". Pouring concrete down the wells is a move reminiscent of Maggie Thatcher's spiteful pouring of concrete down the coal mines. Her ideological zealotry was to break the working class and their Trade Union representatives. Miliband's zealotry seems to be in service to further hampering the economy.

This Labour Government seems to be borrowing Tory clothes.

There you go, hen, after a chequered reign, you've made the right decision not to stand as an MSP in the next election. Following three decades in Scottish politics, you've no' achieved Independence, you've run NHS Scotland and Scottish education into the ground, you've unsuccessfully pursued a personal vendetta against Wee Fat Aleck Salmond - which may have contributed to his untimely demise, you've utterly failed to provide Scotland's island archipelagos with fucking boats, you've farted about with LGBTQ+ politics, unisex bathrooms and gender recognition bollocks, you've entered into an unholy coalition with the Green loons, resulting in all that bottle return business, stopping Scotland's fishermen from making a living, and destroying the fossil fuel industry, reducing Aberdeen to a ghost town; and, worse of all, you are the only, the only serving First Minister - or Prime Minister, for that matter, to have the police search your house, dig up your garden, pitch a forensic tent outside your front door, remove crates of documents and IT equipment, tow away a motor home, allegedly bought by embezzled funds, from your mother-in-law's drive, be questioned under arrest, as was your husband, who is now charged with the criminal offence of embezzlement, and be forced to resign as First Minister because of that embarrassment, whilst spouting bollocks about your tank having run out of whatever you keep in your tank, and having to shed that self-same husband in a shameless attempt to save your political career - or maybe your marriage tank just ran out of whatever weird juice it was running on.

Way to go, girl - it's been fun. No, actually, it hasn't. But I have had free prescriptions ever since moving to Scotland 24 years ago. Thanks.

Dundee University has fuck all to thank the SNP "Government" for. The University has a £35 million deficit and, in a hopeless attempt to balance the books, they are going to lose 632 jobs - that represents 20% of the University's workforce. They're going bankrupt, basically. Edinburgh University is going the same way. St Andrew's is not looking healthy. The problem is that the SNP will not charge Scottish students tuition fees. It pays the Universities £1,820 per eligible student in a tuition fee, which has not changed since 2009-19. So Universities make up their income by charging fees to foreign students, including the hated English, and they have not been able to recoup enough cash from this route to subsidise all the Scottish little darlings. 

Way to go, Nicola. 

There are four splendid anthologies of the writings of mr ishmael and stanislav, the young Polish Plumber. The anthologies have been compiled and produced by editor mr verge, the house filthster, from the writings of our founder, 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.

The Orkney Coat of Arms.
On the left side of the shield there is the gold galley on a blue background, representing the ancient Earldom of Orkney. The right side of the shield has the Royal arms of Norway, the lion rampant with a battle-axe on a red background, which recalls that Orkney was once a Norwegian province. The Latin motto ‘Boreas Domus Mare Amicus’ means The North our Home, the Sea our Friend is added to the compartment, or base. The shield has two supporters, a 15th century udaller or free land-owner under the udal system of land tenure. He is dressed in his best clothes (braws) and is wearing seal skin boots. The other supporter is a Scottish unicorn, which wears a badge with the Scottish Saltire on its collar. It is common to all the Islands Councils’ coats-of-arms.