Evensong: Diamonds on the soles of her shoes

 Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Paul Simon from the Graceland African concert.

 

This just flitted into my mind, so I had to post it for anyone who hasn't seen the amazing, incredible Ladysmith, but please do continue with your crossword club. 

Talk about the engineer hoist with his own petard; mr mongoose handed it to mr verge, the house anagram maestro, with his 'Mixture the Spanish girl spread is backwards.' (7) and now we have mr mike inviting the lieges to lift their spirits with his:
 

Exhortation to succeed in blue at the coast. (10)

The Sunday Ishmael 5/9/21

Strawberry picking whilst lying prone in a solar-powered picking assistant machine.

 

In the United Kingdom in the three months leading up to June 2021 there were approximately 530 thousand unemployed people in the age range 16 to 24, 321 thousand in the age range 25 to 34 and 404 thousand in the 35 to 49 age group. That's  a total of 1,255 thousand unemployed people aged under 50.

The Road Haulage Association says there is a shortage of about 60,000 lorry drivers.

Fruit and vegetable growers are reporting a 30% shortfall in labour to harvest crops.

At Tesco today, the only frozen green vegetables in the cabinets were packs of brussel sprouts. Honest, not invent. No peas, no beans, no spinach, no mixed veg.

The reasons given for the shortage of labour, goods undelivered, crops rotting in the fields, empty shelves in the supermarkets; tend to cluster around the dastardly consequences of Brexit, with a dollop of Covid on the side.  Basically, Europeans either can't or don't want to come to Britain to do the shit jobs for shit wages. British people don't want to do the shit jobs for shit wages, although the statistics in the first paragraph kind of demonstrate that there are Britons who might be available to do jobs with decent terms, conditions and pay, should the employers in the shit industries put their hands in their pockets to make these jobs more attractive to folk who rely on the subsistence-level income that the State provides through its complex welfare systems designed to prevent people from starving, but not to be so comfortable that they happily embrace remaining unemployed as a long-term strategy. Those employers will have to pass on increased labour costs to consumers. That's right and proper. Why should food be cheap? I was reading that the average adult woman in Britain spends £25 per week to feed herself and a further £13 on takeaways and restaurants. How is any of that possible? Or desirable? My supermarket bill is around four times that average spend - okay, it includes wine, toiletries, cleaning materials, dog food, magazines and newspapers, but still - and I have top-ups in the week, when Harris eats all his chicken up or I run out of Earl Grey and butter, like today, when a supermarket run was necessary in case I needed some buttered Earl Grey, and thought a pack of frozen peas would be a good idea, only to discover there were only Brussel sprouts or, weirdly, diced onions, available. Should I go to my favourite restaurant in Kirkwall and ask to see the £13 menu, short shrift would be my lot, and even the Best A1 Orkney Turkish Kebab shop charges £13.90 for a Doner Kebab. 

Something is terribly wrong and the fix will not be easy because it seems that poor people from horse and cart economies are no longer able or willing to cross Europe to take our rubbish jobs at rubbish wages. Blair led the nation into believing that a University education was the right of every young person and that it would automatically lead to high income, middle class jobs. Instead,  our ridiculous young people have been educated in ridiculous sit-on-your-arse studies and taught to despise trade skills and manual labour, whilst waiting for their parents to die so that the small fortune locked up in the parental home will become theirs, in the "wealth trickling down the generations" philosophy extolled by Margaret Thatcher, when she released the nation's stock of council houses to be bought by their tenants, thus creating a new property-owning class to vote Conservative. Bo-Jo the Ho-Ho is toying with appeasing property owners by assuring them that they won't have to sell their homes to pay for their care home fees. The beneficiaries of this munificence aren't the property owners, who won't be returning to their owner-occupied homes once the doors of the care home have closed upon them, but their adult children, who don't like to see the value of their inheritance reduced by the costs of the old dear's care - which is very expensive, and, indeed should be - think hotel costs plus 24/7 care, plus personal care, plus training costs. But tell me why the tax payer should bear those costs rather than the recipient of the care?

 

Scotland is consulting on its plans to set up a National Care system, following the Review of Adult Social Care. The 135 page document, available here, A National Care Service for Scotland: consultation - gov.scot (www.gov.scot) if you are interested, has a breath-takingly wide remit and never once mentions the issue of protecting wealthy people from selling their houses to fund their care home costs. Although it does pose the consultation question: "Most people have to pay towards the costs of where they live, such as mortgage payments or rent, property maintenance, food and utility bills. To ensure fairness between those who live in residential care and those who do not, should self-funding care home residents have to contribute towards accommodation costs?"  That's a key question. Personal care in Scotland is free.

The proposed Scottish National Care Service will mirror the National Health Service and cover social work, social care, nursing and allied health professionals. It's operating principle will be Getting It Right for Everyone (GIRFE) and the consultation is on cradle-to-grave stuff, joining up of services, training and regulation. Justice Social Work will sit in there, alongside Early Years, Mental Health, residential and supported care for the elderly, those with learning disabilities, acquired brain injury, physical disability - as I said, the remit is breathtaking. The National Care Service will provide care and support to everyone at some point in their life journey.

Scotland. Best Part of England. Did you note that prisons are seen as residential care in Scotland, that Community Justice falls within Social Work, not some special branch of Lets Be Particularly Horrid to Offenders, Cos That's Bound to Cure Them, as  in England, where the Probation Service has been the football kicked by various Home Secretaries into dirtier and more punitive ditches over the years. Someone should read the Consultation to Boris, as he mulls over how he is going to wring most votes out of the English care home disaster by appeasing his conservative constituency by allowing them to hang onto their homes and savings after they no longer have any personal use for them. Whilst fulfilling his election promise not to increase taxes.

 Of course, the other solution is to have an official cut-off date for life - remember the Life-Timers in Logan's Run? And the ceremonial extinguishing of life once you'd run out of time?

