And About Time, Too

 

That's going to be a birthday to remember.

The Sunday Ishmael: 15/02/2026

Fuckin' aunt Nora - have none of these goons the slightest acquaintance with realpolitik? At least I am not alone in questioning the sanity of taking the nation to war in objection to what the Russian government chooses to do to a Russian citizen in Russia. Laura Kuenssberg  interrogated the dreadful Foreign Secretary twins Cooper and Patel,

suggesting that all this posturing about frog poisoning is to nudge the British public towards accepting an increase in defence spending. This was robustly denied, because it seems, that whilst other foreign governments can murder their own citizens without Britain raising a whimper, Russia is entirely different  because, Cooper alleges, they attack us daily and pursue their treasonous citizens onto our streets to kill them. Time for a little pragmatic politics, surely?

And, in Scottish news, Peter Murrell, the former chief executive of the Scottish National Party (SNP), and former husband of Nicola Sturgeon who knew nothing about it of course and divorced the little shit the minute it looked like the turds were floating to the top, is accused of embezzling nearly £460,000 from the party over more than 12 years. The charges include:

1. Embezzlement of £459,046.49 of SNP funds over the period from August 2010 to January 2023.
2. Purchase of a £124,550 motorhome using SNP funds for personal use.
3. Creation of false duplicate sales documents relating to the motorhome.
4. Use of £16,489 of SNP funds towards a £33,000 Volkswagen Golf.
5. Claiming £18,408.91 in expenses he was allegedly not entitled to.
6. Spending £159,757.39 of SNP funds at 82 retailers on items allegedly for personal use or others.
7. Spending £81,610.19 of SNP funds on Amazon purchases allegedly for personal use or others.
8. Claiming £12,500 on an SNP credit card in October 2020.
9. Claiming £112,050 on an SNP credit card on December 7, 2020.
10. One charge says he created a “false invoice” to provide party accountants, which led to “false and inaccurate” information being recorded in an “accounting system used by the Scottish National Party in an attempt to disguise the true nature” of the purchase of a Jaguar car. The indictment states that in August 2021, the car was sold to We Buy Any Car in Glasgow, and £47,378.76 was paid into Murrell's personal bank account.

The charges against Murrell are included in an indictment, pending a court appearance scheduled for next Friday. He is yet to enter a plea.

Murrell held the rather lucrative post of SNP chief executive from 2001 to 2023.   

There now. Isn't that nice.

We've been following the case in these pages as the police agonisingly slowly investigated the embezzlement of S.N.P. Party funds, in Operation Branchform, questioning Murrell, John Swinney, current leader of the S.N.P. and Nicola Sturgeon, previous leader of the S.N.P.

An Independence activist badgered the Police into investigating the disappearance of funds amounting to over £600,000 raised for another referendum on Scotland leaving the United Kingdom. Many goods were seized by the police in an unprecedented police raid on the home of Murrell and his wife,  and a very expensive motor home was impounded by the police from the driveway of Peter Murrell's mum. Here's a conversation as imagined by Stanislav, the young Polish Plumber between two imaginary characters on the eve of the police raid. 

A Thistle Jig of Shit.

Ah, a life on the open road, the wind blawin' up ma kiltie, I deserve it, hen, after a' these years, toilin' fer the peeple, lang oors in stuffy rooms, handies blistered frae pullin on the levers o state.

An' you, get ye oot an awa' frae the ungrateful bastards an accoontants an journalists (spits). 

Ah, but the matchie tartan face maskie was such a grand fashion statement, showed aff yer bog-brush hair-cut.

Nay, lassie, it won't be a £40 grand piece o shit, just load o plywood an teak-effect plastic shoved inside big, noisy Citroen diesel van, bangin an fuckin clatterin to wake they Labour voters, engine sound like stanislav shakin set of spanners inside biscuit tin, with shit cassette under feet. I'll no' have to go and stumble round in dark, thistly wilderness while you tak a wee dumpie in van and vicie versie. Look,  top o' range camper van.  Joined together in holy deadlock was fine when we was sitting pretty in Holyrood on top of all the money but is only for sick and health and rich or poor and not for content of bowels, we're no' Liberal Democrats.

