The Angry Exile: Polly parroting.

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 March 2009

Polly parroting.

Devils Kitchen is always a good read but rarely more so than when he's fisking Polly Toynbee. I think he takes a twisted delight in dissecting her champagne socialist ramblings without the use of anaesthesia, so he must have been hugging himself at the chance to rip apart her plea for us all to save the dead tree press, including of course the self important hypocritical wank generator that is her own employer, the Guardian Media Group.

It is, of course, the usual load of insufferable bollocks, but it is rather lovely to see Polly hoist by her own petard
But the cover price accounts for only 10% of costs and GMG says advertising revenue has "fallen off a cliff".
You see, Polly has been bitching and moaning about mega-rich companies—many of whom prop up these newspapers by, y'know, buying advertising (mainly because they are the only ones that can afford the rates)—and the damage that they are doing to society. She has whined about the high pay of executives, and the increasing wealth gap, and corporate tax avoidance...
... and now the corporates are avoiding spending their money with GMG. Now, I know that Polly is not tremendously au fait with the oh-so-complicated concept of cause and effect, but do you think it just slightly possible that her attitude, and that of her fellow commentators, might possibly have led to these companies feeling—during these turbulent times, when costs need to be cut—that GMG, whose employees constantly attack said companies, can just fucking whistle for their business?
But newspapers are in trouble, and what is Polly's solution? Can you guess, children?
To protect share prices the depth of this disaster must not be admitted.
So real progress may only be possible when many of them go undeniably bust. In truth, while some local papers are excellent, some are dross, not worth saving with a penny of public money.
Public money? Not a fucking single one of them is worth pouring public money into, Polly, you disgusting, rent-seeking harpy. That is our money and if we do not wish to spend it on your fucking rags—which, quite patently—people do not, then why the fuck should you be able to tear the fruit of people's labour from them, by force?

It's gold, it really is, even though it's kind of like taking the piss out of the mentally disabled. We have here a journalist who thinks that the loss of newspapers is a disaster the scale of which must not be admitted, and who then writes a fucking newspaper column about it in which she both admits the scale of the disaster and says it must not be admitted. Not the clearest thinker in the world, and possibly not the clearest thinker in the Guardian though nobody stopped this circuitous crap from being printed. Ripping that kind of thinking apart is almost cruel, but also deserved. I'd have some sympathy for her if she wasn't such a hypocrite. And she looks like a hillbilly drag act but I don't want to get personal.

H/T Mr Eugenides.