 

Young Liam McArthur, MSP for Orkney, is pushing an Assisted Dying Bill through Holyrood, to legalise assisted suicide for the terminally ill in Scotland. It is well received. Back in 2014, Lord Falconer introduced an Assisted Dying Bill, which initially went well, but seems to have petered out. Here's mr ishmael's thoughts on the matter:

WHAT THE PAPERS SAY, THE FILTH-O-GRAPH. IS THIS THE REAL LIFE?

 

Heart-pummeling stuff, this story, about two elderly cousins.       They had lived together and supported each other  these forty years;  now, aged 84, they were terrified that her injury and his illness would mean them being sent to different care homes and so they called LifeBusters, in Switzerland, who came for them and facilitated their hand-in-hand death.

Euthanasiabuggers are hailing this as wonderful, others as dreadful. I am with the dreadfullers. I hate that worthless Blairite shit, Charlie Falconer and am incensed that merely by dint of his friendship or worse with Tony and Imelda Scum  he is in a lordly position to urge death upon the weary, in their own interests, which is what he is doing. A bill bearing his name is going through the motions presently.

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

 

And in other news, there are yet more revelations about what the men in lacy frocks, that is, the clergy, otherwise known as Horrible Fucking Bastards, have been up to with the children to which they have been given access by their fond and foolish parents, who, presumably, themselves believe the preposterous mythologies of this Stone Age religion. Church is so entwined with State and Establishment that it is astonishing that we are being allowed to learn of their feet (and other body parts) of clay. Here's an invigorating rant by mr ishmael:

LOVE LIFT US UP WHERE WE BELONG - 9/11/2015

It is another form of DeadPigFucking, bowing one's knee to  whichever rancid, degenerate parasite occupies the Glorious Ruritanian Throne, the seat of a Thousand-Year Banana Republic.  Sadists, misogynists, drug addicts, child molesters, Nazis, blackmailers, sluts, traitors, ponces  and thieves. And that's just in my lifetime.

Queen-bowing is a ritualised self-degradation, a kowtowing abasement in which far too many are happy to indulge, in  hope of being granted Inclusion. Quite why anyone in possession of their reason would wish to be included in the doings of the British monarchy will be forever a mystery to me, a more filthy bunch of outlaws from Decency is difficult to imagine, yet thousands piss themselves in delight at the thought of an MBE or a knighthood, bestowed on them by this mean, grubby old woman, or her meaner, grubbier son, or his gormless, nincompoop son.

Only the other week, it emerged that Jimmy Savile's acolyte, Prince Brian, had compensated a beasting bishop for his troubles by giving him one of our houses on one of our estates, there to fulminate over the impertinence of his teenaged accusers. Oh, I am all for hating the sin whilst loving the sinner, somebody must or we should all be lost  but we must care, also, for the children buggered and beaten by those set above us  and I don't recall Brian and his tribe of ugly, inbred retards throwing open the palaces to those whose lives are wrecked by peers, bishops, parliamentarians and princes, any number of whom seem to be welcomed, historically and currently,  into royalty's charmed circle of depravity. 

Oh but, mr ishmael, he does so much for charity, even has his own, just to help young people.  Yes, the Prince's Trust, The Prince's Trust, Brian's own charity, an interminable PR scam, providing him with an opportunity to manage the charges against him that he is an idle, not-very-bright, poncing, cock-waving  elderly slob, trapped in an endlessly protracted adolescence, a stupefyingly boneheaded liegeman of the woman he would most love to see dead, while providing all sorts of business and showbiz filth, from Status Quo to well, anybody, really,  any smirking Rotarian, with the chance to hoist  their own charitable colours, as if they had a charitable bone in their  diseased bodies. Couldn't put a pound in the poor box without announcing it from the stage of the London Palladium, people like Jimmy Tarbuck and Bob Geldof.  Not that their sort actually put their hands in their pockets, which are sewn-up, usually, they give  their  oh, so precious time.  Worth so much more than mere money.
The Prince and the Filthsters, two cheeks of Charity's scabby arse.


....I wonder what ordinary French people would make of the heir to the British throne and his charming younger brother being friend and confidante to such high profile child abusers; off with his fucking head, probably. And I think that it is actually quite kind of them to allow we frankly mediaeval, superstitious barbarians to have joined their Common Market. Had I been Georges or Helmut I'd have said, On your bike, lads, 'til you've had a proper revolution.

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

 

Last week's cryptic crossword clue was: 

We picketed dim strike-breaker here for golden wino. (3,6)

 Solution:  Cow Corner

 Here's the explanation from mr verge: "we picketed dim" is an anagram of deep mid-wicket. The answer - cow corner - is a fielding position between deep mid-wicket and wide long-on; "golden wino" being an anagram of wide long-on.

He had hoped this would be in messrs mongoose and mike's  field of interest, but it was clearly jolly difficult.

 

mr ishmael's essays today are:

What the Papers say, the Filthograph. Is this the real life?     drafted 5/9/2015

Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong                                drafted 9th November 2015

Both anthologies of the work  of mr ishmael and Stanislav :  Honest Not Invent and Vent Stack - are available to purchase for mere money at Lulu or Amazon. It is cheaper to buy from Lulu. Register an account with Lulu to save a couple of quid, as going straight into the link provided below seems to make paypal think it's ok to charge in dollars, and apply their own conversion rate, which will put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow our link; a pop-up box asks for age confirmation - simply set the date to (say) 1 January 1960, and proceed. (If you type the title, the anthology will not appear as a search result until the "show explicit content" box - found at the bottom left by scrolling down - has been checked.  You may also see the age verification box, as above, at this point.) 

 The full title is "Vent Stack love from stanislav" by ishmael smith, and the cover you'll see is red with white titles and a picture of Buster the Previous Blog Dog having a green thought in a green shade. 

