The Angry Exile: Canterbury is gay enough.

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

Thursday, 25 June 2009

Canterbury is gay enough.

About six weeks or so ago I blogged about a number of annoying pricks wanting the world to work for them in the way they want, including a gay pressure group in Canterbury who thought the town wasn't sufficiently gay friendly.

Also needing a lesson in personal responsibilities and liberties is a gay rights pressure group called Pride in Canterbury, who complain that the town isn't gay enough. This is apparently because it doesn't have a homosexuals' community centre, dared to show a play in which a homosexual character was depicted in a stereotypical way, and lacks a gay bar. Oh for fuck's sake. Look, this doesn't take the fucking wisdom of Solomon to sort out. Buy some land there and build a community centre for homosexuals if it's important to you, though if you ask me any "community" centre that is for one section of the community just makes that group look insular and selfish. My 2c, that's all. And if the play bothers you the obvious thing is to boycott the bloody thing. It won't close the play but just like the off switch on your TV it's easy to avoid being offended if you want to. In fact you'd have to be actively seeking to be offended to buy a ticket for a play that you know in advance has got something in it that you don't like, but of course professional offence takers do that sort of thing all the time. Look, it's not all about you, okay? There's nothing written down anywhere that says gays or anyone else have the right to not be offended. I get offended by stuff all the fucking time, including people who try to impose their views, values or demands on other people by running off to courts and ombudsmen, but I'm not crying into my beer about it. I have no right to for one thing, and I can harmlessly blog about how much it annoys me instead. As for the gay bar or lack thereof, again why don't they fucking open one themselves if they think it's such a good idea? If there's a market for one there could be some money in it, so what's stopping them? I think the thing here is that they're not demanding the right to open a gay bar since clearly that's a right they already have, and quite right too, but the right to have someone do it for them. That's where I fall firmly on the fuck off side of the fence.

Well, hoofuckingray, it turns out Canterbury is gay enough after all.

Rob Davies, spokesman for the council, said: "Obviously we're delighted with the outcome of the investigation.
"We feel we do a great deal for the gay community in Canterbury and we have always tried to support various gay events and promotions."
"But at the same time it is not the duty of any council to set up a gay bar – that's not what councils do."

Exactly, and although I'm sure there's plenty that the council are doing that isn't really the duty of any council I'm glad someone's spelt it out for the benefit of Pride in Canterbury. Not that the fucknuts are getting the message:

" We do not believe the council want a thriving LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community in our city. The impression I get is that the council just doesn't want to know."

Oh, grow a fucking head. Have they said that you may not have a gay bar? No. All they've said is that it's not their role to start one. As I said before, if you're that sure the market's there for it then get the money together and fucking start a gay bar up yourselves instead of whining that it's not being done for you with taxpayers' money. Or fuck off to where there are already gay bars. I don't care which and neither should anyone in Canterbury, providing you're not asking for other people's money to fund it.