The Angry Exile: Green in more ways than one.

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 27 July 2010

Green in more ways than one.

It's not just trade unions (see last post) that seem to be possessed of more righteous outrage than sense. Greenpeace activists have also been busy apparently setting their cause back, in their case by shutting down BP petrol stations by flipping the emergency switches.

Greenpeace claimed it shut off fuel supplies at around 50 service stations in central London this morning.
...
"We've shut down all of BP's stations in London to give the new boss a chance to come up with a better plan. They're desperate for us to believe they're going 'beyond petroleum'. Well now's the time to prove it."

Oh, very fucking well done. You should be so fucking proud of yourselves there. I have no interest in and little love for BP and I tend to buy fuel at Caltex or Shell for reasons of both price and convenience.

I find it difficult to believe that nobody at Greenpest is aware that many petrol stations in the UK, perhaps the majority are franchises and so Greenpest's actions will hurt small businesses before Big Oil. Perhaps they do know but just don't care, and frankly I'd find that perfectly believable. I also find it hard to believe that it hasn't occurred to anyone at Greenpest that while it will hurt BP indirectly because those franchises that are not selling BP fuel today will of course be ordering less BP fuel as a result, hurting a company that's got an enormous fucking oil spill to clean up might not be a terribly good idea in the first place. Yes, the amount of money involved compared both to BP's worldwide turnover and the cleanup bill they're facing for the Gulf leak is, if you'll excuse the expression, a drop in the ocean, but for want of a nail and all that. If you cost BP ten grand this week and in turn that meant the company taking an extra day to clean its shit up would it have been worth it? Or would it have been better to encourage them to make more money so they can afford to clean up faster? Again, perhaps this has actually occurred to Greenpest and they just don't care, and again I find that depressingly easy to believe. Gestures are so often more important than effect when it comes to modern environmentalism.

Oh, and on top of everything else I'm not sure the Greenpest bellends can count. I've just looked on BP's website for the number of petrol stations they have in the London area and I counted 33, and that's counting two at London Gatwick Airport where, since it's in the middle of fucking West Sussex, the word London really ought to appear in inverted commas and with a big, fuck off, winking smiley next to it. So either Greenpest managed to shut down more BP stations in London than BP actually have or they hit a few others to make the numbers up and because why not.

And to think I used to give money to these twats.