The Angry Exile: More on smoking.

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, 13 October 2009

More on smoking.

A follow up to the blog on Duncan Banitall's article in the Groan. I just noticed a new comment on Dick Puddlecote's thoughts on it from someone living in France. Oh, I thought, this'll be good. There's no way the French will bend over. Wert iz zees? We may not ave a Gitane before, during and afterr making lurve all afternoon. No. Zis will not do! Vive la France. Etc etc.

Wrong.

In France they have brushe away the cigarette on the CoCo chanel poster for the film about her life

http://stylefrizz.com/200904/coco-avant-chanel-smokin-poster-banned-in-paris/

thought this be a very good idea People should not think smoking is normal so there we have the poster with the actress without a cigarette

Here is the original

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm1840614144/tt1035736

CoCo Chanel was a chain smoker (40 - 60 cigarettes a day ) till she died age 82 I was angry that stylefrizz was happy with this Orwell behaviour and wrote a letter This is what I got back :
Dear Anna,

Firstly, let me thank you for visiting Stylefrizz.com! Secondly, allow me to draw your attention on the "one cigarette" issue: smoking has become so ordinary, it's a part of our daily life now. Passive or active smokers, we're all smokers of some kind. I was a smoker myself. But I grew over it, thankfully! Now I just want to see the world without smoke, without smoking and smokers. Everything around cigarettes has been so glamed up and I can't cope with that. It's wrong. Morally wrong. I won't even begin talking health issues, we're all aware of the dangers smoking can cause!

I believe another approach, a less fashionable one is called for cigarettes/smoking. This smoking - stylish attitude they're so keen on promoting through everything fashion is disgusting and wrong. No, hiding away one cigarette won't change the world, but at least I won't have to put up with the so called elegant fashion of smoking!

Best Regards
K Priss

Words fail me. You'll just have to wait while I do a couple of laps around the room.

Here are the images mentioned:

What? The? Fuck? The doctored one looks like she's just picked her nose and is about to flick Gordon Brown's lunch across the room. It's fucking awful. as is this surrender to the anti-smoking happiness fascists. I know we make jokes about the French being spineless and that the channel tunnel was made in case their government needed to do a runner again but really all that's undeserved. If anyone was going to yell va t'en coulez* and spark up in response to this I'd have expected it to have been the French, and good on 'em. Maybe something like...

Here, airbrush this out, fuckknuckles.

How disappointing.

*Apologies if I've mangled that. I haven't used any French in nearly 20 years and I'm ready to be corrected by someone whose French is better and fresher than mine, which must be a hell of a lot of people.