What's the rant today, mrs ishmael?
Well, with some reluctance, I guess it has to be the election. Even though it is tedious as hell, with politicians attempting to score points and making unsustainable promises, on their obvious understanding that the voting public is brain dead and will vote for their own advantage however unfeasible the promises to give them £10 grand to buy a house, pay them to have babies, give them free child care, pay their energy bills, assist their old people to die neatly and provide new walk-in GP clinics for those that survive.
What, mrs ishmael? Where's this land, then, where the manna, milk and honey flow?
Scotland the Brave, of course. Where Brian Cox and Billy Connolly don't live. Every day more election leaflets are thrust into my letter box. One deluded SNP activist didn't run away fast enough when I saw him coming through my garden gate. As I flung open my door, he muttered, "just delivering election material, miss," before scuttling off before I could discuss independence with him and carefully explain that England won't pay the Barnet Formula block grant should Scotland secede from the United Kingdom. Coward.
I have here John Swinney's
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| Swinney&Sturgeon'14. |
election bumfluffery. He invites me to find out how NHS waiting times are coming down, and no, it isn't by killing the elderly and terminally ill, so be quiet at the back there. No, indeed, it is because the SNP has grown the NHS workforce by 20% since they came to office, back in 2007. Swinney has been a stalwart of the SNP forever, from way before he became a bald tortoise, back when he was young and beautiful, as you can see from his official portrait in 1999.
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| Swinney when he was 35. |
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —With a bald spot in the middle of my hair —
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.*
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| The first SNP Government, led by Salmond, seated next to Sturgeon. Rear left, Swinney. |
Those were the days, eh, John? Gilded youth. Before everybody was disgraced. Before the police came calling. Before the charges. Before the sex scandals. Before the embezzlement scandals. Before the campervan and the thistle jig of shit scandal.
Like Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, his country called and he stepped up to deal with the shit after the fan was dripping with it. Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus is known for his selfless leadership during a crisis when he was summoned to restore order after the Aequi threatened Rome. Cincinnatus, a patrician, returned to his farm after defeating the enemy in a single day.
Do you suppose Tortoise Swinney will return to his farm? No, me neither.
It is his turn now, you see.
Swinney, together with thousands of other political leaders - ok, it just seems like thousands as one yawns through interminable debates between this lot:
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| (Left to right, top row) First Minister and SNP leader John Swinney, Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay, Scottish Green Party co-leader Ross Greer. (Left to right bottom row) Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Alex Cole-Hamilton and Reform UK, Scotland leader Malcolm Offord, in Edinburgh, during the 2026 Scottish Election campaign. (Jane Barlow/PA) (PA Wire) |
Not hesitating for a moment, Ross Greer, Green Co-Leader and notable Ginge snapped back: "Fewer people like you."
Lord Offord is not noted for either subtlety, sensitivity or the ability to read a room. Crass, one could say, without fear of contradiction.
Lord Offord is not noted for either subtlety, sensitivity or the ability to read a room. Crass, one could say, without fear of contradiction.
In a Burns supper speech to a bowling club in 2018, Offord made a joke. He said: "Fadi Fawaz, George Michael’s partner at the time of his death, takes the late singer’s ashes to a curry house after his death. Fawaz asks the chef to make a curry with the ashes. When asked why, Fawaz replies: 'I want to feel him oozing out of my arse one last time.'"
So why is this monumental millionaire mountebank a Baron? Who fucking ennobled him? Look no further than Boris Johnson. Offord gave lots of money to the Conservative Party. That's how things are done in Britain. Networks, cronies, bribes donations. What? You thought it was a meritocracy? Ah, bless. Look at Mandelson's appointment. You don't think an advert was placed offering a vacancy of Ambassador to the United States? That C.V.s were submitted? That candidates were shortlisted and then interviewed? Maybe they had to do a Powerpoint presentation?
Anyway, Offord, realising he was going nowhere with the Tories, is now Farage's best friend and Leader of Reform in Scotland. Did money exchange hands?
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| All millionaires together. |
has been president of Russia - May 2000, by the way.
Survation's poll reckons that the SNP will net 61 of the 129 Holyrood seats - not a big majority, but if they form a coalition with the bat shit crazy Greens, as they did previously, then they'll have 71 and Swinney's day in the sun will have arrived again. No longer an attendant lord*, one that will do to swell a progress, Tortoise Swinney will continue in charge, god help us.
Latest Projection by Survation, 26/04/2026
SNP = 61
Labour = 21
Reform UK = 19
Conservative= 12
Greens = 10
Liberal Democrats = 6
* Extracted from The Lovesong of J.Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot.
Other elections are available this week. No doubt you'll have your own favourite.
Here's mr ishmael on Coalition Government.
We face a future of unelected national governments, alliances of worthless, thieving, tyrannical fuckpigs - career politicians. There is so little faith in political parties, so scant a likelihood of majority acclamation that whichever concocted tribe of thieves, child molesters, drunks and traitors can feign a majority will barge into power, claiming, as do the current shit-eaters, that the country actually elected them, even though, resoundingly, we didn't.
No-one elected a coalition; we need to remember that - because we are told daily that we did, as though millions of voters, acting in some telepathic conclave, elected just so many Conservatives and just so many LibDems, just enough of each to form our new-model government.
