The Sunday Ishmael: 9/11/2025

  

You can put your bleedin' poppies where the Sun don't never shine
For hypocrisy's your only creed, you ain't no friend of mine
You ain't no friend of no-one's, if the truth was only told
To the boys you send to bleed and die and never to grow old.
It wouldn't do for your sons, all to the manner born
To die alone in foreign fields, forgotten and forlorn
To die alone in foreign fields, forgotten and forlorn
That's the stuff for me and mine, our bodies ripped and torn. 

(extract from Poppies, full poem in: call me ishmael: AT THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN

AT THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN

"The first Two Minute Silence in London (11 November 1919) was reported in the Manchester Guardian on 12 November 1919:

The first stroke of eleven produced a magical effect. The tram cars glided into stillness, motors ceased to cough and fume, and stopped dead, and the mighty-limbed dray horses hunched back upon their loads and stopped also, seeming to do it of their own volition. Someone took off his hat, and with a nervous hesitancy the rest of the men bowed their heads also. Here and there an old soldier could be detected slipping unconsciously into the posture of 'attention'. An elderly woman, not far away, wiped her eyes, and the man beside her looked white and stern. Everyone stood very still ... The hush deepened. It had spread over the whole city and become so pronounced as to impress one with a sense of audibility. It was a silence which was almost pain ... And the spirit of memory brooded over it all." wiki

Here we go..... Again

The UK has agreed to provide military support to Belgium after drone incursions on its airspace that are suspected to have been carried out by Russia, the new Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Richard Knighton, said today on the BBC’s Sunday Morning With Laura Kuenssberg programme.

“And the UK, alongside our other 31 allies in NATO, will work to support each other, and that’s why the defence secretary and I are very happy to see UK military personnel deployed to support Belgium.”

He certainly looks happy. Culmination of his life's work, and all that. Take Great Britain into World War Three. All that climbing the Greasy Pole was worth it after all.

Sir Richard happily told Laura: “ Russia is the most pressing threat right now.......The illegal invasion of Ukraine has shown the barbaric nature of Russia's war efforts.”

Laura was pretty shocked. "It's serious, then?"

Too late now - she should have had a very serious word with Boris when she had him on that bench. Antagonising Putin, on purpose, in support of the Warmongering Dwarf Zelensky could only ever have had one outcome. And we're just about to dive right into that outcome. Couldn't someone have exercised a little real politic, a tiny bit of appeasement, attempted to make an ally of Europe-facing Russia, instead of driving her East towards China and North Korea?
Sir Richard said: “It is important to be clear, though, that we don’t know – and the Belgians don’t yet know – the source of those drones, but we will help them by providing our kit and capability, which has already started to deploy to help Belgium.”  The Kremlin has denied any involvement.

The BBC is a bit to blame as well as Boris for whipping up the anti-Russian rhetoric following the invasion of Ukraine. Couldn't someone have shrugged their shoulders and said Paris is worth a Mass? Or the Donbas and Crimea, in this instance. 

The BBC is finally in trouble for its brass-necked bias  propaganda lies. Lisa I'm-sorry-I- didn't meet the highest standards-about-the-appointment-of-David-Kogan Nandy, said today that she's always telling the Beeb off about its reporting of the Palestinian invasion of Israel and its misrepresentation of President Trump's defeat speech. 

I expect we will look forward to more "unbiased" reporting of the forthcoming war, as NATO rallies around Brussels and our personnel are deployed.

I was on the first morning flight one Monday out of Kirkwall Airport to Aberdeen. I was on my way to a work-related event. There were the usual ill passengers on  their way to see their consultant at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. There may have been a politician or two, on his way to be important in Westminster. But, mainly, the flight was occupied by big, noisy, very smelly, still drunk from the weekend, men, going back to work on the oilrig after their shore leave. No, but, they took up a lot of room. A lot. And the smell was challenging, shall we say. Compounded of stale sweat, stale beer, rancid breath, unclean botties and spilled food. I've never known anything like it. They were jovial, reminiscing about the fun they'd had. The stewardess had to instruct them to remain seated whilst the plane was still in the air, in case they created flatulence turbulence.

So I was unsurprised when I learned that thousands of the buggers are being required to lose weight in order to keep their jobs, as the rescue helicopters cannot hoist workers weighing more than nineteen and a half stone. Thousands of them. Weighing more than 19.5 stone. How much more?

Perhaps Happy Sir Richard Knighton might commandeer these tough little Scottish helicopters that  are deployed to carry up to 19.5 stone of Scottish manhood above the North Sea.

Anyway, Kirkwall Airport. Brought to a standstill, not by Russian (we deny any involvement) drones, but by Ross Buchan, who was described by his defence lawyer as suffering from ADHD, Autism and Oppositional Defiance Disorder. I wonder if that's the same thing that used to be called Attitood? On the morning of the 4th January, he repeatedly phoned Kirkwall Airport. The first time he said: "Boom. Aeroplane goes boom". In a later call he said: "Up the Kremlin. Justice for the Motherland." The airline declared a bomb threat. The airport was closed, luggage re-scanned,  and  emergency services searched the plane. You will probably not be surprised to learn that no bombs or explosives were discovered.

Whilst bringing you Orkney news, I should mention the latest scandal besetting Orkney Islands Council. The Harbour Master, Jim Buck, is not at his post and an interim harbour master has been appointed. This may or may not be linked to the expenditure of £1,050 from the marine service budget to buy five bespoke Harris Tweed jackets. The luxury fabric  will adorn five staff as a sort of uniform. Smarten them up  bit. Look on it as an upmarket version of hard hats and safety boots.

There are four splendid anthologies of the writings of stanislav and mr ishmael, compiled by his friend, mr verge, the house filthster. You can buy them 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.

Boom. Aeroplane goes boom.