The Angry Exile: Banning Bazza.

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

Friday 6 August 2010

Banning Bazza.

While I remembered the metaphorical milk and post on Monday I forgot to stop the papers while I was away, and one of the things that awaited my return from my little skive was the suggestion by Tony Abbott, leader of the opposition (il)Liberal party, to ban Barry "Bazza" Hall, the full forward of the Western Bulldogs Aussie Rules Footy club. Not to ban Bazza from anything, you understand. The suggestion is just to ban him. To begin with I assumed that this was because Prime Minister pro tem Julia Gillard is a Bulldogs supporter, but apparently this is not the case. Tony Abbott has explained that it's really because the Bazza is "confrontational". Well, I can see his point. Here's the Bazza at work.

Clearly the Bazza is all about confrontation, whether it be getting in (and occasionally rearranging) the faces of opposing players or growling "No comment" at journalists in airports the day after flattening someone, so I do get what Tony Abbott says. Not sure it's something Bulldogs supporters will be alongside the idea of banning the Bazza since he's their leading goal kicker, which was why they signed him in the first place, and ...... oh, wait. Mrs Exile's just told me I've got this all wrong. It's not the Bazza he's talking about, it's the burqa.

Again.

The thing is though, how confrontational is the burqa, which is basically a woman with most or all of her face hidden, compared to Bazza, which is basically a 6' 4" 17 stone hard bastard known to deck people? Well, to be brutally honest it's not really a difficult question. Big hard bastard footy player over woman in the one person tent with the ninja mask, every day of the week - it's not as if the king of the Ring Wraiths is in there, is it? That'd be a fucking confrontation alright, eh Tony, you big sook?

And then we come to the other problems. If the burqa is wrong but there remains no law against fancy dress then anyone who wants to wear a burqa can just go get a Nazgul outfit and tell anyone who asks that they're trying to drum up support for a Lord of the Rings convention. And if there's something terribly wrong with a woman having nothing but her eyes showing then which of these pictures of the same woman is worse?

Since we can safely assume that no one made her dress that way for any of the three pictures I'd suggest the answer is none of them, but certainly not the one where she's showing little more of her face than a woman in a burqa. Or, for that matter, a Middle Earth nerd or a female motorcyclist or even an entirely naked woman talking through the front door via the letter box. What's it to be, Tony? Are they all confrontational? Is the comically ill-named Liberal party going to ban all of them?

So it's no more confrontational than Barry Hall and no more concealing than fancy dress or crash helmets, all that's left is the guff about wimmin's rights and freedom as if, like I've said before, somehow liberty can be increased as a result of people being told they can't do something any more. I suspect the real issue is that Tony Abbott just doesn't like the look of it. Fair enough. I don't like it either. But then I don't like seeing middle aged politicians in budgie smugglers - it's not a great look either, Tony. The difference is that I don't feel the need to ask the government to ban either of 'em.

Oh, and go Bazza and go Doggies. Well, I'm not telling him otherwise. He's way too confrontational.