The Sunday Ishmael: 11/01/2026: The Grey War

 The algorithm must have been hallucinating if it thought I was a likely purchaser of a £400-£600 handbag. But, there you go, everywhere I went on Youtube I was stalked by this advert for the Coach Tabby bag. Have you seen it? The story goes: skinny white woman, looking miserable, stares at her phone, when a nasty little girl bounds in, steals her handbag and runs away. Hotly pursued by Elle Fanning, playing skinny white woman, the feral child climbs up a big tree and chucks the bag into the air.

I got so fed up by this relentless pursuit by a handbag advert that I looked it up to discover what the hell it was attempting to say. Was it extolling the merits of theft as a career choice? Or the benefits of climbing trees as outdoor exercise? Or extolling the rejection of consumerisme totalitairienne by chucking away overpriced bits of tat now that the world is going to hell in a handcart?  

But, no. The Coach campaign release explained itself thusly: the whole campaign is about:  Authenticity. Fearlessness. Rediscovering childhood courage.  Letting go of self‑doubt.

Really? Really.

Coach describes it as tapping into “the courage we all once had, before the world told us to play small”.

For fuck's sake: this advert wants me to believe that a handbag is a spiritual awakening. As Lady Bracknell would respond, in tones of frosty hauteur, “To lose one handbag, Miss Fanning, may be regarded as a misfortune; to throw it into a tree looks like carelessness.”

It has been tough, here, in the far north. Oh yes, we've had the seasonal delights of the Christmas and New Year's Day Ba' games

 (the Uppies won this year), the Stromness Log Pull, when the men of the town form themselves into two teams, attach ropes to what looks like a felled telegraph pole, and pull, the Log swinging perilously between them to the imminent danger of the cheering crowd,

  

(The Northenders won), and, of course, the Illuminated Tractor Run

(nobody won. It wasn't a race. It was just for looking at.) And don't forget the MidWinter Solstice at Maeshowe, with the Frog-Balancing Vikings.
But all that joyful hedonism was followed by a cold snap, with snow, ice and high seas. The ferries were cancelled. Tesco ran out of bananas. I discovered that my beautiful, luxurious beast of a Mercedes-Benz is absolutely crap in the snow. It has an annoying trick of announcing an error message and shutting off power to the

wheels. "Skidding," it says. "Skidding. That's it. I'm not going any further. I shall stay just where I am." The first time it did it I was rescued by two women, who ran back and forth to a nearby Grit bin with handfuls of grit to scatter under the Beast's wheels. The second time it graciously accepted the libation of 1.5 kg of cooking salt and consented to move out of the middle of the road, where it had come to a sulky stop, blocking the carriage way. Good thing there weren't any ICE agents around.  I've not been out since.

Here's a money-saving tip for glossy monthly-magazine lovers. You know the sort of thing: Period Living, Homes and Gardens, Yorkshire Life. At a fiver a copy, that's 60 quid a year. Don't throw them away. Place them in a pile upside down in a corner of your ensuite. On January 1st, turn the pile over and start again. You'll have forgotten the content, and can be delighted by the seasonally-appropriate photographs, carefully curated and exquisite home decor from Reader's Lives and astonishingly-wonderful recipes. I brined the turkey this Christmas, guided by Country Living. Brining has been a thing this year.

The January editions, which are usually written in August, hit the retailers around early December and have little homilies about This Time of Year - reflecting on the year past, valuing friends and family, catching up on old colleagues and acquaintances. So it was when I met a former colleague, now retired, up the town. We leant on the Ba' board designed to protect the premises behind us from Christmas jollity. 

He started. "You remember old Thorfinn?"

Me: Oh yes. Thorf. Such a sweet chap. What's he doing these days?

He: Dead. Very sudden. 

My turn: Do you know what happened to Lilli Whyt-Arse?

He: Of the extensive and influential Whyt-Arse family. Most women wouldn't have survived that mooning scandal, and granted, she had to leave Orkney, but she did very well south. Why?

Me: Sacked.

He: Really?

Me: Well, the press release said that she had ceded her contract after mutual agreement, but we know what that means.

