The Angry Exile: Read a bloody physics textbook.

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

Tuesday 28 July 2009

Read a bloody physics textbook.

This passes for journalism? (My bold).

A police firearms instructor accidentally shot and badly injured a civilian worker at a firearms awareness session at its HQ.
Keith Tilbury was blasted through the liver at close range by firearms officer PC David Micklethwaite, in front of horrified colleagues.
The bullet from the Magnum .44 revolver - described as 'the most powerful handgun in the world' by Clint Eastwood's uncompromising policeman Dirty Harry - passed through Mr Tilbury and the chair he was sitting on, lodging in the seat behind.
Mr Tilbury was blown off his chair and thrown half way across the room.

Utter bullshit. Not to diminish the seriousness of the incident in any way, but unless Isaac Newton was in fact talking out of his arse no-one gets thrown halfway across any room larger than a broom cupboard. A bullet that knocked Mr Tilbury across the room would have knocked PC Micklethwaite the same distance in the other direction, possibly further since the bullet both passed through the unfortunate Mr Tilbury and still managed to throw him through the air. I really can't be bothered to make even back of envelope calculations for this since it's obvious that if a bullet that powerful would make for a gun that's fucking impossible to hold onto when you fire the damn thing, and while I know that big calibre handguns do kick like buggery - and also that I'm quite shit at shooting them - I'm sure I'd have noticed if any went flying out of my hands or threw me backwards from the firing station. This sort of shithouse reporting fosters both the unwarranted mystique and the irrational fear surrounding guns, and what really pisses me off about this story is that it's quite serious enough without the Daily Fail writing physics defying movie style bullshit into it.

H/T The Penguin at Old Holborn.

5 comments:

JuliaM said...: Here's video of a .700 Nitro Express rifle being fired, a gun that makes the Magnum look like a Vauxhall Astra compared to a Ferrari.

Notice how the man significantly did NOT fly across the room?

'Daily Fail' writers obviously pay as much attention to the laws of physics as Marevel comics writers...; 28 July 2009 at 14:39
JuliaM said...: Ooops. Here.; 28 July 2009 at 14:40
Angry Exile said...: Yeah, real life is never as spectacular. But why should the media worry when they can just make it up? Guns give you cancer as well you know. And cause global warming. And the financial crisis.

Wankers.; 29 July 2009 at 01:08
JuliaM said...: "Guns give you cancer as well you know."

Thanks to Marvel Comics once again, art imitates trashy tabloid scare stories:

"..Aaron finds a way to outmatch him with a gang of villains that are similarly enhanced, but with guns that shoot cancer and claws made of lasers.

One more time, that’s: guns that shoot cancer and claws made of lasers.

Boom. Review done. I don’t have to say anything else..."

;); 29 July 2009 at 02:51
Angry Exile said...: Julia, as a man in his mid 30s there is a substantial part of me that is still about 8 years old, so I still get comics. But guns that shoot cancer and claws made of lasers?

What?

The?

Fuck?

Even when I really was 8 years old I can't imagine I'd have taken that seriously. There's such a thing as the credibility envelope - oh yes, even for men and even when they're (literally or figuratively) 8 years old.; 29 July 2009 at 16:17