Awa' an' bile yer heed, yer dam' stupid ex-Chief Exec, I'll nae go near yer mobile toilet. How would it look in car crash, shit flying all ower the shop an' bog roll, only not proper bog roll but that stuff, thin and cold, IZAL, good for fuck all, not even for wiping of arsehole; every bastard with mobile home has IZAL toilet paper. Is bad enough  take dump in van like fucking Englishman but then can’t even wipe Former First Ministerial pass clean but instead smear shit all over bottom, or finger go through and get all filthied-up with spread-out bit of shit, better would be with handful of grass from roadside and never mind IZAL trick bogroll.  Manufacturer of IZAL is rolling about on floor, laughing off bollocks at mobile home driver and boy scoot. 

But, ma sweet former First Minister, we can pull in by a lochside and you can make me a cup of smug tea and nae milk because I am watching my cholesterol and I drink Fairtrade tea because I like to think that everytime I have a cuppa some money is going to those huge traditionally-built women in Botswanaland, even though it isn’t. 

Ye can mak yer ain tea, if smirking gay crewcut Polis Scotland lets ye  oot o jail lang enough. I'm nae tea-wifie. Fred West had a fucking camper van an' look at him, spent his spare time choppin' people up, squeeze into box and bury under patio, like on Brookside. Fred was made mad  having to cope with life inside rubbish camper van, driving round Forest of fucking Dean, banging fucking head and choking on shit fumes and pots and pans falling out from cupboard every bend, no fucking wonder was serial killer.  Was very nice bloke by all accounts, apart from being raving lunatic and him and Rose killing people, mainly children. 

But, ma shouty wee dwarfie, it might become  politically expedient to hae an exit strategy an' become better acquainted with the beauties of the Heelands and Islands of oor  magnificent nation. 

Are ye serious, ye bald fat wee git? We havenae dualled the A9 yet. 

Ma dear wee gurrul, jes' as high as ma heart, the £110 grand camper van we'll be tourin' in has a bicycle compartment to hold a bicycle for me an' one fer ye. We can park by a loch and cycle through our Heather and Gorse lands, wi' nae worries aboot goin' to work....... nae need to rush the gorse.....

Ye want to join they band o' nutters who jump on a bicycle and pedal like demented hobgoblin speedfreaks  up the  highest roads in the country shouting Gimme A Fucking Heart Attack, I Can’t Stand Being A Teacher For Another Twenty Years!  Driving in Highlands is rubbish anytime  (we needed the upgrade money for trams in Edinburgh where the voters are) but filled-up in Summer with Herman lesbian Hells Angel and  demented lunatic nutters on bikes and smug bastards in camper vans is like something off Prisoner programme with Patrick McGoohan, dead now, of course, but was nearly a hundred and so never mind. An ye better get used to it - that Prisoner programme.

How can I put this, my wee Pigmy of stature but Giant propensities, we may need to get out of Dodge fast. In this case, Glasgae. A lonely mountainside, in pitch black, the twa o us an a wee pup, a Greyfriars Bobby, is looking like the better option.