Link for the paperback:

 https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ishmael-smith/vent-stack/paperback/product-q8jzk2.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Or...

shorter link, which might make it easier if you wish to paste it into an email and tell a friend:

 https://tinyurl.com/naajavmu

 Honest, Not Invent is available in paperback or hardback.

Link for Hard Back : 

https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ishmael-smith/honest-not-invent/hardcover/product-njr7vg.html

Link for Paper Back : 

https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ishmael-smith/honest-not-invent/paperback/product-wq2kpg.html

At checkout, try PROWRITINGAID15, WELCOME15 or TREAT15 in the coupon box, which  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, the book (including delivery to a UK address) should cost £10.89

 

 

Utter Fucking Bastards

 

The Sunday Ishmael 29/08/21

 

This week, Scotland recorded the highest number of daily Covid cases since the pandemic began - 6,835 infections. The overall rate of new cases is 431.5 per 100,000. Sturgeon  conceded that this constitutes "cause for concern". Scotland's schools  returned after the summer holidays, weeks earlier than in England, and that seems to be the accepted reason for the increase in  cases - nothing to do with sports addiction, travelandtourism, or cruise liners the size of skyscrapers nosing around Scottish waters. 

The Scottish Liberal Democrats have a new leader, Alex Cole-Hamilton, who got the job because he was the only one of them who wanted it, obviously never having heard the phrase "poisoned Chalice".

There's four of them, all crackling with talent, according to ACH, who makes up in enthusiasm for what he lacks in realism. He has found a place on his front bench for Willie Rennie, the former leader, as education spokesman - well, he had to, or there would have been only three of them sharing that bench. Willie 

gave up the top job after he took the LibDem holding in Holyrood   from five to four. The education job was Beatrice Wishart's, who now gets rural affairs and connectivity - well, she's from Shetland, which is a very, very long way away, so far away that it is mind bogglingly distant. And then there's wee Liam, Orkney's finest, who gets to keep his job as justice spokesman and will also be allowed to speak about the climate. Beatrice and Liam, of course, have to commute by aeroplane, otherwise they would spend all their time driving to meetings only to turn around and drive back again, and their contribution to said meetings is, of course, indispensable. ACH will continue to speak on health issues, which he did before becoming leader, and will also be the LibDem's spokesman on the constitution and external affairs. And that's about as far as the four of them can stretch themselves. 

ACH. said he'd had "a busy first week as leader in which I have challenged the Government over their wafer-thin commitment to helping the NHS recover from the pandemic and pushed for a comprehensive Covid inquiry" and assured us that the four of them are:
“crackling with talent and ideas” to inspire voters. 

One on-line commentator was less than reassured. On the 27th August he said: "Comedy gold at it's best. These guys should have their own show. Crackling with talent. And wee Willie gets education? No harm to him but he is an idiot. Cole-Hamilton is a malevolent idiot.When is the inquiry being held into leaks from the Harassment inquiry?"

We might also wonder about the missing £600,000, raised by nationalists to fund an illegal referendum. Apparently, according to the Eye, if individual contributors go to the police, they are quietly being reimbursed their donation from the general fund. Hmmm.

 The BBC has re-arranged matters geographical and political, solving the Scottish and the Northern Irish question in one fell blunder. On the 20th August, during the 5:00pm headlines on Radio Four's P.M. programme, the news-reader announced: “The SNP and the Green party have finalised a power-sharing deal at Stormont which includes commitment to hold a new referendum on Scottish independence in the next five years. In return, two Green MSPs will be appointed junior ministers in Nicola Sturgeon’s government."

Parliament Buildings, Stormont, Belfast

So the dastardly Greens have snuck themselves into a power-sharing agreement. Here they are: the Smug Three:

 Nicola and the two Green co-leaders, Patrick and Lorna. That's right. Two of them. One of each. How outrageous, I hear you cry. That's shocking. No-Platform them. 

What, no trans? Are there no trans politicians? No trans Greens?  Shon Faye, author of The Transgender Issue, tells us that there are between 200,000 and 500,000 transgender people in the UK - between 0.3% and 0.75% of the population (that sounds like a made-up figure to me - reminiscent of Professor Ferguson's wild variable  of between 100,000 to 200,000 Covid infections if we don't do as we are told). Anyway, it is less than 1% and they seem to have changed academic, intellectual and political life as we used to know it - in other words, they have made an awful lot of noise. But no Green transpoliticians to stand on a crowded platform with Nicola, shrouded - oops - draped with the Saltyre?  Well, make one, then - preferably two. One of each. Immediately. 

Whilst we are discussing Scotland, here's another jolly instance of Local People Doing Local Things:

Should you be walking along, minding your own business and you become aware of a hellish cacophony of drums, screams and hooters, it is best to avoid the flat-bed truck cruising the streets of Kirkwall, bearing filthy, stinking and drunken persons to a rendezvous with the Merkit Cross, 

to which one of their number is tied, in order to  be pelted with more disgusting stuff of a disgusting nature, before being released, thrown back on the truck and conveyed to the harbour, where the whole party is tipped into the black, oily and freezing water. Great quantities of alcohol are consumed on the truck.

Wiki tells me that the Blackening is a traditional wedding custom performed shortly before a marriage in rural areas of Scotland and Northern Ireland. The bride or groom is captured by their friends, covered in food, treacle and other substances of a smelly and adhesive nature then paraded for the community to see, driven in the back of a truck, accompanied by the banging of pots and pans. I was told that the idea is to show the community that the bride or groom is about to be married and is therefore no longer available. Derision and scorn was poured all over me - a bit like the treacle and urine poured over the groom, when I suggested that surely this, if anything, is a breach of the peace? Breach of the Peace in Scotland is defined as any behaviour likely to put the lieges into a state of fear, alarm, annoyance or upset. Not so, mrs ishmael, you wimp, it is a happy Local Custom. The most famous occurrence, apparently, was performed on Melanie Richmond, who was covered in tripe, pigs blood and feathers before being marched from Elgin to Aberdeen over the course of five days. It has been known for a bride to struggle down the aisle of St Magnus Cathedral in full wedding dress, supported on crutches, having broken a limb falling from the truck into the harbour.