He: Young Erlend, now, he's retired.

Me: Ill health?

He: Bad Back, Bad shoulders, Heart, Hips.

Me: Always was a hypochondriac.

He: I saw someone in the supermarket who knew me.

Me: Who?

He: I've forgotten his name. But he knew me. We chatted about 20 minutes.

Me: Where did you know him from?

He: I dinna ken. But he knew me alright.

Me: Whatever happened to Wee Fat Alistair?

He: It was said he had retired voluntarily because he didn't care for the rarefied air.

Me: But?

He: Well, I met his wife at a do, the noo, and she said that after a lifetime struggling up the greasy pole, he'd been pushed aff it.

Me: That sounds a bit incriminating. And unwifely.

Together: Sacked.

He: Then there's Ross Islander. Was my boss at one time. You remember him? Always interfering.

Me: Go on.

He: Dead.

Dead, Sacked, Retired, Forgotten, Sacked, Died

Me: Look, if anyone asks you whatever happened to mrs ishmael, just tell them I'm fine. Just fine. 

The Grey War. 

That's what they are calling it now. Not War War. Not Cold War. I've been banging on about this since you've known me - the High North - that's where the frightening action is. It's all a question of perspective. For those accustomed to the Mercator projection, especially maps centred on Britain,

Russia and America both seem comfortingly far away. This is a trick of the map maker's art, how they manage to render the features of a globe onto a flat sheet of paper. For those who are familiar with this depiction, than President Trump's ambitions regarding Greenland, and, indeed, Canada, seem like the ravings of a megalomaniac psychopath. Check out your globe - there used to be one in every educated person's home - or this: 

As Lord Mandelson informed the nation today on the Laura Kuenssberg Show, Trump is not going to invade Greenland. That is Trumpian hyperbole and exaggeration. He is drawing NATO's attention to the real and present danger we are in - he is expecting NATO nations to step up their defence spending, increase the size of their armed forces and stop expecting America to do all the heavy lifting. Greenland is strategically important in the Grey War against Russia and China, in that part of the globe where these nations are practically touching each other.

Look at it this way -

Makes perfect sense, if we can only shake out of our heads the idea that Britain is significant, important or the king-pin in an empire. And if NATO and Denmark refuse to take arms against this sea of troubles, then Trump will exercise his strength, diplomacy and deal making to secure his borders. 

The U.K. or Little Satan, as the Iranian theocracy dubbed us,  has strategic importance. It seems we helped with the seizure of the Venezuelan-linked oil tanker, the Marinera, on Wednesday, as it travelled northwards through waters between Iceland and Scotland, following a chase by the US Coast Guard. RAF surveillance aircraft and a Royal Navy Support ship, the RFA Tideforce, took part in the operation.  US aircraft used Wick John O'Groats Airport during the apprehension of the Marinera. At least three US Air Force planes took off from RAF Mildenhall and landed at Wick John O'Groats Airport, which is owned by the Scottish Government. Wick airport, by the way, is a tiny little place, with one runway.

Would someone tell our Prime Minister that he really must stop pissing about like this -

(look at the boys, holding hands and grinning like monkeys), and grow up? We never should have involved ourselves in the border dispute between Russia and Ukraine - the public were spun and spun into supporting the Dwarf Zelensky, because, I suspect, Boris Johnson fancied following in Thatcher's footsteps and having his own war to secure his place in the history books. We are stuck with that appalling decision, stuck with having alienated Putin, and it is, as they say, what it is. But Starmer should be rowing back and certainly not promising to send our armed forces into Ukraine. Is he wanting to kill me? A coalition of France and Britain - who, pray, is that going to inconvenience? Just sheer provocation waved in the face of one of the most powerful men on the planet. He really needs to cosy up to the other powerful man, apologise and say: "Sorry, Mr President, sir, it was a mild French infatuation I caught. I'm over it now. And I'm sorry I recognised Palestine. That was all Emmanuel's fault, too. I was mistaken. Turns out his wife isn't a man."

And as for saying he is going to send troops into Greenland to thwart Trump - can someone section the man?

.............................

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.

Oh yes, Jury Trials. I remember them.