The obvious purpose of these new governments will be to further spread the almost global dominance of consumeriste totalitairianisme nouvelle, to promote, among those people who are neither corporatists or members of MediaMinster, a barren insatiability, to promote a sense of national values based on the acquisition of stuff; we see it already, the fathomless grievance of the i-phone addict, the poor wretch, trapped in his pathetic, digitised life, who knows that the next model will do so much more than the current one, and cannot postpone his purchase; the zombies who foregather in the TopGear studio, cheering and applauding cars which they will never even see close-up, much less own; the fashionistas, gasping for the latest atrocities, torture garments excreted from the demented, drug enfeebled minds of grotesque, women-hating fairies. And then there's the latest, franchised Hollywood blockbuster, the latest computer game, the latest album from whoever-it-is; there's the multiple branches of Cruelty TeeVee - your voice is shit, your house is shit, your cooking is shit, your general knowledge is shit, you are the shittiest link, fuck off and die; there's even, I believe, a show about your body and your face being shit, Embarrassing Bodies, isn't it?
Filthy bastards in MediaMinster promote divisions, black and brown against white, healthy against sick, young against old. Never, though, do they imperil the Great Divide, that between Rich and Poor.
And in this obscene digitised reality of hatred and dissatisfaction people are both tantalised and cudgelled by the property behemoth; look, you don't need proper wages, they are told - and they believe it - the price of your house is tripling every five minutes; we have made you millionaires.
Already, we are no longer citizens, with rights; instead, if we are not hard-working families, we fall into some enemy group within, some group which must be corralled, oppressed, our rights re-assessed by some poisonous, embittered rodent, worthless tosser, good for fuck all, too stupid, too up his own scabby arse to even lead the brainless braying reptilian Westminstairians.
No-one elected a coalition; we need to remember that - because we are told daily that we did, as though millions of voters, acting in some telepathic conclave, elected just so many Conservatives and just so many LibDems, just enough of each to form our new-model government.
The obvious purpose of these new governments will be to further spread the almost global dominance of consumeriste totalitairianisme nouvelle, to promote, among those people who are neither corporatists or members of MediaMinster, a barren insatiability, to promote a sense of national values based on the acquisition of stuff; we see it already, the fathomless grievance of the i-phone addict, the poor wretch, trapped in his pathetic, digitised life, who knows that the next model will do so much more than the current one, and cannot postpone his purchase; the zombies who foregather in the TopGear studio, cheering and applauding cars which they will never even see close-up, much less own; the fashionistas, gasping for the latest atrocities, torture garments excreted from the demented, drug enfeebled minds of grotesque, women-hating fairies. And then there's the latest, franchised Hollywood blockbuster, the latest computer game, the latest album from whoever-it-is; there's the multiple branches of Cruelty TeeVee - your voice is shit, your house is shit, your cooking is shit, your general knowledge is shit, you are the shittiest link, fuck off and die; there's even, I believe, a show about your body and your face being shit, Embarrassing Bodies, isn't it?
Filthy bastards in MediaMinster promote divisions, black and brown against white, healthy against sick, young against old. Never, though, do they imperil the Great Divide, that between Rich and Poor.
And in this obscene digitised reality of hatred and dissatisfaction people are both tantalised and cudgelled by the property behemoth; look, you don't need proper wages, they are told - and they believe it - the price of your house is tripling every five minutes; we have made you millionaires.
Already, we are no longer citizens, with rights; instead, if we are not hard-working families, we fall into some enemy group within, some group which must be corralled, oppressed, our rights re-assessed by some poisonous, embittered rodent, worthless tosser, good for fuck all, too stupid, too up his own scabby arse to even lead the brainless braying reptilian Westminstairians.
And lets join the nasty Baron Offord in discussing George Michael - again, here's mr ishmael:
SHOWBIZ NEWS,
HAS-BEEN ARRESTED AGAIN.
BLOW INTO WHAT, OFFICER?
The Wham star and toilet-creeping, volunteer hand-jobber has crashed his car again, off his head, presumably, on drink, other drugs and narcissism.
But that's Greek-Cypriots for you, always attention-seeking, if they're not smashing-up the dinner service the men're dancing with each other to that awful bazooka music and stuffing each others' olives; George Michael, Archbishop Makarios, Telly Savalas, they're all the same. Now that he doesn't sell any records of himself warbling and panting, George should set up in a nice kebabshop, with a nice wife, with a nice moustache. People who eat kebabs are all gay anyway, so there'd be lots of opportunities for him to sneak into the loo with a customer and give him a complimentary Jay Arthuropolis, whilst the Mrs was doing that YouWanChilyanLemon? thing, slicing the meat up with a huge shiny carving knife, bits of compressed lips and eyelids and foreskins, all spiced-up and half-cooked on a rotating Bunsen burner, fucking savages, humming along with Nana Moustache, singing the White Rose of Athens. That only gives people the runs, le posterieur flambee; driving around off his vain, stupid, pansying head, like this, the self-obsessed arsehole'll kill somebody.
No business like showbusiness.
George Papadopolopolous,
I suffer for my Art.
Cunt.
George Michael (born Georgios Kyriakos Panayiotou; 25 June 1963 – 25 December 2016) was an English singer-songwriter and record producer. In the early hours of Christmas Day 2016, Michael died in bed at his home in Goring-on-Thames, at the age of 53. He was found by his partner, Fadi Fawaz. In March 2017, a senior coroner in Oxfordshire attributed Michael's death to natural causes due to dilated cardiomyopathy with myocarditis and fatty liver disease.
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.
Question: Do you consider yourself a country artist primarily now? Or is this a detour?
Ringo Starr: Right now, that's all I am is a country artist. I think just “artist” is enough, you know? We play pop, we play rock, and we got back very strongly into country because of T Bone.