 

I'm not going to discuss the god-awful Kabul Airlift. I'm sure there will soon be lots of films and Gunny Sergeant Leroy  Jethro Gibbs will be revived to be laconically heroic.

 Pen Farthing's fight to get his 173 rescued cats and dogs out of Kabul has been heart-rending. The Sunday Times, quoting some utter fucking bastard - sorry, senior Whitehall official; predicted that DEFRA will euthanise them, saying that "it will be Geronimo the Alpaca on speed". I'm hoping that former marine Paul Farthing will be better able to protect his animals than has Helen Macdonald, Geronimo's mum. Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has involved himself, greatly to his discredit. The Sunday Times published a message to Wallace's SPAD, Peter Quentin, from Pen Farthing, saying he would "spend the rest of my time fucking destroying you on social media and every other fucking platform I can find." 

 

Here's Stanislav on matters dietary, Islamic and Monarchical:

 

Grand Old Duke of York, Special Representative for International Trade, visits the Middle East  drafted 2/12/2010

 

 Is not bloody job of idle, golfing prince of pork bloated-up  fucking layabout to argue toss with bloke from Serious fucking Office of  Frauds. Useless prat is out there  to sell JCB tractor and Mars bar and pork pie from Melton Mowbray, only maybe not pork pie, not to angry muslem  bastard - is all fucking angrybastard, innit, muslem bloke, every young muslem bloke stanislav ever meet is like that bloke off seven-seven video, shouty, finger-pointing bastard, need punch in fucking gob and quick rub-down with house brick, is a bit like Jock really, is both cross-dressing, wife-beating degenerate, only Ahmed at least not ginger is -  with bad temper and big sword for head-chopping from English infidel, even if pretend prince is only German and Greek misbegotten inbred fucking  parasite and not proper English bloke in first place, best  forget pork pie and try flogging Gynster Pie and Pasty and Steak Slice, is all bloody rubbish, full up of testicle and foreskin and lips and sawdust and white pepper stuffed in sweepings-up from floor in pastry factory, stroll fucking on, eh, English bloke will eat any old fucking rubbish from garage;  sandwich made in West Bromwich sandwich factory and supply every fucking garage in country with sopping wet sandwich full of mayofuckinaise and extruded fucking chicken rubbish, not even fit for dog,  or maybe  condemned prawn caught around fucking sewer outlets in Irish fucking Sea and good for fuck all is only as fucking fertiliser and is three pounds fucking fifty for this shit, or four,  all made by  members of West Bromwich Asian community with red dot on forehead and spit on every fucking thing and probably diarrhoea has from eating fucking vindaloo curry four times a fucking day and never washing hands but just go in staff toilet next to refrigerator door and spray thin hot brown shitliquid all round toilet bowl and wipe arse with hand - only not eating hand - come out and shove manky sandwich in plastic fucking triangle  for helping fucking bugs breed and get off to head start in stanislav guts with salmofuckinella or some shit like that, load up in bread trays and send all around the country in fleet of  dirty, shitty Transit van for busy executive in Audi to buy in garage and eat in car, listening to Radio fucking Two with Steve Wright:  And now is Bruce Springsteen singing about his baby, in his car, and both poor is but Thank God, they is both Merkins, same song, nearly forty fucking year, is worse than Elton fucking John. No, really, is no shit, Mrs Elton is just ridiculous, fat old poof and  needs piano slamming down on pudgy little fingers and shut bastard up to fuck and happy world get fucking break from Rocket Man and have good few punches in gob, too, and send home to husband on stretcher, Oh shriek, my darling husband, I mean wife, Elton, Oh,  shriek, shriek, I was just showing this young male model the view of our bedroom ceiling, honestly, no, no, he has his cock out because he has a rare medical condition and has to get it out in the air every few minutes.  Otherwise it catches fire,  or something. Oh shriek, shriek, can I get you anything, some cocaine maybe, a bottle or Remy or two.  I know, I am an independent film maker, why don't I make an independent film about you and your recovery?  Oh,  shriek.  Shriek fucking shriek!

 Probably no market in desert is for Gynster West Bromwich Mechanically Reclaimed Meat Pasty and Condemn Prawn with Mayo and dockleaf  sandwich  but hooknose, evil-looking raghead Sheikbastard could feed to English loverboys and girls, instead of caviar and champagne and sheep's  eyeball,  all wash down with cocaine  up nose or maybe up in Jacksie, off gold-plated Cartier bumstraw; Jesus fucking wept, is savage, innit?

 

 

 RUN AND GET THE FIRE BRIGADE. POLITICIANS ON HOLIDAY. 7/8/2011

Interviewed on skymadeupnewsandfilth, Tottenham MP, Mr David Buffoon,  NewLabour, said it was all unacceptable, totally unacceptable, that he was being made to look like an utter cunt before the world's media. As usual, blustered the useless bastard, it is a majority of people who think I'm a cunt, and the great minority who voted for me and my fellow MPs must have its voice heard. If there is one thing I would say to the people made homeless by these totally unacceptable events it would be Vote for Me, you can be sure that I will hear your concerns and do nothing about them.

Elsewhere in London, the Mayor, Mr BoJo, could not be found, despite a search being made of whorehouses and coke parlours but a statement issued from his office said that the Mayor would find it absolutely unacceptable, all this shit, rioting and stuff, hadn't he single-handedly secured freebikes4all, yes, and the Olympics, what would all the foreigners think of this shit.  I do think that although he has done a fine job that Sir Paul Gob, the Police Commissioner, should consider his position....

What, the blighter's already gone ????   Well his deputy should go, then. Not a moment too soon.  

