The Angry Exile: Brought to you by the Department For Electronic Control And Traffic Enforcement (DeFECATE)

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

Monday 11 May 2009

Brought to you by the Department For Electronic Control And Traffic Enforcement (DeFECATE)

Or the Department for Daft Ideas, I'm not sure which. Cars that automatically obey the speed limit are being trailled in London (The Telegraph also has a review). I'd object to driving one of these on several grounds, none of which involve the anti-Orwellian rants you might expect, though of course it is that too. In no particular order:

* The system relies on GPS and there are places where GPS either doesn't work (e.g. tunnels) or is easily confused due to parallel roads with different limits being very close together (e.g. M25 and A30 near Staines, M4 elevated section and A4, Westway and A404 - sticking to London examples just because the trial is in London). I'd need convincing that it won't choose the wrong limit and reduce speed without any need. Or the other way round for that matter, though if this thing became widespread traffic police would probably be cut back.

* On the subject of which, if this thing becomes widespread I'd expect traffic police to be cut back. Since they're the ones looking out for pissed drivers and dickheads I'd be less than thrilled at their replacement with a system that covers speed well but does fuck all about anything else.

* And on the subject of that the whole idea of a system that covers speed well but does fuck all about anything else is hugely flawed by the simple fact that it's possible to drive like a dickhead at any speed. That's how people manage to reverse over their own children. Contrary to what governments would like to believe, and would also like everyone else to believe, speed is far less important than not being a dickhead. Many dickheads do drive too fast but their speed is merely a symptom, and the obsession the authorities have with speed is treating the symptom only.

* We don't know yet but I worry that it might actually create more dickheads, or at least inattentive driving which is arguably a bit dickheadlike. Why? Because some people (not all and I don't know how many) are going to let the fucking machinery do their thinking for them. The first time I came to Oz and experienced the freeway it seemed that everybody around me had switched the cruise control on and their brains off - I was surrounded by people who were letting the car worry about their speed and were either fucking about with non-driving tasks or giving it the thousand yard stare through the windscreen. For that matter I've seen the thousand yard stare on the faces of one or two LGV drivers in the UK since they had limiters forced on them. This system risks the same sort of behaviour, the unwitting delegation of responsibility from the driver to the circuitry.

* On a related theme I feel there is already far too much "driving to the speed limit" and not enough constant consideration and reconsideration of what speed is actually safe in the circumstances. That's a widely variable number depending on dozens of factors and might not necessarily even be the same speed for two cars on the same bit of road at the same time. It varies from place to place and in the same place throughout the day, is further complicated by weather and traffic conditions, can also change slowly over time as the surface deteriorates, and so on. That's before we consider things like vehicle condition, state of the driver etc. Sticking a number on a sign can't hope to accurately keep track of all that, and therefore this system can't either.

So in a nutshell my prediction is that it will get confused, suffer from dead spots, cause a reduction in traffic police numbers, achieve roughly fuck all for road safety and possibly increase the amount of driver inattention. Big Brother might succeed in making everybody legal if only as far as speed is concerned, but that's not the same thing as making them safe behind the wheel.

UPDATE: Oh fucking hell.