The Angry Exile: Buena suerte con eso.

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 21 October 2010

Buena suerte con eso.

I haven't been to Spain for years but from what I remember of my last visit it seemed that almost everybody smoked. Old, young, men, women. Leather faced labourer types from villages up in the mountains, long legged brunettes in expensive sunglasses holding designer handbags.

Possibly a Spanish baby.

So I'm not sure how popular this is going to be.

The Spanish parliamentary commission passed a bill on Wednesday night to make all bars and restaurants no-smoking zones, bringing Spain in line with the European Union's strictest antismoking nations.
The law is expected to pass the Senate and become law on Jan 2.

And I very much hope that the major effect is that Spain becomes slightly less law abiding on January 3rd.

The current law put in place in 2006 prohibits smoking in the workplace, and workers smoking just outside their office buildings are a common sight.
But that law aimed at cracking down on smoking permitted owners of most bars and cafés to decide on their own whether to allow smoking – and almost all ended up doing so, leading critics to label the earlier law a total failure.

If by total failure we mean that there are still plenty of bars and cafés in Spain because the hospitality industry was able to cater to both smokers and non-smokers then yes, a complete and abject failure. I mean, are they closing up at anything like 30 a week? I don't bloody think so. On the other hand if you think that a law that caters for everyone - smokers, non-smokers and business owners alike - and hasn't been accompanied by a surge in cafés and bars simply giving up and closing down then failure might not be quite the right word.

Those bar and café owners will now lose the privilege, and larger restaurants that still have smoking sections will have to get rid of them. Officials predict thousands of lives now lost to second-hand smoke in Spain will be saved.

My prediction is that the same kind of bullshit stats will be wheeled out in the next couple of years that we've seen before. It'll be the Scottish Heart Miracle all over again, except about a thousand miles due south. I'd bet more people have had 'crushed by donkey thrown from tower' written on their death certificates than have had secondary smoking.

Christ, stop feeding us all this bullshit. If you don't like the smell, and I quite understand that since I'm not a fan myself, just take a couple of steps backwards. Providing you're not standing with your back to a cliff it works just fine. And equally, don't go into the bars that allow smoking. Why is this so bloody difficult?

I can only hope that the Spanish play awkward and tell their government to go fuck itself (I used up most of my knowledge of the language with the title) but failing that I'd suggest they follow the example of some of my favourite bloggers. Smoky-drinky places are the way to go.