The Angry Exile: Just in case you were wondering...

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 26 June 2009

Just in case you were wondering...

... Australia is not above a little official corruption and shit excuses. No, not Kevin RTudd and bloody ute-gate (AAARRGH, why do they have to stick 'gate' on the end? Why did I for that matter?), which is really more interesting because of the desperation shown by the Liberals to use it to bash Rudd with and the even greater, not to say hilarious, desperation with which they're back pedalling ever since it turned out that it's all largely based on a fake email. Check the link if you really must and you don't already know.

No, I'm talking about the Chief Exec of Sydney Ferries, which is owned by the New South Wales government, putting nearly a quarter of a million dollars of personal expenses on his corporate (i.e. taxpayer funded) credit card. Even his son has had a share.

THE son of former Sydney Ferries chief executive Rear Admiral Geoff Smith took his father's corporate credit card to schoolies celebrations on the Gold Coast where he racked up nearly $7000 worth of expenses, an ICAC inquiry has heard.

Sydney Ferries manager of financial accounting Mabel Misra yesterday told the inquiry that Admiral Smith had told her his son took the card to the infamous end-of-school festivities in 2006.

"(Admiral Smith) indicated to me that his son had accidentally taken his credit card and he had gone for Schoolies, I think to the Gold Coast, and he couldn't get in touch with him or -- or there was some issue that he couldn't retrieve the card back immediately and he had incurred some personal expenditure on the card," Ms Misra said.

Despite a promise he would reimburse the expenses "immediately", a cheque written for $6868 to cover the expenses bounced, she said.

The former rear admiral in the Royal Australian Navy is before an ICAC hearing over his use of the Sydney Ferries corporate credit card with which he allegedly spent $237,000 on personal expenses.

...

It is alleged Admiral Smith spent the money on restaurants, hotels, overseas travel and private school fees.

And his excuse? You're going to fucking love this. According to The Australian Libertarian Society's blog nobody told Admiral Smith that he shouldn't do it. Sound at all familiar? The lack of thought gone into whether it was right rather than merely allowed. The immediate attempt to blame someone or something else, the anonymous person or persons who he feels should have told him not to abuse the credit car, once he'd been found out and the shit was hitting the fan. Is it me or could he fit right in at whatever drinking clubs the serial troughing cunts of Westminster like to prop up? I mean, private schools? Christ alive, I don't think even British politicians have tried that one. I can hear the sounds of Aussies singing Anything you can do we can do better... as if it would somehow make up for being beaten by the poms in Beijing.

Ahem.

Well, one other very important way in which Australia has done better than Britain on such a huge expenses piss take. The NSW Transport Minister has sacked the bugger.