What???? He's gone too???? Well, some sergeants, they should go.  The policing of the capitol is a very important matter and not to be left to some coked-up,  cock-waving nincompoop.  And another thing, this is all the work of a criminal minority,  bent on undermining the blah-blah-blah...you all know what I'm saying, help me out here........gosh, I hear they've been looting shops, don't these people have trust funds for their shopping? Anyway, once my holiday is over you can all be assured that I will give this matter my fullest whatchamaycallit, remember my Bullingdon Club motto,  cogito ergo dumb,  I think but I am an idiot.  Not to worry, what, just a handful of wogs playing up, a few water cannon'll sort the buggers out. And hopefully people will see my handling of this great city as an example of how I would rule as Prime Bully, I mean minister. Rotten appointments, rotten  police resigning left right and centre and the place up in fucking smoke and me nowhere to be seen.Vote4Boris, what?

A statement from the unelected prime minister's holiday location said that Mr CallHimDave  was keeping in close touch with events in wherever it was, some slum in North London.  This is exactly why I have a cabinet of millionaires, said the worthless, jumped-up fuckpig  and former PR man, to reflect the concerns of the ordinary rioting Briton who hasn't a pot to piss in and my govament taking away what little support there is is a sign of our very great concern that rich people must, simply must, there's no two ways about this, mr deputy speaker, rich people must have more money.

And if the whole fucking country goes up in smoke - only not Chipping Norton or Chequers, obviously - then it will all be as a result of thirteen years of  Labour misrule and nothing to do with me. I must say it's a bit rich that the former prime minister has not come to the House to take responsibility for all my fuck ups but at least the people of Britain will know  that I am doing everything I can to condemn this stuff as being totally unacceptable in a modern democratic police state. And to all the people who have lost their homes and businesses I simply say a heartfelt shutthefuckup, you're just the first of many.

Here on skymadeupnewsandfilth we will be following this story and if possible fomenting more riots up and down the land as part of our attempts to draw the line under all this Murdoch shit. I'm Kay Burley. Stay tuned or I'll bite your face off.

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

 

The Sunday Ishmael Cryptic Crossword Clue, courtesy of mr verge -

 

We picketed dim strike-breaker here for golden wino. (3,6)

 

 

stanislav and mr ishmael's essays today are:

Is not bloody job of idle, golfing prince of pork               drafted 2/12/10

Run and Get the Fire Brigade. Politicians on Holiday    drafted 7/8/2011 

Both anthologies of the work  of mr ishmael and Stanislav :  Honest Not Invent and Vent Stack - are available to purchase for mere money at Lulu or Amazon. It is cheaper to buy from Lulu. Register an account with Lulu to save a couple of quid, as going straight into the link provided below seems to make paypal think it's ok to charge in dollars, and apply their own conversion rate, which will put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow our link; a pop-up box asks for age confirmation - simply set the date to (say) 1 January 1960, and proceed. (If you type the title, the anthology will not appear as a search result until the "show explicit content" box - found at the bottom left by scrolling down - has been checked.  You may also see the age verification box, as above, at this point.) 

 The full title is "Vent Stack love from stanislav" by ishmael smith, and the cover you'll see is red with white titles and a picture of Buster the Previous Blog Dog having a green thought in a green shade. 

Link for the paperback:

 https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ishmael-smith/vent-stack/paperback/product-q8jzk2.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Or...

shorter link, which might make it easier if you wish to paste it into an email and tell a friend:

 https://tinyurl.com/naajavmu

 Honest, Not Invent is available in paperback or hardback.

Link for Hard Back : 

https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ishmael-smith/honest-not-invent/hardcover/product-njr7vg.html

Link for Paper Back : 

https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ishmael-smith/honest-not-invent/paperback/product-wq2kpg.html

At checkout, try PROWRITINGAID15, WELCOME15 or TREAT15 in the coupon box, which  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, the book (including delivery to a UK address) should cost £10.89

The Sunday Ishmael 22/08/21

 Master of War

 

PeepleovBritain, the best thing, the very best thing, is that the Nato allies stay in Afghanistan. 

 
Britain has a moral obligation to stay in occupation. 

 

To protect everyone.

 
I say to you that the decision to withdraw from Afghanistan was driven not by grand strategy 

 

But by politics. 

We didn't need to do it.

We chose to do it.

In obedience to an imbecilic political slogan about ending "the forever wars".

   

 Tony Blair: Why We Must Not Abandon the People of Afghanistan – For Their Sakes and Ours | Institute for Global Change

Blair's financial assets are structured in such a complex manner that it is difficult to estimate exactly how wealthy he is, following his stint as Prime Minister, Master of War and subsequent endeavours. He said, back in 2014, that he was worth less than £20million, however an assertion in 2015 by Beckett, Hencke and Kochan was that Blair had acquired $90 million and a property portfolio worth $37.5million in the eight years since he had left office. God knows how much he is worth now.

 When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
  An' go to your Gawd like a soldier. 

 

Extract from : The Young British Soldier (1895) by Rudyard Kipling, written during the Second Afghan War, which resulted in 2,500 British deaths between 1878 and 1880. 

Hat tip to mr verge for bringing it to attention.

 

In 2009, during the Afghan War just concluded with the withdrawal of the US and UK troops,  an anonymous British squaddy fighting in the hellish Afghan conditions, wrote his pastiche on Kipling's Afghan protest:

 

 

Here's mr ishmael's thoughts on the War, in this extract from:

Remembrance Day Blues. B-y-y-y-y the left, quick Murder  9th November 2013.  

 

What, pray, the fuck are we doing in Afghanistan, except aiding a bandit puppet regime and shoring-up the CIA's drug operations? This isn't world war in the defence of Freedom, this is fuckery, globalisation and imperialism, greed for oil and gas dressed-up as women's liberation Asiatique, as if the revolting old fairy, Gordon Snot gives a fuck about Afghani girls going to school, and as if it's any of his fucking business, ChristAlfuckingMighty didn't he make a big enough bollocks of things here, without exporting his clapped-out moral compass to the alien and unconquerable Old Silk Road. What, exactly, has this occupation achieved, other than fuck all?

