The Angry Exile: It's just not sporting.

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

It's just not sporting.

One of the things that governments tend to do that really annoys me is to waste money on services they really don't need to provide either because it could have been - often used to be - done by the private sector or that really don't need to be done at all (I intend to come back to quangos again soon). One example that particularly boils my piss, heats my shit and scorches my toenail clippings is when some political fucktroon decides that it is a government function to act as a sports promoter. This kind of thinking results in, well, multi-billion pound/dollar costs for something like this.

Personally I like the Olympics. Dismiss it as a lot of running and jumping if you want - though obviously you're neglecting the swimming, throwing things, shooting, riding, sword fighting, lifting and ~~pornography~~ beach volleyball - but I quite like a lot of it. What I don't like is the typical approach to bidding and paying for it which reduces it to some politician's poorly considered vanity project paid for by the taxpayer and insufficiently overseen. The Olympics mob seem to be so used to it being an enormous spectacle paid for with government money that they've long forgotten that (a) it's supposed to be a sporting event, (b) governments have no money but what they take from their own citizens at gunpoint and therefore (c) if they can't put it on simply by selling tickets and regular corporate sponsorship then it's probably too much fucking money, and maybe, just maybe, that brand new mega-stadium designed to look like a giant steel and glass Saturday night kebab covered in sick might possibly be an extravagance. While I'm going to enjoy watching it some of the gloss will be taken off by the fact that I still lived in Britain while they had their fucking hands in my wallet for that as well. So it should come as no surprise that I have little time for the Victorian government and its enthusiasm for spunking away our money on sports.

I've touched on this once or twice as regards the Melbourne F1 Grand Prix, not to mention hosing bank notes at Tiger Woods for him to help pay for his wife's lawyer's yacht. There aren't that many things that really fucking infuriate me about living here but the fucking state government's love of using my money on sport, even if it's sport I like, is right up there. Why is this necessary when the British Grand Prix doesn't?* If I want to go I'll buy a ticket, always assuming that it's a sane price. Of course it isn't a sane price because the shovelling of taxpayers' cash into it distorts the market. Yes, tickets would cost a lot more if the government didn't chip in $50 million of our money, but it would soon become clear that the whole event is ludicrously over priced to stage and that Formula One itself is charging too much for the 'privilege' of holding the race. They don't seem to overcharge Britain because the British government, despite some past brown nosing over tobacco sponsorship in the early Blair days, doesn't do the sport any special favours. Silverstone tickets do seem a bit dearer than Melbourne but without the government money the back of the nearest envelope suggests that they'd be close on $400 more. That's just the average, and clearly you can't add $400 to a $90 general admission ticket so that would mean that the thousand dollar tickets might need to double in price, maybe more. Suddenly Silverstone tickets look like a steal, and you have to ask if it can be done there then why not here? Because the UK government isn't dumb enough? Hardly - Olympics, remember?

And it might get even worse, because not only are we coming up for a federal election in a couple of weeks but we've got a state election coming as well. Elections of course mean politicians of nearly all stripes attempting to bribe the voters with their own money, and in the case of the incumbent Labor government in Victoria this means promising our fucking money to a specific Aussie Rules club.

THE LABOR Party has pledged to fund a $1.9 million overhaul of the playing surface at North Melbourne’s Arden Street Oval if re-elected on August 21.

The announcement was made on Thursday afternoon by infrastructure minister Anthony Albanese.

He was flanked by Labor frontbencher Simon Crean, who is a lifelong North Melbourne supporter.

Seriously, fellas, what? The? Fuck? Are you doing giving handouts to any football club, let alone the least popular club by memberships in the whole bloody league? Did you bastards help out the Melbourne Demons, or did you let them clear $5 million of debt over two years by themselves, like the business that an AFL club really is? Because if they can raise the money themselves there's no reason not to expect the same of any other club in any other sport. Is it really just because this Simon Crean bloke is one of North Melbourne's relatively few supporters, and if the PM supports a club does it get federal money? Oh gosh, as I mentioned in the last post, the PM does support a club, doesn't she? And to her credit she's not mentioned dropping a helicopter load of money on the Bulldogs, at least not that I've heard. Admittedly this might be because she's busy trying to buy rather more votes than the 25,000 or so North Melbourne members who might be impressed by the Victorian government's election bribe**, but I'll give her the benefit of the doubt. It's not even like the fucking AFL itself is short of a bob or two when it's spending an absolute shitload on support for two new teams. Surely they could lend a couple of mill at favourable rates to North Melbourne. Obviously you'd think so, but then why the fuck would any sane businessman bother to do it with his own money if some elected tit offers to do it with money taken from everybody in the whole state?

So, yet another reason not to vote for Labor. Okay, I wasn't going to anyway but I'm sick and fucking tired of these gobshites taxing people - low earners as often as not - and at the same time giving money to wealthy people and clubs in the sports world. It's got to stop. Sport is a business, not a government service. It neither needs nor deserves a cent of our money beyond what we're prepared to pay directly to go and see it or to buy its sponsors products and so on. Got that, politicians and other grandstanding wankers? Sinking in?

Right. With that in mind tell North Melbourne FC to go to the fucking bank.

* Those who've followed F1 for a while will probably be aware that the midget in charge of promoting the sport and counting the money has complained several times that Britain should do what other countries do and fund it with government money, which shows that he has no more understanding that governments don't actually have any money than do the fuckwit pollies that queue up to fellate him and fill his pockets. No wonder the fucker is minted.
** If they want to buy the votes of footy fans I'd suggest something that's going to benefit three or four of the larger clubs rather than one small one. That this generosity is aimed at less than 25,000 people when with a little imagination they might have got the attention of maybe five or six times that just shows you what a pointless idea it is.