The Angry Exile: I'll believe it when I see it.

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, 10 April 2009

I'll believe it when I see it.

Another one of Gordon Clown's pet projects in trouble here.

The Times has learnt that the European Investment Bank (EIB) is in talks with developers about a financial rescue package for the £3 billion London Array scheme, which is located in the Thames Estuary.

I'm being picky about tenses here, but I think you'll find it's not located anywhere yet.

Planned to be the world’s largest offshore wind farm, it is a project that has strong personal backing from the Prime Minister.

Ahahahaha. Ahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Ahahahahahahaha.
It's fucked from the very outset then, isn't it?

Gordon Brown wants part of the renewable energy scheme finished before the 2012 Olympics.

Oh great. Got to have the white elephant completed in time for the world to come look at the other white elephant.

The UK desperately needs London Array to fulfil its ambitious target of generating 35 per cent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020.
Pleas for cash to the EIB, the long-term lending bank of the European Union, are a last-ditch attempt to save the project, which has suffered from a number of high-profile companies pulling out and fears over its funding.
The developers have limited the amount they are prepared to fund and, as a result of the credit crunch, banks are reluctant to lend on such large projects.
Even the entry of the EIB may not safeguard the future of the plan to build up to 341 giant offshore windmills generating sufficient electricity to power 750,000 homes.

What the fuck? Has no one at The Times got access to a fucking calculator? It's now Easter 2009, and assuming that they wanted this insanely optimistic scheme complete by the same time in 2012 they'd have just 36 months to do it in if they started tomorrow (which they won't). So even if the finance was magically fixed right now, today, they'd still have to build at a rate of one turbine every three days. Even that assumes that they'd be able to work on it all year round and that winter weather and the occasional storm won't fuck things up, so we should probably say one every two days to be on the safe side. So what are the chances? Not a fucking prayer I reckon. Seriously, if potential investment from Shell and the Middle East has already vanished and the the project hangs on EU funding how much hope is there? By the time fingers are out of arses the rate at which turbines will need to be built to complete the project on schedule will be quite impossible, if it isn't already.

More to the point, if the project was a real goer private investment would be queueing up to put money into it. So doesn't the fact that they're struggling to get the necessary investment for the London Array as well as the fact that there's been a

53% fall in global investment in clean energy between March 2008 and the same month this year

show that these projects simply aren't viable without subsidies? And if they have to be held up with taxpayers money aren't they really the wrong solution to our energy needs?