Ye're going frae bad tae fucking worse, ye Fat SilverFox Retired Loony. Is not just poxy shit van clogging-up Afucking9 and can’t even stop in layby because of too many smug old bastards like you sitting  at table outside van, drinking FairfuckingTrade cuppa, not too strong and made with  pissmilk and handful of sweetener for heart and horrid old legs all fucked-up with varicose veins and every bastard can see because of shorts or kilties, even though brass bollocks would freeze-off from monkey, up there in Highlands. No fucker wants to see countryside all fucked up with horror show of pasty old bastards sunbathing in fucking public and probably piles hae got, too, all around arsehole, and maybe hanging-out, from sitting outside in kilties with fucking gale blowing up arse from Arctic fucking Circle and mean tight-fisting use of Izal joke bogroll (but isn’t roll but leaves of piss-thin hard shiny so-call toiletpaper) and good for fuck all is and not only hand goes through and gets covered-up in shit but fucking watertap in van is nae working as usual and nae matter if ye stand with airse cheeks as far apart as possible which is not very far, as we are nae Liberal Democrats, and keeping shitfinger hand up in air and trying hard not to do breathing-in and stomping on little foot switch to make water come and at least can wash fucking shit off from hand but instead of water coming from tap fucking hazard light is coming on instead. And radio. Is Radio Scotland an' is just dreadful noise of bagpipe, fuck me, sounds like massacre in cat sanctuary, run by mad old lady who is dead in living room from hypothermia from Westminster Fuck-Up Economy,  spent all money on Kit-E-Kat and cruel, wicked bastard at Scottish  fucking Gas has cut off power and local nutter with chainsaw bought from car boot sale  has seized golden opportunity an'  old lady’s assorted cats disembowlering is being, one at a time, by giggling nutter, Here, Kitty-Kitty, Here Kitty- Kitty so even cats not actually being mutilated to death is all freaked out and screeching and climbing up walls, Radio Scotland bagpipe concert is worse than massive cat massacre.  

Time is running out, ma wee Princess of the Steamie, Drastic action needs tae be ta'en an' I'm the man to rise to a Crisis, trust me. There's some lovely little villages in the hills around Inverness.......

What? Go down Clackmacfuckery Village Hall tae the tea-dance, tae listen to some fat old fucker playing a wheezy old accordion,  made oot o' shiny tin and plastic and sackin' and hunnerds o' fucking keys and buttons so many that playing it must be hit and fucking miss like an Oompah band from the Black Forest, but backwards. And watch decrepit old boys  in wigs and false teeth and kilties seducing old wifies and feeling-up  bony old airses before the bus comes tae tak them back to the Hame. The one wi' the Polish nurses. And would ye be doin’ me the honour of having the next Polka with me, Jings, but you’re a right bonny lass, indeed y’are, he leers, at a spindle-thin, one foot in the grave,  ninety year old,  the dirty filthy old bastard. Then it'll be back to the van frae Hell, hazard light flashing off and on, nightmare noise from radio, and can’t wash hand or wipe arse  and  would be better off dead, or at very least wanting to get back in fucking Polis Scotland's cells where there's a flushing toilet (the polis watch you take a dump in your cell in the toilet wi' nae seat and then hit the flush switch from ootside the door); so ye'll hae to go outside with yer kiltie tucked around yer waist and grab handfuls of grass and wipe arse and fingers like the fucking savage ye are and fucking van cost £110 fucking grand and every bastard knows that grass up airse is primary cause of piles, especially when is  not even fucking grass but fucking thistle. And people going past in proper car all shoutin' and hootin', Look at silly old Ex Chief Exec sticking thistle up airse, must be demented, maybe attempting suicide by anal lacerations off thistle, is fucking really mad, fuck me, don’t wanna get that dementia rubbish and run around like loony, with  kiltie up roond waist and  thistle and nettles up airse and shit on fingers.

 Best thing in situation like this is stick shitty fingers in ground and keep on stabbing until hand is covered in just dirt and not shit and can touch clothing, then remove kiltie and wipe off arse and when no-one is passin' in proper car, throwaway  in hedge,  only not where dog, Bobby, can go and pull out and start to eat and maybe get sporran stuck over head and normal bastard, going past in proper car is on mobile phone to cop and RSPCA,  Allo? Allo? ….Is polis? Right… SeeYouJimmy?.....   Is fucking pervert here, on A9,  and dog has got head in sporran  and poo….  Nah, is not skidmark,……is proper poo…dunno…..might be dogpoo…but might be yuman poo…bloke looks like fucking nutter an' thistle has sticking out from airse…I know….all sorts takes,….but fuck me, Jesus….an' shit has got all over hand….no….is not car…is van….with awning and elevating roof….is some foreign shit…..is  Niesmann + Bischoff, all filled up with plywood furniture and things that don’t work. Better come and arrest him,  aye, before he starts sticking yon fucking thistles up the puir wee  dog’s ….Aye, Edinburgh by the look o' him.

