Danse Macabre or Postcard From The Caliphate, (2015-16)

Danse Macabre / Postcard From The Caliphate, (2015-16)

This pot is all but finished. It has yet to be professionally photographed, and still lacks the lustre firing that will deepen some of the reds and help to vary the local colour and colour saturation.

No one likes Islamic State, or ISIL or The Caliphate, or whichever name we use. Lampooning IS is, well, therapy perhaps but it makes no difference. It works as satire but as serious social or political critique, attacking IS is hardly subversive by anyone's standards, unless, of course, the viewer just happens to be a supporter. The critique in this pot is aimed at what is currently referred to as the 'regressive Left.' It may also be called, the 'hard Left,' 'the pseudo Left,' 'the Apologist Left,' or just 'Nothing Left.' Again, call it what you will, it amounts to the same thing: that part of the British political Left which is apologist in its attitude and response to Islamism, which routinely appeases dictators and fascist or fascistic leaders, as long as they threaten America and/or Israel. In short, it is the Left-overs that have thrown their lot in the far Right.

The targets then are 'Stop the War,' (see the Stop the War jugs in this post,) George Galloway, Anjem Choudary, Julian Assange, Asim Qureshi and Moazzem Beg (CAGE), Yvonne Ridley,  and assorted fawning, selfie-taking, followers, who dance around the base of pot, genuflecting and group-hugging their idols, (thank you, Nicholas Poussin and the Golden Calf.)

The appeased leaders are: Vladmimir Putin, Bashar Al Assad, Sayeed Ali Khamenei, Kings Abdullah and Salman, (House of Saud),  Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Hasan Nasrullah, (Hezbollah), Khaled Meshal (Hamas), Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, and assorted jihadis including Mohammad Emwazi. They all ride the Islamist Roundabout in one direction or another. The Islamist flag is depicted in butt-plugs - my thanks to the clever, imaginative soul who made the original for the 2015 London Gay Pride. I also salute Mark Gertler's magnificent Merry-Go-Round in this pot.

Party time with John McDonell...

This has been described as 'equal opportunities offence,' which I whole heartedly endorse. 

John McDonell had a farm
Eee Aye Eee Aye oh!
And on that farm he planted cash
But it didn't grow.

With a deficit here
And a printer there
And quantitive easing everywhere,

With normal times here
And special times there
Borrowing and spending and selling off shares,

With Osbornes here
And Camerons there
And Tory porkers hogging the air,

With protests here
And campaigns there
And Corbynistas tearing their hair,

Poor Johnny Donell's printer jammed.
His farm just had to go...

Stop the War - the drinking jugs

These are the Stop the War drinking jugs. I hate StW with a vengeance because they posture as 'anti-war,' but are far, very far, from pacifist. On the contrary, they are a partisan Nationalist organisation, apologists for every dictatorial regime on earth and for jihadists everywhere, and are strongly pro-war as long as it is against America or, above all, Israel. The words are a parody of their own slogans and statements. 

Jug 1 - Top two images:

Stop the War
Protest in a tweet
Kiss Assad's arse
Prostrate at Putin's feet
Salute the Ayatollahs
Appease the Caliphate
It's Israel and America
We all love to hate.

Jug 2 - Last three images:

We are all
Hezbollah
Bomb Israel
But Stop the War.
Hamas rools
Hey! Palestine!
Fuck Sharia
This ale's divine!

Stop the War
Milky and sweet
Be nice to Mr Assad
Kiss Putin's feet
Salute the Ayatollahs
Chat with the Caliphate
It's Israel and America
We all love to hate.

Jezwe'reapologists.

Jeremy Corby's Cider Jug

A Cider jug for Jeremy Corbyn - the Corbo-sensitive should look away now.

Jeremy Corbyn
Likes it cosy
His beard and bonnet
A little bit posy?
Perhaps his glasses are tinted rosy..
His politics are Crap.

He's a great admirer of Hamas
Khaled Meshal is his friend.
In bed with Hezbollah
Sir Hasan Nasrullah
Doth ram-rod his glistening rear end.

So watch it if you're arty
And offend the Shariati
Or blaspheme the Cornbynati
You'll feel the force of their knee-cap

And mind if Corbyn wins the day
If you're a Jew, or if you're gay
Because jihadis want their pay
And he's a squirming in their lap.

So soddit let's just have a party
Proper Bacchanaliati
Lest Cobyn's sychophantiati
Turn off our cider tap!

Song for Galloway - the drinking jug

Drinking song for George Galloway - who is depicted wearing a leotard playing pussy-cat (this is from a reality TV show,) while Anjem Choudary as vulture, (aroused), sniffs his bum.

Meet my friend George Galloway
He worships Ayatollahs,
He genuflects to Ba'athists
And he LOVES the Hezbelollahs.
He entertains his Islamists
In a purple leotard
He's not much good at pussy
But he licks cream good and hard

Oooh Galloway's coming to London
He wants to be the mayor,
Anjem's lot'll love him up
But he doesn't have a prayer.
When we've thrown him out of London
He's off to Liverpool,
He's buggered off from Bradford
No one wants him
Bloody fool!

That second verse should be sung, drunkenly, to the tune of 'My Old Man's a Dustman.'

How The Prophet Was Driven To DRink

I'm publishing this on the evening of the 6th January, 2016, in honour of Charlie Hebdo and all the seventeen people killed by Islamist jihadists on 7th January, 2015. I made this jug depicting a furious prophet Mohammed, in 2015, for a thousand reasons. At least one was solidarity - solidarity with Charlie Hebdo, with satirists, blasphemers, and with Jews. Killed that day in the name of the prophet were: five cartoonists, a body guard, a policeman, a policewoman, a maintenance worker, two columnists, a copy editor, a travel writer, and four people shopping while being Jews.