Hardly surprising, then, that fighting a wholly pointless and disreputable war of occupation turns its practitioners into bigger arseholes than they already were; already lacklustre bullies transformed into repugnant, homicidal lunatics; comrades not in arms but in crime, shooting defenceless, wounded men. It truly is fucking awful, British foreign policy.

And in the following draft, Mariners 12/7/11, mr ishmael fires a round of fucks on the complicity of the Royal Family in the Afghan War (2001 - 2021)

Mariners, water-skiers, cockle-gatherers and plucky, disabled transatlantic rowers were all breathing a sigh of relief today as the Irish Sea re-opened for business. The waterway has been closed in the absence of Principal Rescue Pilot, His Serene Highness Prince William Gormless who has been holidaying in North America with his bride, Miss Kate Middleton, although not with her sister, the Honourable Miss Pipper Arse who has been detained in the family mail-order business, selling chocolate helicopters to braindead customers. Not since Wills’s Aunt, Bent Fergie, wrote her famous stories about whirlybirds, has there been such a demand for chocolate choppers, giggled Miss Arse, on the front page of the Daily Filth-O-Graph.

Duke Wills, described by his friend, the honourable Mr Hooray Henry, as just a brilliant pilot, wicked, OK, has been in the States meeting with the cream of Hollywood’s prostitutes, drug-addicts and posturing egomaniacs; superstar arsehole Mr Tom Wanks said he was thrilled to meet a real Royal. Not since I saved Private Ryan from the battlefields of Normandy, even if it cost me my own life, has it felt so good to be alive; just to be in the same room as a Prince is almost better than money. Vintage babe Miss Sharon Stain said that his Royal Highness could fly his chopper up her windy valley anytime, while pint-sized tough guy Mr Len Bigsom marred the event somewhat by yelling These Limey Royals, they’re all fucking Jews, ain’t they, bring that Prince Hymie on and I’ll kick his ass. I’ll teach him to fuck about with freeborn Scotch Aust-ralicans, like me, boomed the woady nutter as he was led away by security. Famous Hampstead Heath cruiser, Mr Curvin Space said that in all my time looking for rough sex with strangers in London’s bushes I have never had His Highness’s knob in my mouth, although I might have had his Dad’s. Clarence House later issued a firm denial that Prince Charles had buggered his servants and even if he had they were obviously mental patients or alcoholics and making it all up, especially about His Majesty flogging off gifts sent him by members of the public and not paying any tax; that was definitely wrong, but had all been forgotten about anyway. The Prince of Wales’s friend and personal spokesman, Steven Fag, said, My Dears, it is simply outrageous to suggest that Prince Gormless and his most charming doxy, Miss Wotsername, are anything other than wonderful ambassadors for our country, rather like myself; have you tried one of these sperm canapés, they really are most delicious, provided by young Puerto Ricans, if I’m not mistaken. (Ever fancied a career in PR, yourself, darling?)

The PBC correspondents, Jayne Tits and Martin Gob, have been endlessly rehashing that old tripe about Holywood Royalty being in awe of True British Royalty, just like their predecessors with the cockmad Duchess of Windsor, the cockmad Princess Margaret, the browncockmad Princess Diana and Christ knows how many other royal slappers.

 Later, His Most Excellent Majesty, Duke Wills talked a load of old-warrior rot to some proper soldiers who had been shit on after returning from Afghanistan. You know, like my great grandfather, Colin Firth the Sixth, I’m a fucking idiot, too, only I get medals  and ribbons and fortunes just for getting out of bed in the morning and how I envy you all, struggling to get a meaningful role in Mc-Donalds or WalMart, whereas all I can look forward to is flying around the world in luxury and being fawned upon for the rest of my life by arse-licking groupies with titles. What? If the marriage goes wrong? Well, we’ll always have Paris.

Back now in RAF Anglesey, Duke Wills is itching to get into some real rescue work, with TeeVee crews in attendance and Miss Kate Middleton standing by to give him a medal. I can’t wait to get down to some real rescuing before my next holiday, I mean Official Duties, joked the future King. I’d love to work for a living, properly, like, but it’s just the luck of the draw; somebody has to live in the palaces and be driven about in the Rollers. I mean, Granny can give me all the counties she likes, all the regiments to be Colonel-in-Chief of but it’s not the same as living one’s early married life  in married quarters with one’s wife, like I’m pretending to do, only not very well.

Her Serene Majesty, the Duke’s Granny - as the nation disintegrates under public service cuts, neglected and betrayed manufacturing and bandit privatisations, as her cheesepared forces are deployed upon ever more dubious adventures overseas in support of GlobaCorp and its parent organisation, DeathCorp, and as nation after nation is pushed further and further into poverty, barbarism and eventual feudalism - has stuck rigorously to the schedule she set herself so many years ago; stay on the throne at all costs. A few weeks of opening hospitals and then a few months resting in Scotland, another few weeks opening parliament and sitting on a horse for photographers and then another well-deserved few months’ break in Norfolk. Never once has the Nation’s Granny uttered a word of criticism of Her Govamint, through Thatcher’s SpivWars, Major’s desultory uselessness, the Blair and Brown war-crimes and their bending over for International Financial Terrorism, and now as an unmandated, unelected coalition of convenience dismantles all the welfare and human rights reforms of her reign, as the cops are revealed, truly, as filth, shitting even on her and her precious, parasitic family, this worthless, pampered old biddy still says nothing; she has never said anything, or done anything, except hang on to her gilded throne. No wonder Prince Gormless is such an empty-headed, snivelling wretch. Constitutional monarchy? Good for fuck-all.

Still, the RAF is up to strength again; Flight Lieutenant Wales is back on the case.

 Coda: 

I think that might be the start button, Dad

Flight Lieutenant William Wales completes RAF Search and Rescue duties:

 During his last shift, Flight Lieutenant William Wales and his crew had an uneventful 24 hours which ended at 9.30am on Tuesday, 10 September 2013.