So, former First Minister wifie, will ye nae come and hae a wee lookie at it? I've parked it round ne maw's, discrete-like? 

That'll be a no, then? You'd rather go on our usual S and M holiday, dress-up in leather and rubber and plastic and smack my airse with thistles?

Now, that's beginning to persuade me - nae danger of falling-off bicycle, probably even have proper toilet in S and M hotel and nae shit cassette, sliding about, under drivin' seat;  is much easier than this shit and not cost £110 grand and then £3 grand for bikes to tie on back. No, bike on back of grossed-out plumbervan with inoperating integral sanitation and plywood furniture and trick toilet paper, is all bollocks.

Too late, now, anyway, hen.

 Grooming of the Nation

Which segues rather neatly, talking of airses and S&M, into my review of Pillion. Those of the readership who have been following my adventures for some time may remember that for a quarter of a century I was employed as a Probation Officer in inner city Birmingham, for several years in the Sparkbrook Probation Office. In the adjoining Sparkhill ward a convicted terrorist, Shahid Butt, is standing as an independent councillor in May's local elections. The constituency has a 91 per cent ethnic minority population with around 70 per cent practicing Islam. In 1999, Butt was sentenced to five years in prison in Yemen for terrorism after being convicted with five other UK nationals of conspiracy to blow up the British consulate, an Anglican church and a hotel in the city of Aden. Butt says that his confession was tortured out of him, and there were no actual bombings, just talking about it. Since returning to Birmingham in 2003, Butt has worked with the Home Office's anti-terrorism Prevent strategy and spent over 20 years counselling young people away from extremism - presumably on the basis of "who better qualified?"

Actually, I didn't set out to talk about Mr. Butt, who has an unfortunate name and a very unfortunate past, but looks like a nice man now that he is pushing 60.

No, I was actually setting out my credentials by way of introduction to my review of Pillion, a film featuring Alexander  Skarsgård and Harry Melling. I've had a lot of conversations with dangerous men, some in my office, some in prison, once while acting as a decoy for the police, to engage the perpetrator whilst the police crept up to snatch the little girl he'd abducted, once whilst being held prisoner in the kitchen of a council flat for the meagre contents of my thin wallet. I've provided a lot of dangerous men with a lot of coffee and cigarettes.

And I can assure you that not one of them looked like this:

If they did, there would be even more prison officers having sex with them and posting the videos on wherever these things are posted. And there does seem to be a bit of an epidemic of in-cell sex between guards and inmates.

Nope, Skarsgård is a fantasy. The camera loves him. He's big, blonde and Aryan. The reality is that abusive men tend to be deeply unattractive, undersized in an inner city rat-like way, inadequate, living on benefits, a bit thick and dead eyed. That's why they are abusive - their self-image is so low that it needs constant bolstering by controlling their victim, beating them up, (now look what you made me do), raping them, imprisoning them and pimping them.

Any other dangerous fantasies in the film? Depicting the anal penetration of a virgin by a substantial penis adorned with a thick Prince Albert, without also depicting the blood, shit and anal tears requiring an A&E repair job. A bit like Erica Jong's zipless fuck.

The reviews adore the film. Edgy, they say, a tender love story, sexy, an exploration of BDSM, and, worst of all, a comedy. It is not a comedy, unless you find buttocks and humiliation endlessly funny. If you find it sexy, then the film has done its job and corrupted you. 

Because it deals with homosexuality, audiences are blinded to the reality of the grooming, coercion and abuse - after all, it's blokes, innit, and the Sub has consented to his humiliation and abuse and he learns to enjoy the sex, (no kissing, though), sleeping on the floor, the group sex en plein air.

