The Angry Exile: Become a government informer, betray your friends and family, fabulous prizes to be won.

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Wednesday, 20 August 2008

Become a government informer, betray your friends and family, fabulous prizes to be won.

From the Telegraph, an article that reminded of the Red Dwarf episode where they find themselves in a totalitarian fantasy world where dobbing people in is officially encouraged.

Villagers are being encouraged to inform on speeding drivers so that police can send them warning letters.
Residents in Swarland, Northumberland, have been asked to note down registration numbers of cars they think are over the speed limit.
Northumbria police will then issue a letter to the alleged offender, and store their details on a database.

Lets first get the obvious point out of the way. Northumbria Police obviously can't be arsed to enforce driving standards in the village themselve, I mean it's not like they're paid to do this sort of thing is it? Oh they are? Well fuck me, who'd have thought it? Then there's the issue of handing it over to untrained and unequipped locals. Christ Almighty, when it comes to speeding offences the word of a single copper isn't taken even if they're a traffic officer with twenty years of experience. I was once told (by a traffic cop) that when it's down to human judgement and its subjective nature two officers must agree that a car is speeding, which is why they've been given all these gadgets for determining speed - to take error prone human judgement out of the loop and bring in mechanical objectivity that will stand up much better in court.

An aside on this point - one thing that I believe the judgement of a trained traffic cop does much better than radars and lasers and cameras is assess whether or not someone is driving like a twat. I feel that there's an over reliance on gadgetry related speed enforcement which is starving genuine traffic policing of resources. Apart from the fact that the accuracy and use of various speed guns and other devices has been called into question (and if you want to know more about it Google is your friend) it's pretty clear that someone can be driving badly well below the speed limit, or for that matter over the limit but still safely. Too often speed enforcement is treated as a panacea - get people to stop speeding and the roads will be safe for everyone. It's politically attractive, but unfortunately it's bollocks when in practice the guy driving a 10mph over the limit on an empty motorway may be fined while the retard tailgating you at 65mph in the rain is generally left to get on with risking everybody's necks. When someone invents the twat camera then traffic policing can be left to automata. Until then trained professionals should be the backbone.

However, not content with concentrating mainly on speed at the expense of all the other forms of bad driving this bunch of knobs wants to get citizens involved. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against someone ringing up the old bill and letting them know the reg of a car that's being driven badly - I've done it myself once - but for fuck's sake don't fucking turn it into something the police rely on. If there's a traffic polcing issue somewhere stop polishing the chairs, get out there and fucking police it. Don't wait for a registration number to crop up a certain number of times before you tackle the issue, and don't tackle the issue by writing a fucking letter. If I tell you that XYZ123 is hairing round the neighbourhood like the driver has a death wish I want you to come out and fucking stop 'em, not wait till two or three other people have called and then send the cunt a postcard. And finally, as the Telegraph points out, don't rely on untrained unequipped people who might have an axe to grind over the height of someone's hedge to not use this as a means of carrying out a petty vendetta, and for that reason alone don't keep a permanent record of it on yet another fucking database. Let's get this absolutely clear, when there is nothing more than an allegation of something that isn't even sufficiently serious to get the police of their arses to investigate it is plain fucking wrong to make a permanent record of the supposed crime. Put down the donuts and do what you're fucking paid for, and if there's something to it then go to court with it and make a record if you get a conviction. But only for serious stuff, right? Let's remember that even speeding fines are forgiven and drop of your licence after a few years... or are they? Who knows these days?