The Angry Exile: Nadine comes clean?

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

Saturday, 23 October 2010

Nadine comes clean?

How the Christ this became newsworthy here I've no idea since I can't imagine that many Australians know or care who Nadine Dorries is, but all the same this appeared in The Aussie.

A BRITISH MP enraged her constituents and her party after letting slip that her blog, which tells people how hard she works, is "70 per cent fiction".

Nadine Dorries, a Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire in southern England, made the admission to investigators during a sleaze inquiry that cleared her of abusing the Government’s expenses system but found that she misled voters.

70 per cent fiction? Fancy that.*

According to documents published by the Standards and Privileges Committee, Ms Dorries said: "My blog is 70 per cent fiction and 30 perc ent fact. It is written as a tool to enable my constituents to know me better and to reassure them of my commitment to Mid Bedfordshire.”

Oh, Nadine, you are a dear. If they knew you better they might not have voted you back in, don't you think? And if your blog is 70% fiction then perhaps that's why. Or is because you know that there's more than enough tribal Tory voters in your constituency who would vote for a compost heap with a blue rosette on the top without too much doubt, so they wouldn't think twice about voting for you, fictional blog and fictional second home expense claims notwithstanding.

Baaaaaaaa. Baaaaaaaaaa.

But Ms Dorries later told the BBC that she had been told by police to disguise her movements on her blog, adding that "actually, I think I meant to say it's 30 percent fiction".

And I'd like to think that more than 70% of us should be less than 30% convinced by that.

* No, in every sense.

Comments (2)

Logging you in...

Dashboard | Edit profile | Logout

Logged in as

+1 Vote up Vote down

sadbutmadlad 66p · 753 weeks ago

Give her credit, it's a great excuse for cheating the system. It just sounds so much like a naughty child coming up with an ingenious but wacky excuse when it's obvious they did something wrong. And then they embelish the lie with more lies - that the police told her to fib on the blog to hide her movements - as if she is that special. Except that instead of a parent who can see through the lie you have lawyers and politicians who believe that the accused must be totally and utterly found to be in the wrong. They'll take any slightly believable excuse hook line and sinker.

There is no doubt whatsoever that she cheated the system.

1 reply · active 753 weeks ago

+1 Vote up Vote down

Angry_Exile 90p · 752 weeks ago

None at all, or she wouldn't have been ordered to apologise. But that's another thing. Even if you accept that an apology somehow magically makes it all okay again how sincere is it when she's been ordered to do it. It's just one 'fuck you' after another to the taxpayers who fund this venal woman and her fellow politicians.

Correction: Nads has not been ordered to apologise. I was thinking of Baroness Uddin. Mea culpa, all these troughers just look the fucking same to me.

Post a new comment

Comment as a Guest, or login:

Tweet this comment

Connected as (Logout)

Email (optional)

Not displayed publicly.

Submit Comment

Subscribe to

Add insightful or amusing remarks for me to think on and respond to. Or add annoying comment spam for me to waste time deleting, in which case may your genitals turn square and fester at the corners.

Unnecessary ranting and gratuitous profanity is strictly encouraged.

NB - due to some annoying pricks comment spamming lately all comments with three or more any links go into a moderation queue. If it's not spam I will publish all comments even tenuously related to whatever I was rambling about in the post. Otherwise please refer to the comments policy.

Comments by IntenseDebate