 Remember, though, there are acts that you legally cannot consent to. Like nailing your penis to a work bench.  In the Spanner case judgement - R v Brown [1993] 2 All ER 75

HOUSE OF LORDS, consensual sado-masochistic homosexual encounters which occasioned actual bodily harm to the victim were assaults occasioning actual bodily harm, contrary to s 47 of the 1861 Act, and unlawful wounding, contrary to s 20 of that Act, notwithstanding the victim's consent to the acts inflicted on him, because public policy required that society be protected by criminal sanctions against a cult of violence which contained the danger of the proselytisation and corruption of young men and the potential for the infliction of serious injury. 

If you are against me in considering Pillion to be a film which is likely to deprave and corrupt, switch the gender of the naive, lonely and vulnerably young man. There. He is now a young woman. Now you can see the abuse for what it is. Look at the submissive young men, serving their "masters" who they believe to be in love with them. Now see the girls, victims of Pakistani rape gangs. It is all about a corrupted sex drive, power, control, and jerking off because humiliation and contempt get your motor running.

I daresay my view is not widely held.

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

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.

The Sunday Ishmael: 08/02/2026

"From those to whom much has been given, much should be taken."

No, mrs ishmael, that's not quite right.

Okay. How about this? "To those who have taken much; up against the wall, motherfucker."

Even worse, mrs ishmael.

Oh, Mandy, you came and you took without giving......

The political and aristocratic classes have been having a rough time since the Epstein files were released. Morgan McSweeney has now been offered up in a bid to preserve Keir Starmer's leadership.

Isaiah 53:4

The inscription on the frame of The Scapegoat by Holman Hunt is a quote from Isaiah 53:4: "Surely he hath borne our Griefs and carried our Sorrows; Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of GOD and afflicted." 

Who he? 

An Irish bloke. He was born in Macroom, County Cork, Ireland. His grandda', Michael McSweeney, was IRA and won a medal for his service. His aunt was a councillor for Fine Gael and his first cousin, Clare Mungovan, was special adviser to the Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar. He joined the Labour Party in 1997 and four years later was given the role firstly of intern receptionist and then in the party's attack and rebuttal unit in Millbank, where he input data into Peter Mandelson's "Excalibur" database. Mandy, of course, inspires love and loyalty amongst old Labour, on account of his grandfather being Herbert Morrison - maybe Mandy and Morgan bonded over their notorious granddads? Anyway, Morgan, whilst never standing for election, wormed his way into being Prime Minister-adjacent by becoming the fixer for Labour.  
In 2017, he formed Labour Together during Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, in order to replace Corbyn and remove the left-wingers, correctly identifying them as unelectable. He chose Keir Starmer to replace Corbyn as leader and led Starmer's successful Labour leadership campaign and then his successful campaign in the 2024 general election. McSweeney fundraised for Labour Together during his role as company secretary. He failed to report most of the donations the group received from December 2017 onward, amounting to more than £730,000. The undeclared donations as well as additional incorrect information declared by McSweeney were investigated by the Electoral Commission; Labour Together was fined £14,250 for over 20 breaches of electoral law in September 2021, which the Commission stated was "towards the high end of the scale". (Conservatives do sex, Labour do the money scandals).

In February 2026, it was reported that Labour Together paid the PR firm APCO Worldwide to spy on journalists critical of Keir Starmer. These included reporters from The Sunday Times, The Guardian and Declassified UK.  Paul Holden had previously revealed this in his 2025 book: The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney, and the Crisis of British Democracy. Here's the blurb:

 "Based on Labour Party files, including some never before publicly seen, this explosive investigation lays bare the intrigues, stratagems, and deceits that helped deliver Sir Keir Starmer to Downing Street. Paul Holden shows how Keir Starmer has been the frontman for a ruthless, right-wing political project headed by Morgan McSweeney, now chief of staff in Number 10 and arguably the most powerful man in Britain..... 

(His) machinations were made possible by financial donations that McSweeney did not disclose—a violation of the law that arguably subverted Britain’s democratic system....This is a sordid tale that includes hacked emails, anonymous smears, dodgy dossiers, cynical stitch-ups, and staggering hypocrisy. It traces the Labour Party’s transformation into a censorial, authoritarian machine, and sounds the alarm about the possible corruption of British politics by dark money."

