The Angry Exile: Softcock.

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, 19 June 2009

Softcock.

I suppose the decision to give up half his pension in order to return to the UK is up to Fred Goodwin, but as I blogged at the time (and I wasn't the only one) I felt a more interesting aspect was that it exposed the desire of the NuLab bastards and some of their supporters to flush away the inconvenience of contract law, and to turn Goodwin into a scapegoat to hand to an angry public. Now despite my lack of any affection for Fred The Shred - I actually said I hoped he'd fall down the stairs and land on his balls - I was very much on his side about this because he had a fucking contract, despite which the grinning mutation's celebrity lawyer wife was set on him in a litigation friendly jurisdiction that really had nothing to do with it. Oh, and Broon and Harperson wittering on about the court of public opinion and how unacceptable it was.

Worth noting also that this is another disgusting example of litigation tourism. Everyone involved is British but it's going to be heard in the US. Why? The bank is a UK bank, Fred The Shred is British, and the workers/pensioners who have paid into the funds must be British, or at least UK residents, because the funds are for local authorities. Even the legal representative they've hired is British. On the face of it that means it's got fuck all to do with America, so why not hear it in Britain?

... It's because they think the US system is more likely to find in their favour, and given that the Yanks are known for such legal gems as suing McDonalds for the coffee being hot I'm prepared to believe it. Basically it seems that you get money if you can look tearful but honest while you stand in front of a jury and say that you didn't get hurt/lose money because you're a phenomenally stupid cunt, but because they didn't take into account that you're a phenomenally stupid cunt. Personally I think that if you're going to find in favour of stupid cunts then it's only fair to allow a counter suit that the previous plaintiff didn't give fair warning that they're a stupid cunt by wearing a sign stating it clearly and unequivocally. Or perhaps some sort of hat?
And then there's the reason for the suit; hubris. So if there was a Prime Minister who previously served a decade as Chancellor of the Exchequer during which time they claimed to have abolished boom and bust fifteen or twenty times, and is now frantically lurching about pointing fingers and blaming every fucker but the one in the mirror, would that be at all hubristic? Could this hypothetical fuckwit be sued?

...

What about all the fucking National Insurance contributions I've paid over the years? Don't answer, I already know. It's gone, disappeared, vanished. Spent as part of general tax revenue rather than invested for my future as a pension should be, and I can go whistle if I want a penny of it back. And what if my private pension arrangements were devalued years ago as one of the first acts of a new Chancellor who'd go on to claim he'd abolished boom and bust at least once a year for the next twelve years? Could I sue? Could we all? A class action of millions of people who got fucked in 1997 and haven't stopped being fucked since? Of course, that wouldn't really have affected us all if we'd worked somewhere in the public sector, like for instance North Yorkshire or Merseyside councils, the two plaintiffs going after RBS and Fred The Shred.

Honest to fuck, the stench of the hypocrisy is enough to make you vomit. Public sector pensions have been protected by government while government has systematically looted and rooted private schemes, and the bastard responsible is capable of hubris that makes Fred The Shred look possessed of saintly modesty by comparison. Now the boot's on the other foot they've found a lawyer and Googled "where's best to win a law suit". Cunts.

Most annoying of all, before there was this desperation to make Fred Goodwin the symbol of hatred, target du jour for retribution and designated culprit of the entire banking balls up (without even the slightest nod to the role of HM Government and the FSA) I was quite comfortable despising the prick. I don't want to take the side of someone I think is a smarmy arsehole, but when people openly plan to change the law so contracts can be torn up retrospectively and sue because they couldn't be arsed to make their own judgements about the risk their investment was running I can't help but feel some sympathy. This whole get-Fred-at-any-cost mentality is pretty un-edifying and smacks slightly of dodgy coppers in the 1970s fitting up the most convenient suspect because they must have done it, and even if they didn't they're sure as fuck guilty of something.

So it's something of a disappointment to hear that he's so desperate to return from his ~~long~~ three months or so exile ~~somewhere fucking awful~~ in the sunshine of the French Riviera. Is the man fucking mad? Firstly, prick though he is he'd negotiated a contract and that's the end of it. I worry for the future of contracts in the UK if someone can effectively be bullied by the government, their media drones and a stirred up public into giving up like this. Honestly, the fucking Mafia couldn't have done a better job. Secondly, Fred must have been in the sunshine long enough to lose his senses if he imagines for a second that anything short of giving up every penny will placate some of those involved in the Two Minute Hate.

Rob MacGregor, national officer of union Unite, said: "For the diabolical failure, by Fred Goodwin, which led to the near collapse of RBS this small gesture represents only a fraction of the massive pension that he is walking away with. Goodwin will still enjoy a very comfortable future at the expense of the taxpayer.
"This decision to repay some of the massive pension pot he has taken will do nothing for the thousands of staff who have already lost their jobs within RBS. Also many thousands more employees face an uncertain future, while the person whose misjudgement and greed caused their misery enjoys a life of luxury."

Oh fuck off, Rob. We've all seen how socialists behave with money when they get the chance. So why not take your opinions round to, oooh, say the Kinnocks' house? I suggest you bring up the pensions they've amassed for being respectively a serial election loser, unelected EU apparatchik and unelected Lord, or in her case an MEP guaranteed her seat by being at the top of her party list, unelected ~~Lord~~ Lady, whwtaver (I really don't give a shit) and instant Minister in the fucking Cabinet. I'd also suggest both you and the pair of them fuck yourselves with a vinegar soaked belt sander.

And Fred? You won't be welcome there yet, and probably not ever. Do what you want with the money - keep it, give it up, take it and give it to charity, whatever. But coming back will only get bricks thrown through windows and your kids bullied at school again. Accept it, give up on the UK at least for another few years, and learn to like where you are. Oh, and grow a pair of balls, eh...

... and then fall down the stairs and land on 'em.

UPDATE: "If Sir Fred Goodwin had a shred of decency, he'd give it all back" - The Daily Telegraph. See?