The Angry Exile: Police. Camera. Over-reaction.

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

Thursday, 1 July 2010

Police. Camera. Over-reaction.

I'm rather late to this so it's all over the blogosphere already (H/T in rough order of where I remember seeing it, the LPUK blog, the Ambush Predator, the Filthy Engineer, the Devil and probably half my blogroll in fact) but I'm going to jump in and ask the question anyway:

What the fuck is going on with the Metropolitan Police?

I mean, really, what the fuck are they thinking? Not only have they got a less than enviable record (see this from last December or this from the previous July, for example) but their actions have been so heavy-handed that it's prompted the formation of a campaign group and a protest, and they've been told they can't just use Section 44 to search whoever the fuck they want just because they feel like it. And on top of all that they've just this week been caught out abusing their powers and their office, so you'd have thought the word would have come down from the very top to the newest and greenest of uninformed (not a typo) fucknuggets: leave the photographers alone unless they're actually committing a fucking crime, by which we mean photographing through someone's windows or letterbox or battering someone to death with a telephoto lens. Ask if you must, and if you must use what used to be known as copper's nous and make a conversation about what sort of camera you should buy if you wanted to get into photography or why your holiday snaps look so crap, but for fuck's sake don't end up on fucking YouTube as the star of the latest clip of a rude and disrespectful police officer bullying an innocent citizen with absolutely no cause or legal justification. Just fucking don't.

That the word has not come down means I assume that Commissioner Paul Stephenson, he at the very top, doesn't really give a shit if his goons take a metaphorical dump on the uniform by ganging up on a teenage photojournalist for no apparent reason other than the fact that they felt they could. About all you can credit them for is that they'll be being honest when they say, 'Oh, he fell down some stairs.' (Not voluntarily by the sounds of it, but never mind.) Still, he's probably got other things on his plate. Those Scotland Yard branded children's crime scene kits won't sell themselves, you know.

Anna Gardiner, head of the MPS Income Generation Unit, said "We were aware that there was a keen interest amongst children in police and forensics procedure and we wanted to do something with educational value."

Hang on, the fucking what? Income Generation Unit? Fuck me ragged, income generation is a police function now, is it? That explains oh so very much.

Just out of interest have you got a Photographer Hassling Unit? If so then why not get the MPSPHU to liase with the MPSIGU and see if there's any way they can bill people for falling down the stairs?

Spokesman Matthew Parlett said: "It is a real coup and an honour to be the first brand licensing partner with the Metropolitan Police Service on the New Scotland Yard brand."

What? Whaaat?? It's a fucking police force for Christ's sake. It doesn't have a fucking brand. It isn't fucking CSI: Lancaster Gate. It exists for two reasons and two only, and that is firstly to prevent crime and, where they've failed to do that, secondly to find and arrest people who commit crime. Got that? It's not there to compete with fucking Toys R Us at Christmas time, it doesn't need to generate income, and above all you can't turn yourselves into a fucking brand or no doubt you'll soon be kicking the shit out of people with Chinese knock offs of 'your brand' down the markets. Well, when you've finally driven every photographer, amateur snapper and tourist with a camera from away from London, obviously.

Like I said, what the fuck is going on with the Metropolitan Police? New Scotland Yard is turning into fucking New Scotland Yardies. Just fucking stop it and do what the taxpayer is paying you for.