The Times noted that "Those who question his authority inevitably find Starmer sides with McSweeney." According to Patrick Maguire and Gabriel Pogrund of The Times, "McSweeney and his acolytes saw themselves as insurgents within the Labour Party. As long as Starmer’s private office was functional, they could control the party’s politics themselves — without interference from small-minded Westminster villagers. They knew that Starmer’s real life — his true self — was not the work they shared with him. Their political project was predicated on this unpolitical leader doing as he was told."

As we've all noticed, Starmer is really not a leader. Nor is he at all popular. McSweeney was his puppet master, and, if he has really gone, who will give Starmer his instructions now? Not that the instructions were any good. Why did McSweeney want Mandy appointed as U.K. Ambassador to the States? Well, they have been chums for years. McSweeney was fully aware of Mandy's involvement with Epstein and thought that the connections Mandy had formed through Epstein would be useful. Starmer just did as he was told. McSweeney said the decision to appoint Lord Mandelson to the top diplomatic job was “wrong”, and said he took “full responsibility” for advising Sir Keir Starmer to go ahead.
But without his fixer, how long will Starmer survive?
Pity poor old Pat McFadden, wheeled out on the Laura Kuenssberg Show this morning, to staunchly declare that there was no point in Sacking McSweeney. Events have proven him wrong - clearly Starmer thought there was every point in having a Scapegoat handy.  Have you noticed how increasingly like a condemnatory bespectacled tortoise McFadden is becoming? 

He's only 60. Really. Honest, not invent. Must be  a hard life in the Labour Party.

If you needed any more proof, look no further than Brian Wilson (no, not the mad angel from the Beach Boys) the former Scottish Labour MP for Cunninghame North. Look at the state of him, as he appeared on the BBC's Scotland Sunday Show in his athleisure wear.

Right, okay, he never was a looker - see -

but now he looks like a resident on a day out from the dementia centre. The BBC had lured him onto the show to talk about the Mandy Scandy, and maybe he thought he could settle a few scores.

 For those of us without long political memories, Wilson was a trade minister under Mandelson in 1998. He got right into it, declaring that

 "warning signs" were not heeded in the decision to appoint Peter Mandelson as ambassador to the US,  "disregarding of subjective evidence" and he "certainly wouldn't have made him ambassador to Washington". Warming to his theme, Wilson said anyone from his "generation of government" would have warned against making Mandelson ambassador because of the "baggage he had accumulated".

Gary Robertson, clearly emboldened by Wilson calling Mandelson a baggage, decided to sneak in a parallel and attempted to interrogate Wilson, who is interim Celtic chairman, about the abuse scandal at Celtic Boys Club. In November 2016 dozens of former footballers revealed that they had been sexually abused as children. 

Former Celtic Boys Club manager James Torbett had been found guilty in 1998 of shameless and indecent conduct with three juvenile players between October 1967 and March 1974, when he was sacked, and imprisoned for 30 months. He then returned to the club and continued to abuse young boys in the 1980s and 90s, and was found guilty in 2018 of a further five offences against three boys and in 2023 of another four charges against a13-year-old.

Former Celtic Boys Club chairman Gerald King was convicted of five charges of using lewd and libidinous practises towards five victims between August 1984 and April 1989, and found guilty of taking indecent pictures of children in February 1987.

Frank Cairney, a former coach and manager, was found guilty of nine charges of sexual abuse in 2018, receiving a four-year jail sentence, and was due to stand trial on another three indecent assaults in January 2023 but was deemed unfit for trial. It was later determined by a judge that on the balance of probabilities there was no case to acquit him.

Jim McCafferty, a coach and kit man, admitted to 12 charges related to child sex abuse against 10 teenage boys between 1972 and 1996 in 2019. He had also worked with Hibs and Falkirk, and died in prison in 2022.

Last year the club settled 24 cases brought as part of a class action lawsuit by former youth players. 

