The Angry Exile: Arse about face.

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, 22 June 2010

Arse about face.

Via JuliaM I see that between all the stories about bikini clad slebs, slebs at some do or other, slebs getting together with other slebs, slebs splitting up from other slebs and so on The Daily Mail have managed to include some actual items of news, one of which is that the world's about to end. And among the predictable doom of that article was this utter gem of the journalistic art.

[Professor Fenner] was also heavily involved in helping to control Australia's myxomatosis problem in rabbits.

I suspect that either the nonagenarian professor has lost his marbles or, and I feel this might be the more likely of the two, the Fail's reporter never had many to begin with. This statement is about as wrong as it's possible to get. Far from Australia having a myxomatosis problem in rabbits it had, and still has, a rabbit problem that it once tried to tackle with myxomatosis. I remember being told that at school years before I ever considered visiting Oz, much less moving here. Professor Fenner was indeed involved in what was basically bio war on bunnies, which depending on your source killed between 80 and 95% of Thumper's little friends Down Under, but how the hell the Fail managed to misinterpret bunny-genocide using the myx as controlling the myx "problem" in the rabbits I don't know. I do know that you can't blame their source as the article says that Professor Fenner was interviewed by The Australian, and when I checked their article the nearest sentence I found to what appeared in the Fail was this:

And his work on the myxoma virus suppressed wild rabbit populations on farming land in southeastern Australia in the early 1950s.

Well done, Daily Mail. Even by your standards getting something 180˚ arse about face is quite an achievement.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: LOL!

I love that "Mainly Fail" - brilliant.

Notice also that the picture size on the right of all the deadheads is far bigger than the news on the left? This (as you know doubt know) is subliminal. People will automatically look at the larger pictures before the smaller ones and thus be more attracted to the usual nonsensical drivel of some z list celebrity before reading (if they bother to that is) what's actually f*cking up the lives of many people in the world.

Good post. I hate the Mail. Then again, I hate all MSM, binned the TV two years ago along with reading the papers and listening to the radio.; 25 June 2010 at 08:59
Angry Exile said...: Ooops. I usually do the Mainly Fail larger than that - fixed. Didn't know about the subliminal photo size trick before, but now you mention it I do find looking at the Fail's site my eye is naturally drawn to the right and I end up hating myself just a little bit. Thank you for the information. Now I can stop that and start hating the bastards even more :-); 25 June 2010 at 09:18
Anonymous said...: You're most welcome. I have to say that considering I used to use the Daily Mail in my blogging (older blogs), much of the time it was to rip apart the journalist.
Now 'should I' venture to the site, I always take a deep breath before clicking. It's probably because inside I'm asking myself, what doublespeak will they be saying today and what on earth is there to say about Jordan other than fake tits?

I would say I wish I could go to Oz, but being a red headed Scotsman, anything above 25 is too hot for me. I'd simply melt and get incredibly grumpy. I see myself retreating further North, as Scotland becomes inhabited more by Liberal English, still voting for multiculturalism, but fleeing the sh*thole they've created because of it.

Lastly I did the 'Liberal' test but am most definitely Libertarian and NOT Liberal that's for sure.; 25 June 2010 at 09:52
Angry Exile said...: What else could the Fail say about Jordan? Hmmm, something informative about ancient cities of Middle East politics, but I'm sure you're right that they'd go for the tits every time. Peter Andre might get a mention if he's lucky.

The far north of Australia is tropical and only has two seasons, wet and dry. That it's always hot is taken as read. Down here in Victoria the climate isn't too bad even for Scots. I even know a couple. Think Southern England, probably Cornwall, maybe a degree or so warmer than the equivalent season. 3.6˚C the other night but I doubt it'll get much worse than that this winter. Frosts are rare around Melbourne and I've not seen one yet, but it can get colder in the hills and the snow season here started early this year because of the extra warble gloaming or some such bollocks. Tasmania would probably feel more like a Southern hemisphere Scotland because there's fuck all between it and Antarctica, and since Melbourne gets a lot cooler whenever there's a southerly wind Tassie must be cold as a witch's tit this time of year. Frankly I don't intend visiting the place in the winter to find out.; 25 June 2010 at 13:03