During the preceding 24 hours, they conducted a routine training flight, but thankfully, there were no incidents requiring their services across North Wales or the Irish Sea.

From:

Ministry of Defence

Published

12 September 2013

They simply can't keep away from air borne transport, those Wales boys,  even whilst telling the rest of us to save the planet: Did you notice young Harry, who has told the world that he is restricting his breeding to just the two, for climate change reasons, having a ride on a private $45 million Gulfstream aircraft  belonga his chum,  Marc Ganzi, 750 miles from his home in California to a polo match in Colorado and back again. But that's okay, cos he likes polo.

Caption contest - the usual suspects

 

The casual observer might conclude that there were many different contributors to the caption contest - but I detect the hand of the usual suspects. All the proffered captions were inventive and hilarious. One is particularly drawn to the ghastly incident of the abduction and dismemberment of the FlowerPot Men. Sir Simon Rattlesnake and mr verge both went with the astonishing reach of Monty's floriferous appendage, but for elegant simplicity, I'm going with mr mike's: "Ah, Camelia...."
And as for Her Royal Ruthlessness' plaintive complaint that she is always being picked on in these caption competitions - ahh, that's a shame.

Wots on Telly

Panorama: David Cameron and the Missing Billions  

on BBC iPlayer

Key points: 

• Former Prime Minister David Cameron personally promoted Greensill Capital to investors before its collapse, leaving the bank's clients with losses of billions of dollars.
  
•  Mr Cameron appeared with the company's founder, Lex Greensill, at an event hosted by the Swiss bank Credit Suisse in 2019. Credit Suisse was marketing and selling Greensill investments, telling investors they were low risk.
• Greensill lent $850 million of investor's money to Bluestone Resources, a coal company, of which $780 million was "secured" against potential and possible sales to companies, some of which were not and never had been Bluestone customers.
  
• David Cameron says he did nothing wrong. Gavin Williamson (Education Secretary) says Cameron did nothing wrong. 
• Cameron worked for the company as a part-time adviser for two-and-a-half years after stepping down as prime minister. His role earned him about $10 million before tax. His spokesman has said his remuneration was a private matter, and that it was "preposterous to suggest that he would work for any company if he was aware that it was behaving improperly, or was in any way seeking to mislead investors."

mr ishmael, of course, has written at length on the iniquities of Cameron and his Bullingdon chums. This is an essay that you may not have read, as I came across it in his drafts, dated the 2nd November 2013

 

WHAT THE 'PAPERS SAY. THE ONGOING CHINESE TAKEAWAY,  THE FILTH-O-GRAPH REPORTS GIDEONITE LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE. 2/11/13

 

ENTER THE ALBINO DRAGON.

Me BoJo, velly big man in UK, ride bike in London,
gimme plenty yen and me fuck you long time; wha'  have some coke? Me? Hokay, make it chop-chop, am busy man.

Only MediaMinster takes CallHimDave even remotely seriously;  the unelected prime minister just staggers from one fuck-up to another, his arrogance and conceit leavened only by the most expensively acquired stupidity, the Old Etonian variety, the variety which has plunged us from war to depression and back again for centuries now, a stupidity which is so off-the-scale that it sometimes meets itself in a blackhole of dumbness where it weirdly passes for cleverness;  so incomprehensibly, incalculably stupid are these people that we think, Wow! they're so clever that it must be me who's stupid, obviously they know better than I.   And when you see all the yelling and jeering at PMQs and see how Cameron twists himself back and forth, eye-contacting, to make his backbenchers smirk and wheeze in sadistic delight at his  Flashman bullying of some dog-eared arsehole on the other side you think, Shit, if they all think he's clever, then he must be. 

But of course he is a fucking idiot.  He's so piss ignorant that he must've spent his schooldays wanking and taking drugs.  Oh, and trashing stuff, later, dressed-up  in his Bullingdon gear, the cunt.  

"Unable to remember who wrote Rule, Britannia! or the English translation of Magna Carta, David Cameron was embarrassed on David Letterman’s chat show on America TV.
He is, however, no intellectual lightweight. I speak with authority – I was his tutor at Oxford University, where he achieved a First in Philosophy,  Politics and Economics." Vernon Bogbrush, Daily Mail.

As for his degree, well his tutor, Vernon BogBrush,

Yes, I suppose I am rather clever - all these books, says something about a chap, being photographed in front of all these books. Read 'em? Don't be fucking stupid, this is Oxford: nothing to do with learning stuff.

insists that he was a brilliant student - can't speak English proply (in his own usage), can't frame a sentence, he's even more of a grammarless gabshite than Blair, rants on about education even though at whatever age he is now he wouldn't pass the eleven-plus, not unless he paid someone to take it for him, which is probably how he got his degree in whatever shit, made-up conman rubbish it is; PPE, the wankers' degree.   

Victor Bogbrush, I'm sure, would say that the prime minister, any prime minister, was brilliant even if he was, like Cameron, a gobby, platitudinising moron;  

Gosh, Prime Minister, now that you mention it in connection with a peerage I can see that you are brilliant; mind you, I always said so; pretty, too, in a chubby way. And to think: you were one of my students......

these dons and fellows and masters of this-and-that, what are they like;  what sort of a shithole would tolerate having the insufferable thieving blowhard  Patten as its public face?  Double-whammy, that's his contribution to the erudition of the nation, worthless cunt.

 

Oxbridge?  Creme de la creme? Bollocks. Nuke 'em and everybody in them - staff, students, visiting relatives, toast 'em, pour encourager les autres. 

Cameron believes  America won the Battle of Britain,  has said so, before the entire world.

And I'd just like to thank you for winning the Battle of Britain; we couldn't have done it without you, Mr President. Dave, over in LimeyLand, ain't you what they call a dickhead?