Brian Wilson indignantly refuted any suggestion of a parallel between his club and the revelations of sexual abuse of female children by Epstein and his extensive circle of wealthy, powerful, male chums. Not Mandelson, obviously - as he said the other week on the Laura Kuenssberg Show "I'm a gay boi and didn't notice anything."

It was tense. I had hoped that Brian Wilson would rip off his mic and storm out of the studio. No such luck. He said: "I'm not going to talk about Celtic".

Gary Robertson then pushed a bit about the club's attempts to deny liability by arguing that the Boys Club was a separate entity and that it was therefore not liable.

Mr Wilson got tenser and went with the victim line: "I'm very happy to talk about societal issues, of course victims should always be taken seriously."

Sensing an opening, in jumped Gary and asked if that had always been the case at Celtic. Visibly agitated, Wilson responded: "Sorry, I think I was asked in here to talk about the Labour Party and Epstein. You'll only see the connection if you try to make it."

Well, yes. You won't see a connection if you refuse to see a connection. A bit like the Pakistani rape gangs preying on white girls in all our cities. If you don't look, you won't see it.

They are all giving lip service to the P.R. victim line - clearly imposed on politicians and royalty alike, even Prince Edward, who is, as far as we know, the least dishonourable of the Windsor Brothers. 

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.

Ishmaelites 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.

In the Royal Academy exhibition catalogue Hunt wrote that "the scene was painted at Sodom, on the margin of the salt-encrusted shallows of the Dead Sea. The mountains beyond are those of Edom."

You remember Sodom? One of the five Cities of the Plain. God sorted them out good and proper.

The Sunday Ishmael: 01/02/2026

 

Rabbits, Rabbits, Rabbits.

Well, saying "rabbits" is a lot less painful than: "a pinch and a punch for the first of the month" and has the advantage of being a solitary ritual, whereas the P&P requires one to find another person to assault, and may not end well, should charges be pressed. No good saying to the Magistrate "I'm just ensuring good luck for the rest of the month, Your Honour." 

Mandelson certainly is the gift that keeps on giving, n'est ce pas? 

Here he is in his tighty whiteys, consulting with a woman wearing a dressing gown. Just ambassadorial attire, in the privacy of one's home. As he said, he's a gay man, so never noticed any of the goings-on at Epstein's Island, or on the Lolita Express. And it was just nice of  Epstein to give Mandelson's husband, Reinaldo Avila da Silva, £10 grand to pay for an osteopathy course plus related expenses in 2009 when he emailed asking for money.  

Seriously? Is this how the rich carry on? Just handing out money should someone ask? Well, yes, the Epstein files also show two payments of $25,000 (£18,270)  to accounts under Mandelson’s name in June 2004. Mandelson, of course, has a history of approaching rich men and asking for money. There was that little business in 1996 when he asked Cabinet colleague, Geoffrey Robinson, to buy him a house, basically on the basis that Robinson had money and he didn't, and Robinson obliged with an unsecured, interest-free personal loan of £373,000, against a £475,000 house in Northumberland Place in Bayswater, which Mandelson failed to declare on his mortgage application to the Britannia Building Society for funds to cover the rest of the purchase price. Just that the form was too complicated for him, surely? He also forgot to declare it in the Register for Member's interests, and also hid it from the boss, Tony Blair, who called him Bobby.

Then there were the free holidays with dodgy, but wealthy, foreigners. His New Year's Eve holiday on Paul Allen's yacht in January 2005, for example. Paul Allen being the co-founder of Microsoft, who, at the time, was under a major E.U.  investigation. Mandelson was a European Commissioner at the time.  And the free cruise on a yacht in 2006 from Diego Della Valle, whose luxury shoe businesses subsequently benefitted from tariffs imposed on Chinese shoes by Mandelson as EU Trade Commissioner. 

Then there was the Rothschild party in 2008, which Mandelson attended while yachting near Corfu, with Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. Rothschild wrote a letter to The Times newspaper alleging that another guest was Conservative Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, our old friend Bukkake George*

who, he said, illicitly tried to solicit a donation from the Russian for his political party.

