The Angry Exile: The most epic example of pots and kettles.

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

Monday 31 January 2011

The most epic example of pots and kettles.

It seems Cameramong is so determined to prevent the House of Lords from stonewalling the necessary legislation for the referendum on AV and the reduction in the number of MPs - both of which I feel the man deserves some rare credit for - that he's grown a set large enough to stand up to the group of mostly Labour peers who are being a pain.

Senior Government figures suspect that some peers are deliberately dragging out the debate to stop the legislation being passed in time for a planned referendum in May. The Prime Minister plans to table a motion to "guillotine" the debate tonight if Labour refuses to back down. It would be voted on tomorrow, in what critics say would be a substantial change to how the Upper House handles legislation.

I have to admit to more than just mild surprise, but what really made my jaw bounce off the deck was this:

Labour has accused him of planning a "constitutional outrage".

This would be the same Labour which when last in office regularly and quite thoroughly wiped its collective shit encrusted arse with the British constitution, yes? The same Labour which agreed to extradite British citizens to foreign countries on the most tenuous prima facie evidence if any? The same Labour that brought in house arrest, control orders and detention without trial? The same Labour that gave itself and any future government, along with their public sector minions at various levels, unprecedented powers to spy on British citizens? The same Labour that granted itself the power to seize assets of those convicted of crimes without needing to prove they were acquired by criminal means? The same Labour that attempted to bring in ID cards and numerous databases with which to monitor and control its citizens? The same Labour which ejected many hereditary members of the House of Lords while stuffing the place with its own cronies and yes-men? The same Labour which always kept a hand on the Parliament Act in order to batter the Lords into submission whenever they didn't play ball? The same Labour that passed a number of mini-enabling acts allowing British law up to and including Habeas fucking Corpus to be altered or suspended at ministerial whim?

Oh, yes. That Labour.

You despicable fucking hypocrites. How the cunting fuck can you lowlife, self-serving arrogant pack of spunk gargling sycophants, swindlers and cheats even say that while keeping a straight face?

Lord Falconer of Thoroton, the shadow constitutional affairs spokesman, said: "The consequence of a guillotine is that the Government would get control of the Lords. This would be an abomination. Within seven months of getting into power they are trying to castrate the only independent part of it."

So says another placeman and crony of the grinning mutation, warmonger, constitution shredder and arch-übercunt of the lower darkness, Blair. In fact Charlie Falconer was the first person Blair had made a peer, and was made an instant Solicitor General as a reward for his nanosecond's service in the Lords. This was on the 6th of May 1997, four days after Labour won the election, and I guess several weeks after Falconer had purely coincidentally applied to be the Labour candidate for Dudley East in the same election only to be knocked back because his kids were in private school. Presumably he did not think it remotely abominable to have failed even to be chosen as a candidate, much less an MP, only to be been given a peerage and a government position purely for being an old flatmate, wingman and law-buddy of the new Prime Bastard. Or to have then been given a Cabinet position just over a year later when the Mandelsnake tripped over his own forked tongue (for the first time). Or, for that matter, any of the rest of the positions he occupied in his government including that of the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, in which Falconer gutted the position of Lord Chancellor of many of its roles and gave them instead to the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs. Which position was of course occupied by Charlie Falconer, Baron of Thoroton and never fucking voted for by anyone in his whole government - can hardly say political - career, which lasted almost as long as that of his bestest friend, Tony, and very useful indeed it was to the warmongering arch-übercunt as good old Charlie was in a position to help make sure Blair's war was at least apparently legal.

None of which bears even the faintest whiff of anything unconstitutional or the most vague hint of being even slightly abominable. Of course.

Motes and beams, Charlie boy, you despicable bastard. Motes and fucking beams. As in while you're picking the motes out of thine own eye I rather hope a lot of fucking beams fall on you.