The Angry Exile: Another place not to visit.

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, 5 December 2010

Another place not to visit.

Spain. If they're prepared to force their own citizens to work at gunpoint are they going to give a rip about foreigners?

H/T to an Anonymous commenter over at Puddlecote Towers.

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Guest · 744 weeks ago

Thanks for the H/T Mr Exile. I see that many of the commenters at the Telegraph are too myopic / stupid to see the bigger issue. Regardless of their earnings, the very fact that a Country so readily declares a state of alert to force people at gun point to perform against their will is a very ominous sign. One muppet even suggested they could simply resign, when it is obvious that resignation or not, with a gun pointed at your head instructions will be followed.

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Angry_Exile 90p · 744 weeks ago

You're welcome, whoever you are ;) And agreed on all points. Sure, they could all resign at the end of the day but for now they've got armed men making them work. Used to be whips, now it's guns. And at the point where the guns come out again if they do threaten to quit the job you might as well call it slavery.

I'm also wondering whether a miserable, pissed off and slightly scared air traffic controller who's got an armed man at the door who made him come in and won't let him leave when he wants will have his full and undivided attention on the fucking radar screens.

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banned · 744 weeks ago

there was me thinking what a cuddly ideal peoples democracy Spain had become until I read " immediate imprisonment for sedition " for strikers? OTT in my opinion, USA has shown the way, sack the lot.

1 reply · active 744 weeks ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 744 weeks ago

Yep, and I think this is part of the problem. A free society would have no problem with the idea of individuals being at liberty to withdraw their labour and would understand that the same freedom means the other individuals, the ones who contracted the first lot to do something in return for money, would be at liberty to find someone else to do the bloody work. That employers aren't free to do that has now lead to the employees not being free either, and neither side has much reason to be happy.

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FH · 744 weeks ago

Coming to a town near EU soon!

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 744 weeks ago

Mrs Exile's reaction was that surely the EU would make waves and that surely it would be illegal under ECHR or something. And it might be, but my feeling is that if an inconvenient strike is crushed they won't give a flying (no pun intended) fuck.

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AllSeeingEye 55p · 744 weeks ago

President Reagan had the right idea, as Banned hints at, and this famous clip of him during the US air traffic controllers strike in 1981 shows just how it should be done:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc8brHWFZMY

I haven't got much choice about visiting Spain most weeks but I can assure you that it isn't somewhere I'd want to live. The sight of paramilitary police on the streets, still with their symbols dating back to the Franco era, remind you every day that the place is not a mature or pleasant democracy.

1 reply · active 744 weeks ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 744 weeks ago

I remember that Reagan speech, though not from seeing it at the time. I don't think I knew what an air traffic controller was in 1981. But I've seen it a few times on the web lately.

I don't know whether Spain has taken a turn for the worse but I've spent quite a few happy holidays there in various spots along the Costa del Sol (and took the opportunity to visit your neck of the woods). Not sure if I'd know a Franco era symbol if it stopped the car and shot me but I did notice that a lot of homes had bars on the windows, which friends we stayed with said was a holdover from the Franco days. Not a mature or pleasant democracy? I'm prepared to believe that, though I've become inclined to believe that no democracy is intrinsically fair anyway. But sending armed police to herd people into work definitely qualifies as far as I'm concerned.

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