The Angry Exile: People who tempt me to take drugs.

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

Sunday, 8 February 2009

People who tempt me to take drugs.

There is a particular type of person that makes me want to smoke, but they don't work for Philip Morris or BAT. They're the people behind No Smoking Day and health warnings on fag packets with "shocking" pictures* and a constant stream of sanctimonious, finger wagging TV ads from the fucking state government. (It's particularly annoying when you're trying to stop smoking and the fuckers keep reminding you of cigarettes all the time.) There's also a type of person that makes me want to go to the bottle shop and buy a ridiculous quantity of alcohol and spend a week constantly shitfaced, but they don't work for a brewery or a vineyard. They're the people behind equally sanctimonious, finger wagging, government ads with a boozy theme, and are responsible for things like health warnings on alcohol ads ("enjoy alcohol responsibly" is a disclaimer I've noticed on a few ads here).

Well it follows that people like David Raynes of the National Drug Prevention Alliance make me want to go out and score a lot of drugs and see if I can achieve orbit. Not because I really want to, because I've actually got zero interest in drugs and getting off my dial. I rarely even get drunk and go long periods of time without alcohol, so avoiding drugs and politely refusing any I'm offered is a piece of piss. But when some nannying gobshite comes along the hectoring and lecturing is just so fucking annoying I invariably want to do whatever it is they don't want me to do. In this case it's E, and David Raynes has got his cock in a knot because Professor David Nutt, chairman of the Home Office’s Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, has said it's no more dangerous than horse riding.

He writes: “The point was to get people to understand that drug harm can be equal to harms in other parts of life. There is not much difference between horse rising and ecstasy.”

To which David Raynes replies:

“He is entitled to his personal opinion, but if his personal view conflicts so very strongly with his public duties, it would be honourable to consider his position.

“If he does not, the Home Secretary should do it for him.”

No wonder the National Drug Prevention Alliance is failing to prevent much drug use. Raynes must be stupid or even on drugs to have missed the point - it's not that Ecstasy is perfectly fine and safe, but that quite legal activities are just as dangerous. How the fuck can anyone miss that? Or is he just another tedious little twat who secretly looks forward to this sort of thing so he can get his name and his agenda in the media? And the vindictive nature makes my blood boil. Does he debate the point? Does he use a counter argument to refute Professor Nutt's comments? Nope, he avoids it altogether and virtually demands that Professor Nutt is sacked for not being on message with the anti-drug crowd. Self important little prick. No wonder there's a fucking drug problem with people like him around. Even I feel like getting high to escape the bastards for a while.**

*Apparently the quit smoking helplines get really annoyed with people who ring up and ask for free fags because they've collected the whole set having swapped their spare Emphysema pack for that hard-to-find packet with the Heart Disease photos. Miserable bastards. I've been a few days without smoking and I've become an evil tempered bastard, but I've not ahd a fucking humour bypass.

**Not that I actually will of course, even if I had the first clue where to go and get some.