The Angry Exile: More professional offence takers

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, 25 February 2009

More professional offence takers

The Beeb are upsetting some people again. They've only gone and hired a one armed presenter for kids TV, and this has become the cue for shock, horror and outrage because a handful of stupid twats got their cocks in a knot and complained to the BBC about Cerrie Burnell. Apparently some parents are concerned that their children will have nightmares or some such shite, or that she's actually not a very good presenter and has been hired for PC reasons. On the latter point who knows? Personally I wouldn't put it past the Beeb to overlook someone with two arms when given the opportunity to tick the disabled box, but we don't know that's what happened and she seems as good as other presenters to me* so who cares? But the Beeb have said they thought Ms Burnell was the best applicant so that's why she got the job, and if so then that's fair enough and how it should be. No presenter, regardless of how many arms they have, is going to please everyone so I don't buy the "she's a crap presenter" thing. One man's meat and all that. Unless the complaint is that she won't be any good at teaching juggling it's entirely subjective, and since there are billions of shit jugglers with two arms and it's hardly a life skill it's fucking irrelevant anyway.

As for the nightmare excuse, I tend to agree with those who feel that a parent who can't come up with something to inform, educate or just bluff their toddlers when awkward questions arise about disabilities are, to put it bluntly, fucked. How are they going to deal with it when their kids ask if it's really the same hamster as they always had, how Santa gets in when there's no chimney, did mummy used to have a cock and did it fall off and what happened to daddy's tits? Admittedly downing enough lager and takeaways might avoid the last question, but we all know kids are capable of asking all sorts of awkward stuff and any sentence that begins "Mummy/Daddy, why..." is a sure sign that you've just entered a minefield and something under your foot just went click - you've just got to wait and find out if that means an explosion either of embarrassment, sadness or just plain tedium, or if the click was harmless and you've got away with it. Birth, death and sex are going to be asked about sooner or later and your kids will expect you to have an answer and be influenced by what you say. What are you going to do, plug them back into the XBox and hope they forget they asked the question in the first place? Can't see that approach working myself. If you can't tell your toddler why the TV lady has only got one arm then you are not only an unimaginative twat who probably should have stuck to masturbation but also in a lot of trouble when the really difficult questions start to come.

But let's all calm down and take a look at the scale of the problem, shall we?

DOZENS of parents have complained to the BBC that a disabled television presenter is scaring their children.

Ok, "dozens" according to the Evening Standard.

...the decision to hire her has prompted a flurry of complaints to the BBC and on parenting message boards, with some of the posts on the CBeebies website becoming so vicious that they had to be removed.

A "flurry" according to the Daily Wail.

Nine official complaints have so far been lodged with the BBC – plus many more blog postings – about 29-year-old children's television presenter Cerrie Burnell, who was born with only one hand.

And "nine" according to the Guardian. Now school maths lessons were a long time ago and I don't know if we were told about a number called "flurry" and I've just forgotten it. And possibly I misunderstood what was meant by "dozens" or "nine". But the bottom line is it sounds to me like the complaints come from a relatively small number of shitwits who are probably still wondering why there are short people in their homes and how to cope with it. It doesn't seem like there is a vast orchestrated campaign to persuade everyone that Cerrie Burnell is a freak who should be kept off the telly, just the deluded ramblings of a few soft cocks who can't cope with their children asking questions. Personally I'm not desperately worried for society and the way it's heading when we might be talking about as few as nine nobbers here. That's point one.

Point two is that this is predictably bringing out every PC type and charidee mouthpiece to take offence, and personally that gets on my tits (the absence of which I will no doubt have to explain if we have kids) as much as this numpties who are scared of their kids' questions. The only person who has any right to have any hurt feelings over these fucktards and their remarks is Cerrie Burnell herself, and it seems she is upset though with the fucking mouthpieces getting the lion's share of the newsprint it's a little hard to tell. But there is this or something much like it buried near the bottom of some articles:

Miss Burnell, who has a four-month-old daughter, said she was upset at the "small-minded" and "terrible" comments.

Miss Burnell said: “It can only be a good thing that parents are using me as a chance to talk disability with their children. It just goes to show how important it is to have positive disabled role models on CBeebies and television in general.”

So here's an idea. Why not let Cerrie Burnell speak for herself? She seems articulate and intelligent to me, and if she had two arms I can't imagine why anyone would bother to take offence on her behalf. I'm all for supporting her and I agree that the complaints are pathetically lame, but since she's still got one hand and a perfectly good voice I'd like to see her have the opportunity herself to raise two fingers and tell the whiners to fuck off. Might not happen exactly like that given this is kiddy TV we're talking about, but then parents who think their kids aren't going to learn bad language sooner or later are deluding themselves on that score too.

*To be honest I don't really know what makes a good, bad or indifferent kiddy TV presenter. I haven't got kids so I'm not going to judge if her presenting style is the right one, if indeed there is a right one. Personally I doubt it and suspect that some kids will like a particular presenter and some won't. From the brief clips online it seems that she's as good as other presenters and assuming she's not telling children to beat each other up and steal toys at play school I don't see what the problem is.

UPDATE: The Daily Mash's take on it:

Bill McKay, a parent from Northampton, said: "I turned on the Bedtime Hour expecting to see it hosted by some incredibly hot babe with a dodgy past in home-made pornography.

"Instead I got something that made my children cry and failed to give me an erection.
"I suppose this was a perfect opportunity to talk to my children about disability but I felt it would be more useful to email the BBC and try to put an end to this young woman's career."

Nice touch, but a little unfair. I think Cerrie Burnell is pretty easy on the eye myself.