The Angry Exile: Victory for free speech?

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 2 September 2010

Victory for free speech?

Bollocks. It's a defeat for contract law.

Look, everyone knew who the Stig is before today. It's one of the worst kept secrets in the world. But the thing is the guy signed a contract with a confidentiality clause and when it didn't suit him anymore he didn't want to honour it, and a judge was daft enough to agree. I highly doubt that his contract bound him to life long servitude to the BBC so if he wanted to publish his book the obvious thing to do, which I imagine was what his contract required him to do, was to hand in his notice, quietly fuck off, and then print what ever he likes. It's not often I take the side of the Beeb and oppose people like the Taxpayer's Alliance, who are understandably pissed off about the BBC spunking money away on legal action over a minor joke character on the 'grubby little motoring show' they put on BBC2, but where will end up if courts can allow one party to unilaterally alter a signed contract to the other party's disadvantage and without their agreement?

Say you hire someone to work certain days of the week, they sign a contract agreeing to this, and then later tell you that they're no longer going to work the contractually agreed days. Why doesn't matter. Whether it's because they've converted to a religion that doesn't let them or because there's something new on TV they like, the effect is the same to you - and if you can't or won't accommodate them then you have to part company in whatever way was in the terms of the contract. How would you feel if a judge then told you that actually you couldn't let him go and you couldn't make him work the day he agreed to, contracted to and now refuses to? Would you be pissed off? I bloody would be.

I said all this about Fred Goodwin over a year and a half ago. Remember how there were noises about changing the law so the government could take a large chunk of his contractually agreed pension and throw it to the baying crowd?

I don't want to take the side of someone I think is a smarmy arsehole, but when people openly plan to change the law so contracts can be torn up retrospectively and sue because they couldn't be arsed to make their own judgements about the risk their investment was running I can't help but feel some sympathy.

Now it's the same for the Beeb. They are bastards of the lowest ordure, the TV licence is a complete fucking scam, they're biased against one set of pricks and in favour of another set of pricks, and they only make a small number of decent shows, though for those shows I would be prepared to pay money if only the fucktroons would sort out iPlayer to work outside the Europisstake Utopion. In short I am not Auntie's biggest fan. But on this occasion I side with them just because they signed a contract in good faith with someone who apparently now wants to have his cake and eat it.

But you know what's really annoying? Just as it was with Fred Goodwin's pension, siding with a bunch of loathsome, unspeakable shites to defend the principle of a signed contract leaves me feeling slightly in need of a wash, like lying down with dogs might have given me fleas. My enemy's enemy and all that but I like to be able to dislike my hate figures on a full time basis. And for that reason above all, Stig or Ben or whatever we should call you, I hope you lose both the case as well as the gig (apparently this has already happened), and that your book is rapidly consigned to the charity shop bargain section.

Bring on the Blue/Red/Green/Yellow/Two-Tone Ska/Orange Stig.

4 comments:

JuliaM said...: Well said.

It pays to put yourself in the shoes of BOTH protagonists when considering some messy dispute, and when I did that, I found myself agreeing with the BBC too.

It was an unsettling experience, it's true...; 2 September 2010 at 14:45
Bucko said...: Yeah, a contract is a contract.
So who is he anyway? Am I the only one who doesn't know; 2 September 2010 at 19:30
Angry Exile said...: @ JuliaM, yeah, like I said, it was just like thinking Fred the Shred was a prick but being against Harperson and Co wanting to retrospectively rewrite his contract.

@ Bucko. No idea. I'd never heard of him before last year when he was semi-outed as the Stig. Didn't care much at the time and I only care now because he wants a court's green light to let him unilaterally alter a contract.; 2 September 2010 at 19:53
Chuckles said...: Do pay attention AE, contracts and integrity are so last century. In the 21st century it's how you 'feel' about things that matters.

His self esteem levels are probably a bit low at the moment, so he needs to up them by letting the world know he is 'the stig', so he can bask in the waves of adulation rolling over him from an adoring public.

Or not.; 2 September 2010 at 20:20