The Angry Exile: Stephen Fry - "you've fiddled your expenses too."

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, 13 May 2009

Stephen Fry - "you've fiddled your expenses too."

Watch this clip of Stephen Fry (linked because the bastarding BBC won't allow embedding even though they put the fucking clip on YouTube as well - the pricks) excusing the corruption of Westminster because everybody does it and so it's not very important in the big scheme of things.

He may be right that journos are also a "venal and disgusting crowd of people when it comes to expenses" but for a bloke supposedly so intelligent and knowledgeable he's sounding awfully like a retarded twat here. First off, and I suppose you need to be a special kind of luvvie bell end with the peculiar blindness they so often have to the faults and hypocrisy of the left, there's a huge fucking difference between journos cheating on their expenses because they and their employers aren't forcing the whole fucking country to pay for them*. And at least one journo says that Fry is wrong about that anyway. Secondly I personally do not fiddle my expenses, even though "the system" I have to deal with would make it rather easy to tell a large number of small lies on the tax return with a reasonable expectation of getting away with it. But even if I did I wouldn't say it's the tax office's fault that for letting me get away with it, not least because I know they wouldn't give a flying fuck about a good excuse so a pathetic one like that certainly won't help me. Perhaps Fry is right that most people do do this sort of thing and I'm in a minority, but I think the proportion of liars and cheats is much greater in politics and of course there's that crucial difference - politicians make the rest of us pay at the point of a metaphorical gun. If Fry can't understand that then he's not remotely as bright as he's made out to be.

*BBC excepted, though to be fair the Beeb must make a few bob commercially from other networks across the world which is more than can be said for government, and really you don't have to pay the TV licence if you can live without a telly. To be honest if there must be state owned TV then the licence fee is arguably a better system than just chucking taxpayers' money at it like we do here with the ABC and SBS.

2 comments:

PlusMan said...: That would be the same arsehole Stephen Fry who is a patron of a mismanaged and contemptible 'charity' in Manchester, England...

...great blog - I'm trying to get out of the dreadful PC-obsessed UK too!; 26 July 2009 at 20:22
Angry Exile said...: Oooo, which mismanaged and contemptible 'charity'? One you're blogging about by any chance? Do tell ;-)

PC is everywhere I'm afraid, and that includes Australia. For example, it's considered un-PC to describe politicians as unspeakable cunts, so Aussies have to refer to them simply as 'pricks'.

Good luck if you're emigrating. It can be a draining and stressful process; 27 July 2009 at 18:16