The Angry Exile: Greenwashing Aussie Rules football.

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 14 August 2009

Greenwashing Aussie Rules football.

This weekend is the so called 'Green Round' of the AFL, the elite Aussie Rules football tournament. Tonight's game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground began at 7.30pm, which means playing under floodlights. Tomorrow night sees a game at the Gabba in Brisbane and another at the ANZ Stadium in Sydney, both starting at 7.10pm and therefore both needing to be played under lights. And the last of the three Sunday games is at 4.40pm at the Telstra Dome Etihad Stadium or whatever the fuck we have to call the stadium in Melbourne's docklands, which presumably will also be under lights partly because sunset isn't long after and partly because it might be pissy enough this weekend for them to shut the roof.

Now that's pretty normal scheduling: one game on Friday evening, two Saturday afternoon and two more Saturday evening, and three spread across Sunday afternoon and evening, which means that for a fair bit of the season at least four games each weekend need lights. Huge, big, fuck off lights in fact. Huge, big, fuck off lights that, in the case of Melbourne, presumably are powered by the burning of brown coal in the Latrobe Valley just like the lights in the room I'm sitting in, the computer I'm typing this on, and the TV in the corner showing Hawthorne kicking the shit out of Adelaide (probably too little too late for their season). So how much greener is all this than any other weekend in the football season? Well, they've put a load of green tips on the website and will show some on the big screens at the half time break in some games, and predictably enough there's a load of stuff about venues chipping in too: the MCG has a food miles friendly menu and the Telstretihad Stadi-dome is using its roof to capture rainwater* etc. But wouldn't it be an obvious move, even if just for the so-called green round, to reschedule the fucking games so they're all played during daylight and save all the power needed for those huge, big, fuck off floodlights I mentioned earlier? It just seems to me that apart from a few eco-advice type platitudes and a bit of green window dressing, all of which is pretty easily overlooked if all you're interested in is the actual footy, "Green Round" is the same as pretty much any other.

If I was a cynical type, which of course I am, I'd suspect that there's a bit of greenwash going on to keep the appeal of the brand as broad as possible. Like Earth Hour it seems more like paying lip service to the idea of being all carbon friendly and eco-neutral without actually demanding any real sacrifice. I suppose as a sceptic (converted from Believer many years ago) I ought to be annoyed, but precisely because greenwash exercises like Earth Hour and Green Round make square root of fuck all difference to me personally I'm more amused than anything else. I suppose this sort of thing is going to last until the last wheel drops off the global warming bandwagon.

* And given the size of the damn thing and the water situation here I have to say that this is one bit of greenery I'm bang alongside, though since they must use a lot of water keeping the pitch I'd say it seems like a good business decision as much as anything else.