The Angry Exile: Every breath you take, every step you make, they'll be watching you.

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

Every breath you take, every step you make, they'll be watching you.

This is something that I saw about a week ago and which got me wound up enough to want to start blogging in the first place, though enough other things have happened since that I've only just got round to it. The Grauniad and Telegraph both report on the Interception of Communication Commissioner Sir Paul Kennedy's comments that ISPs and phone companies had data requistioned by various UK authorities on over half a million occasions last year, and that the process should be made easier (his report here in PDF). Easier? Christ! As if it's not worrying enough that the UK has an Interception of Communication Commissioner he wants more access to everyone's inbox more often. The Home Office is making sure it happens with plans to force phone companies and ISPs to keep details for two years. This is being introduced by means of a Statutory Instrument, thereby cutting MPs and Parliamentary debate out of the equation, confirming an EU directive. Surprise surfuckingprise, it's the UK's real government again, although it seems that the EU want data retained for between six and twenty four months and typically the UK's Westminster government is going for the full parcel. On reading this I had another one of those "thank fuck I left the UK" moments. I generally have at least one a week.

It's not much of a surprise either to find our old friend RIPA rearing it's bastard ugly head again. I don't usually credit the Grauniad with much apart from giving me a bloody good laugh at George Monbiot's and Polly Toynbee's stuff, but it was one of the first places I read about RIPA back when it was still the RIP Bill and they were slamming it back then. It certainly has become the snooper's charter that everyone was worrying about. Just a few reminders:

Poole Council used RIPA to monitor a family trying to get their kid into their preferred school as the council suspected the family might be pulling a fast one over the catchment area (which they weren't) - H/T Nannyknowsbest.

Gosport Council used RIPA to investigate, and I wish this was made up, dog shit - Nannyknowsbest again.

Durham used RIPA to look into dodgy trader issues such as counterfeit goods - The Register (who mentioned some more local council shit fetishism in the same article).

This is legislation sold at least partly on its use in combating terrorism, as shown by its initial use being restricted to the security services and so on. Only a few years on, and much as those worried about RIPA predicted, it's been expanded to several hundred bodies including all the fucking local councils gobshites who want to stick their noses into your bedroom and rummage through your rubbish bins and read your text messages and emails. Why? Well you wouldn't want someone getting away with atrocities like claiming the single person's council tax discount would you?

Free country my arse. Bastards.