The Angry Exile: Nannying twats.

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

Sunday 17 October 2010

Nannying twats.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) will announce that dozens of new powers are to be handed down from Whitehall to local authorities, including strategies to tackle vandalism.

On the one hand I like the idea of power being devolved to a local level and think there should be rather more of it. On the other hand since this idea still involves a business being unable to set its own prices according to its needs it doesn't go nearly far enough for me. In fact since, as far as I'm aware, the current situation is that a business may set its own prices for whatever reasons it chooses this idea is actually the opposite of devolution. Deciding what to charge is to be taken away from the individuals and businesses who currently have it and placed in the hands of the lowest tier of the state. The councils, of course, are on the end of a set of financial strings held by central government, which in turn is lead by a Mr David William Donald Cameron, a nannying cunt of the first ordure.

Among the most eye-catching is the new power to put a stop to cheap alcohol offers at supermarkets if such deals seriously undercut prices charged at local pubs.
David Cameron has already voiced his support for stopping supermarkets selling what he described as "20 tins of Stella for a fiver".

Did the UK get a change of government or did I fucking dream it? Look, Dave, you illiberal fucktard, it was always cheaper to buy booze in the shops than the pubs which strongly suggests that it wasn't the price of beer that people went to the pubs for in the first place. It was the social aspect, not beer as such but beer and good company, that kept pubs selling booze for more than the supermarkets. This lasted right up until a wedge was driven into all the social groups, dividing them into those who smoked and were not welcome and those who didn't and were. I neither drink nor smoke but I socialise with people who do, and guess what - because of the same authoritarian legislation here this socialising never ever happens in a pub. The state government thinks it has made the pubs a friendly environment for me, but I don't call the sitting with a few fellow non-smokers and an over priced coke while the smokers are temporarily banished to the car park "friendly". The last government in the UK made the same mistake and yours, Davey, seems determined to blow the opportunity to fix it.

In July, the Coalition government said it was to publish a consultation paper including proposals to ban shops selling alcohol below cost price.
The following month, the Prime Minister backed plans by 10 councils in the North West to create a by-law making it illegal to sell alcohol for less than 50p a unit.
He said at the time: "I think the idea of the councils coming together on this is a good one and we will certainly look at it very sympathetically."

And what the fuck's it got to do with you if someone does sell at under 50p per unit or even offers twenty cans of Stella for a fiver (if indeed that's ever happened)? In your nanny shaped mind the person buying it can only want to chug the whole lot in one sitting, while the reality is that many would be buying for a party where ten or twelve people would have one or two each of those twenty cans, and others simply want to buy a lot of beer in one go for consumption over a long period. Nearly every Aussie I know buys their beer in 'slabs' but not one ever drinks it all in one go. Yes, some do have too much and cause problems, but if you told the police to stop fucking twittering about it long enough to make some fucking arrests and the courts to actually deal effectively with drunken troublemakers you wouldn't need to concern yourself with other people's private transaction. But because Dave thinks the irresponsible few who do get absolutely shitfaced are representative of everybody who buys alcohol there must be no promos and no bargains for the responsible majority. Ain't that right, Dave? So if I were to buy beer for guests in a UK supermarket - beer I have no intention of drinking myself - I have to be charged a higher price because you assume I'm going to drink it all and be an obnoxious drunken pain in the arse, and getting ripped off somehow makes up for that.

Well, fuck you, Dave, fuck you very much. The irony is that the whole fucking thing might well be illegal anyway.

The new move is likely to require a change in legislation -as current competition laws ban discrimination against suppliers who can offer goods at the cheapest price.

Good luck with that, because you might actually have to grow balls and stand up to the EU. Every cloud has a silver lining, and in this case I hope it's getting to watch you twisting on the horns of a quite unnecessary dilemma.