The Angry Exile: I'm a malfunctioning Apple customer...

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

Monday 12 April 2010

I'm a malfunctioning Apple customer...

... and hopefully they can fir me in to be fixed once the faulty iPad customers are dealt with.

MALFUNCTIONING iPad customers are to be 'fixed', Apple confirmed last night.

... the company has admitted that many iPad buyers have experienced a mental bug which has caused them to question whether the machine works as perfectly as it obviously does.

Apple is now offering an offline 'fix' for the problem where owners hand themselves in for psychological reconditioning and massive electric shocks.

A spokesman said: "It's a simple mental readjustment to make users more compatible with their iPads.

"Through a combination of shouting and targeted electricity we are able to erase the creeping sense that they've been duped by their own pathetic desire to be cool into buying something that doesn't really work."

He added: "Clearly there can be nothing wrong with the iPad. Like all Apple products it is terrifyingly perfect, like something beamed back from a future time where everything is brilliant white and humans have evolved into beautiful androgynous beings in shiny jumpsuits who don't do poos."

Reconditioned iPad owner Tom Logan said: "My iPad works perfectly, it's simply that the rest of the universe, specifically the internet and my hotmail, has yet to fall into sync with its utter perfection."

I know how he feels. The gravity round here was so incompatible with the mouse that came with my Mac that it filled the upper trackball with shit and made it unusable. As for the way the crappy laws of physics make my MacBook overheat, sheesh. Shall I just lick the wall sockets under a picture of Steve Jobs and hope for the best?

4 comments:

Aditya said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; 13 April 2010 at 15:10
Man with Many Chins said...: Perhaps they should send customers to www.willitblend.com where the iPad is tested.

I used to laugh at fanboi's however I must admit I love my iPod touch:-); 14 April 2010 at 07:38
Angry Exile said...: Jeff (probably a bot anyway), please go and throw yourself in a vat of boiling hot piss.

MwMC, I saw the Will It Blend clip on a blog somewhere the other day. I expected sparks, smoke and possibly explosions and was amazed at the actual result. I must have a shit blender because mine struggles with ice.; 14 April 2010 at 09:38
Man with Many Chins said...: I dunno about you, but I really want one of those blenders after seeing what they blend with it lol.; 14 April 2010 at 11:02