Below is the full text on the jug, as I wrote it, in English.
Below that is the translation in French, by my good friend, Roger Surridge, who has lived in Paris for longer than I care to remember. It looks good to me, I hope it does to you too.

How The Prophet Was Driven To Drink

And it came to pass
In the land of the Assyrians and Babylonians
That a vile scourge of Ba'athists, Islamists and Barbarians
Did invade and ransack the ancient places.

Bloody was the conquest.
And though the fields were fed with the people's blood
Yet did they yield forth nothing
But more food for vultures.

And even the mighty seas were in tumult
Devouring small boats
Spewing forth corpses
Leaving terror in the hearts of those that reached land.

Verily the prophet did rage at the carnage
Crying out in despair:
"You bastards!" He thundered.
"Goddam! Don't you gettit, you arseholes?
It's fiction!
I lied about gays, about Jews, and addiction.
I don't care who you love, how you worship, or feast.
Eat and drink! Wine or cider!
But for fuck's sake, live in peace!"

And here is Roger's translation:

Et il arriva Dans le pays des Assyriens et les Babyloniens
Ce fléau vile des Ba'athistes, des Islamistes et les Barbares
Envahit et pilla les lieux anciens.

Sanglante était la conquête.
Et bien que les champs aient été nourris avec le sang du peuple 
Pourtant, ont-ils rien produit de suite
Sauf encore de nourriture pour les vautours.

Et même les mers puissantes étaient en tumulte
Dévorant les petits bateaux
Vomissant les cadavres
Laissant la terreur dans les cœurs de ceux qui ont atteint la terre.

En vérité, le prophète éprouve de la rage face au carnage
Pleure de désespoir :
“Salauds !” tonna-t-il.
“Nom de dieu ! Vous ne comprenez rien, connards ?
C’est de la fiction !
Je rigolais sur les gays, les juifs, les toxicomanes.
Je m’en fous de qui vous aimez, de comment vous idolâtrez ou fêtez.
Mangez, buvez ! Vin, cidre !
Mais, putain, vivez en paix !

New pot from 2014: A memorial to WW1 1915, Ararat to Albania

Detail showing The Great Serbian Retreat, 1915-16

Detail showing the Albanian Mountains

Detail: Flora Sandes

Detail: Mabel St. Clair Stobart

Detail: Dr. Elsie Maud Inglis

The WW1 pot remembers a tiny splinter of that vast sprawling war. 1915 was the year of the Armenian genocide, (http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/armenian_genocide.php), still denied by the Turkish government and still an open wound for many Armenians. The scars on the land where once the Armenian villages stood and people lived, can easily be seen in Eastern Turkey, particularly around Mr. Ararat, shown on the pot surrounded by fields of wild-flowers  - stripes of yellow, pink and purple. The image was taken from a photograph I took of Mt. Ararat as I explored the ruins of one such village.

Dr. Elsie Maud Inglis, (1864-1917), shown on the pot at the base, in front of the largest tent, founded the Scottish Women’s Hospitals, (SWH), at the start of WW1, http://scottishwomenshospitals.co.uk/  They were staffed by women and operated independently of the War Office. Inglis had offered her services as an experienced doctor in support of the war effort but was brushed off with: ‘My good lady, go home and sit still.’ The SWH set up field hospitals throughout the conflict zones in Europe and Russia and, in 1915, the hospital units were in Serbia to support both soldiers wounded in action on the Balkan front, and the civilian population, which was suffering an epidemic of typhoid.

Above the field hospital is a bullock train bringing supplies to set up one of the field hospitals in Serbia. Mabel St. Clair Stobart, (http://www.dorsetcountymuseum.org/dorset-woman-at-war), (1864-1952), pictured further round the pot, at the base, with two horses, founded the Women’s Sick and Wounded Convoy Corps, (1912), and the National Women’s Service League, (1914). She commanded the Serbian Relief Fund's Front Line Field Hospital in Serbia and, during the bitter winter of 1915/16, joined the Great Serbian Retreat, leading her staff through the Albanian mountains to the Adriatic coast, without any loss of life.

At the top of the pot, just beneath the rim, is Mr. Ararat. Moving down and around, a part of the Great Retreat becomes visible, as it moves towards the high mountain passes towards Albania. When Serbia was invaded by German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian forces in late 1915, retreat was ordered by the Serbian general as the only viable way to survive. It was an exodus of some 355,000 people: men, women, and children, with donkeys, cattle, carts, and whatever they could carry. Approximately 200,000 people died in the mountains, with 155,000 reaching the Albanian coast, and eventually crossing the Adriatic to Corfu and Salonika. http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/search?query=Serbian%20retreat

Joining the retreat was Flora Sandes, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01s0yg1 (1876-1956), who was working with the St. John’s Ambulance unit at the time. She had always wanted to be a soldier and resented the limitations of life as a girl and as a woman. She had to join the retreat when enemy forces invaded and, initially, joined the Serbian Red Cross but then enrolled in the Serbian army and fought on the allied side, with the Serbs. She was awarded the Order of the Karadorde’s Star, Serbia’s highest military honour, for bravery in active service, ‘under fire,’ and was promoted to Sergeant major. She lived most of the rest of her life in Serbia, returning to England only after the death of her husband in 1941. She is pictured at the base of the pot, lit up by fire, during the battle of Monastir, where she was wounded in 1916.