Mandelson had been chums for several years with Deripaska. As European Union Trade Commissioner, Mandelson had been responsible for two decisions to cut aluminium tariffs that had benefited Deripaska's United Company Rusal. Mandelson denied that there had been a conflict of interest and said that he had never discussed aluminium tariffs with Deripaska. On 26 October 2008, however,  the Shadow Foreign Secretary William (Miscarriages) Hague said the "whole country" wanted "transparency" about Mandelson's previous meetings with Deripaska. In response, Prime Minister Gordon Brown 

said Mandelson's dealings with Deripaska had been "found to be above board". Mandelson said that meeting business figures from "across the range" in emerging economies was part of his brief as EU Trade Commissioner.

It is said that scandals surrounding Conservative politicians tend to be about sex, whereas the scandals of Labour politicians are about money. 

How do they initiate these conversations? "Oh, hello, lovely to meet you, can I have some money/a new house/free holidays/new glasses?"

The Dark Baron Mandelson said he was very sorry for his connection with Epstein, which caused him yet another sacking. Really, the Labour lot must have a serious lack of talent to draw upon, to keep on reinstating Mandelson despite his evident cupidity and appalling judgement. Well, yes, they struggle to find anyone who can

sit straight, breathe and lie compellingly at the same time, so Mandelson, with his assured, well-bred televisual mien, self-confidence and gentle hauteur, is a giant among pigmies. 
 

The latest tranche of Epstein documents has one open-mouthed in admiration of Epstein's work ethic. My word, the boy really took his work as a Russian tool seriously, constantly on his email - wherever did he find the time to fit it all in? The "sources" say he's a deffo Russian asset although there is no documentary evidence linking Putin and his spies directly to Epstein's illicit activities. Don't let a total lack of evidence get in the way of speculation, though. The most hilarious in the cache includes an email claiming Bill Gates asked one of Epstein's advisers to provide antibiotics for him to secretly administer to his wife to surreptitiously treat sexually transmitted diseases he'd contracted due to 'sex with Russian girls'. This has been robustly denied. Of course.

But the "sources" also claim that while US security services 'monitored' Epstein's Russian connections for years, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service were hesitant due to Epstein's connection to King Charles III's younger brother, who, it seems from photographic evidence, was in the habit of giving tours of the royal palaces to his dodgy pimp, Epstein and his procuress, Ghislaine Maxwell, including allowing them to sit on the throne usually warmed by the royal posterior of Her Majesty, the QE2, God bless her.  

American "sources" believe Epstein was inducted into the world of espionage via business deals with Robert Maxwell, the disgraced media magnate who - like Epstein - died in murky circumstances; in Maxwell's case his body was found floating in the Atlantic in 1991, having apparently fallen overboard from his yacht.  

The whole thing is like a rather preposterous film. Starring Matt Damon. Kind of makes you glad you are not rich and aristocratic. I'm assuming here, Dear Reader, that you are not rich, aristocratic, sexually compromised or a Russian asset.

What else can be said about Andrew? The man's an oaf, a sex-addicted, gullible pillock, with his hand out for money more frequently than that of the Dark Baron. Is he, like his great uncle, Edward VIII, a traitor? Or just a useful fool? The more documents that are released, the more compromised he appears. The Democrats were just wanting to get compromising material on Trump - what they found, though, was enough, in a sensible world, to end the monarchy in Britain. The nonce-adjacent Windsor brothers are looking a tad under the weather.  

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

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.

Ishmaelites 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.

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

*Bukkake Udon

In the Japanese culinary world, bukkake means “to splash liquid upon.” It means the same thing in the porno world. Both will require slurping. Bukkake Udon contains thick wheat noodles served with a chilled broth made of dashi, soy sauce, mirin, and sugar. The noodles have a variety of toppings: ramen egg, pickled ginger, green onions, nori, fried garlic, bonito flakes, toasted sesame seeds, etc. The chilled broth is then poured over the noodles. You can look at it almost like a wet noodle salad.