The Angry Exile: Everybody say cheese.

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

Sunday, 24 January 2010

Everybody say cheese.

Looks like the mass photo gathering in Trafalgar Square organised by photographernotaterrorist.org, and I'm sure attended by at least one, if not more, of the regular reads on my blogroll*, has been fairly successful in that the tanks didn't roll in Tianamen style and everyone ended up being dragged away to waiting hosepipes. More importantly that they seem to have got a decent turnout.

A couple of interesting points though: around 0:32 there's mention of some booing because a uniformed goon tried to stop people taking photos of the National Gallery, and roughly 0:50 it's said that there were a few plastic plods about but they left everyone alone. This suggests that the way to go about taking photos in the UK these days is to have 3,000 friends with you (or if you're a pro an unfeasibly large number of photographic assistants), and that's not really much to shout about. The media coverage is also a bit disappointing. Naturally there'd be stuff in the professional and hobbyist photo publications but the mainstream media have let the side down a bit, with only the Grauniad and the Beeb devoting much space to it in the UK. The Telegraph cover it well (that's their author in the audio clip) but it was only in their blog section, which presumably means it's not in the print version at all. The Fail gave it a couple of paragraphs but online at least it looks like column filler stuff. Other than that right now (Sunday lunchtime for me) it seems to be non-UK news sources, and that is odd. Surely the MSM must be at least as big a target for S44 abuse as all the amateur photographers, ~~terrorists~~ tourists and freelance pros who've been getting hassled. Why the fuck aren't they banging the drum about this?

I have a feeling that more protests might be necessary for this to get the coverage it really deserves.

UPDATE: Rather more at G.O.T.

* For very obvious reasons it was never on the cards that I was going to go, which is a bit of a shame as I used to live only an hour or so by train from London. But needless to say if the same thing happened here I'd be on the way to Canberra - I've been tempted to buy a new camera for a while now.

2 comments:

JuliaM said...: "This suggests that the way to go about taking photos in the UK these days is to have 3,000 friends with you (or if you're a pro an unfeasibly large number of photographic assistants), and that's not really much to shout about."

No, but baby steps, baby steps...

If more protests are indeed needed, let's hope they will be larger.; 24 January 2010 at 20:55
Angry Exile said...: I was only kidding about that being not much to shout about. My point is the apparent apathy of the MSM and how bizarre given how many photographers they employ. Sixteen hours after I wrote that blog post and if Google News is anything to go by there's still more coverage outside the UK than inside it. WTF?; 25 January 2010 at 03:49