The Angry Exile: The latest at the Rock

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

Friday 23 January 2009

The latest at the Rock

From the Daily Wail (yes, I know):

Disgraced bank Northern Rock will tomorrow lavish £9million in bonuses on its staff - simply for repaying part of its bail-out loan from the Government on time.
The taxpayer-funded handout - equivalent to £2,000 for each worker - was labelled ‘crass’ and ‘indefensible’ last night.

Well surprise surfuckingprise. Northern Rock has been state owned for hardly any time and already the taxpayers are having their hard earned thrown around for a fucking weak reason. Of course these days we expect "equivalent to £2,000 each" to mean 10p for the teaboys and a fortune for the boss, and I did think it was going to be more of the same. But I forgot that with NuLab running it things might be a bit different.

The payout, which applies to all 4,400 staff at the Rock, is only the first stage in an incentive scheme that could see the state-owned bank pay more than £50million to its workers over the next few years.
On an average salary of around £20,000, this equals a bonus of £2,000. Staff can also look forward to another 10 per cent bonus in 2010 and 15 per cent in 2011 if the bank repays its government loan on schedule.
A fourth bonus, worth 25 per cent, will follow for lucky workers if the bank leaves state ownership and is successfully returned to the private sector.
For a worker on £20,000, this means total bonus payments of around £12,000.

Fuck me. I bet the Northern Rock staff must be wishing it had gone tits up and turned them into public sector employees ages ago. Don't get me wrong, I'm not having a go at the staff, who after all must have expected P45s not so very long ago. But it seems that the government have taken it over with no more idea of how to run the fucking thing than the previous lot. I mean Christ, by all means pay everyone bonuses but after the fucking business is making money, eh? And not just for settling up part of a debt on time. How many people get a bonus from their mortgage lender for paying an instalment on time? No one.

Still, at least the new boss isn't getting a big fat lump of cash as well... oh hang on, what did that bit say further up?

The Rock’s new boss Gary Hoffman, 47, who is one of Britain’s best-paid civil servants on a basic salary of £700,000, is also in line for a super-size handout.

Jesus suffer and fuck, he's barely been there long enough for his arse to make a dent in the chair. The best that can be said is that he and the other senior execs aren't getting their bonuses right away, and that's really not much. So typical of both a badly run bank and a government project - money being hosed around all over the show for very little at all.