 And even so, for all his abject fawning, Uncle Sam still treats him like a cunt. Syria, I mean, how can he hold his head up among his fellow tyrants?

Look at any opinion poll, any formerly Tory-leaning blog; Tory voters despise Cameron  probably more so than do Labour voters and are likely to defect to the KipperNutters in enough numbers to oust him from Downing Street;  the right candidate would see him fucked-off from his rotten borough in the Cotswolds;  the smell of blood is on the Treasury Bench.   And how much more humiliation can this wittering poltroon absorb and still remain on his feet?

 Let's just examine the Chinese TakeAway - Cameron, the prime minister, is arseholum-non-grata with the Chinks simply because he spoke to some simpering, stateless old fraud  who cracks-on  he's a  godly reincarnation, an episode  in the eternal, cyclical  life of the  Enlightened One. 

Tell me, your Lamaness, this reincarnation stuff, is it like Time Travel? I mean, can you tell me will I win the next election outright? All life is suffering, my son.

Having invaded the Dalai Lama's homeland and subjugated his congregation to Chairman Mao, the Chinks don't want any of their satraps so much as talking to his serene holiness and are saying  to the UK prime minister: You'll dance with who we tell you to, or you won't dance at all.  But your keenest and most treacherous rivals for the Great Latrine of State, they are welcome here,  they can come to the People's Paradise  but you cannot. Imagine that, not even Gordon Snot would put up with that.

Armed Chink security goons make sure that Gordon Snot doesn't make off with the Olympic Torch

Instead of BoJo and Osborne telling the Chinks to shove their Chop-Suey  where the Sun don't shine,  they're over there like shit off a shovel, strutting their dubious and inconsequential stuff for all back home to see, giving our energy future to a dictatorial, torturing,  extortionist communist  regime, promising SlopeEyeNukesInc that, Yes, Oh yellow master, Brits will pay three times the going rate for their leccy bills, that's how stupid they have become.  These two prats are kow-towing like this instead of, as they should be, immediately re-nationalising the British energy industry.  

It is on this bizarre national betrayal that the innumerate smirking fuckpig, Osborne, bases his claim to the Tory crown;  that and his lunatic philosophy that a sound economy is one wherein prices rise whilst wages fall; only an Old Etonian could make this claim and not be pelted with stones; he doesn't even understand capitalism, doesn't understand arithmetic, understands only that he is entitled to whatever he wants.  He needs shooting.

As for the cock-waving cokehead, bicycling BoJo, he simply trusts that his fourth-form bluster will carry all before him - as it has, so far - and that the sclerotic, redneck, masturbating horde at the Filth-O-Graph will annoint him Tory leader anytime he feels like it, anytime he grows fed-up with his part-time job as Mayor of Londonistan. He should, actually, read the responses to his hugely lucrative schoolboy rants in the Filth-O-Graph, where  readers are cunt-calling him by a ratio of a hundred-to-one, cursing his hanged-by-the-neck Turkish grand-dad, cursing his gobby dad and calling Bojo, himself, an anti-British, foreign-devil wog, a walking miscarriage who disgraces the office of Mayor, selling us out to his bosses in Europastan.  Anybody but Livingstone would've seen Boris's vanity, of course, bicycling back, wobbling, to Rich CokeHead Paradise.  A fence post would've beaten BoJo; Livingstone, however, was just ahead of him in the Oh-fer-fucks-sake-not-this-cunt-again stakes. Ken's vanity, of course, was insurmountable;  had he been concerned more with keeping Boris out than he was with getting Ken in he would've stood down, in favour of the fence post, or a paving slab;  typically, what used to be the Labour Party, a gang of warring shitbags,  was too frightened to tackle Livingstone. And now BoJo, the man Labour should've beaten, wants to be prime minister.  I read somewhere that we are two heartbeats away from having White Powders Johnson as prime minister and Harry Ginger as King... Would that make shit  any worse than it already is? Probably, I suppose; things always get worse  

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

This week's crossword clue from mr verge:

Did George & Tony spill blood to renew altar? (7,3)

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

mr ishmael's essays today are:

 

Remembrance Day Blues. B-y-y-y-y the left, quick Murder    posted 9/11/2013

Mariners                                                                                 drafted 12/07/2011 

 

 What the 'Papers say. The ongoing Chinese Takeaway. The Filth-o-graph reports Gideonite Leadership Challenge                                          drafted 2/11/2013

Both anthologies of the work  of mr ishmael and his young Polish friend, Stanislav, Plumb Cheap for You:  Honest Not Invent and Vent Stack - are available to purchase for mere money at Lulu or Amazon. It is cheaper to buy from Lulu. Here's how to buy your own copies: 

Please register an account with them first. This will save you a couple of quid, as going straight into the link provided below seems to make paypal think it's ok to charge in dollars, and apply their own conversion rate, which will put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow our link; a pop-up box asks for age confirmation - simply set the date to (say) 1 January 1960, and proceed. (If you type the title, the anthology will not appear as a search result until the "show explicit content" box - found at the bottom left by scrolling down - has been checked.  You may also see the age verification box, as above, at this point.) 

 The full title is "Vent Stack love from stanislav" by ishmael smith, and the cover you'll see is red with white titles and a picture of Buster the Previous Blog Dog having a green thought in a green shade. 

Link for the paperback:

 https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ishmael-smith/vent-stack/paperback/product-q8jzk2.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Or...

shorter link, which might make it easier if you wish to paste it into an email and tell a friend:

 https://tinyurl.com/naajavmu

 Honest, Not Invent is available in paperback or hardback.

Link for Hard Back : 

https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ishmael-smith/honest-not-invent/hardcover/product-njr7vg.html

Link for Paper Back : 

https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/ishmael-smith/honest-not-invent/paperback/product-wq2kpg.html

At checkout, try PROWRITINGAID15, WELCOME15 or TREAT15 in the coupon box, which  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, the book (including delivery to a UK address) should cost £10.89