The Angry Exile: Pork flu returns to kill us all.

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 16 January 2011

Pork flu returns to kill us all.

Click for ~~brain damage~~ linky

We're DOOOOOOOOOOMED! Doooomed, I say! Run, run for the hills. Run for your li... oh wait, no.
What's that last bit again?

... and other winter viruses.

Ah, so should we run around screaming, "PORK FLU" at the top of our lungs before rounding up absolutely everything that looks a bit piggy?

Kill it! Kill it with fire!

Or should we calm the fuck down a bit first and look at what viruses we're talking about that are all being lumped together with pork flu by The Daily Jellygraph?

Yeah, I'm going for the second one (my bold).

Scores of hospital wards closed due to norovirus, the winter vomiting bug, which put more than 1,200 beds out of use in one week as nurses attempted to isolate the disease.

Norovirus. Okay. Although my medical expertise doesn't extend beyond A level biology I'm reasonably confident in saying without bothering to check that norovirus, while it may be unpleasant, possibly deadly and apt to make you able to shit through the eye of a needle or puke your own sphincter across the room (not sure which, possibly both), is not actually swine flu. But just in case I'm wrong I will go and check. Bear with me.

Okay, I've checked and it isn't. I won't bother to reference it since anyone with internet access can confirm it in seconds unless they are either lobotomised, retarded or, just possibly, a journalist.

And, er, that's it. The only illnesses mentioned are norovirus, flu and swine flu, and it's not made clear how much flu is swine flu or whether the writer intends flu to mean non-swine flu versions of flu. Beyond that we've got mention of a couple of deaths from swine flu and a list of areas where hospitals have cancelled routine surgery, slightly spoiled by the admission that many hospitals do that at this time of year anyway. Again, the article fails to say how many have cancelled routine surgery who would otherwise have carried on, though presumably Southampton General was one.

Southampton General Hospital spent more than three weeks on “black alert”, closing 10 wards as norovirus swept through the centre. It was forced to stop all non-emergency surgery and cancel most appointments for outpatients during the period. The crisis warning was finally lifted on Thursday.

Three points. One, it's norovirus again, not swine flu. Two, they seem to be over it now. And three, it's fucking norovirus for fuck's sake.

Okay, maybe it's just that one and all the others are ... oh, who am I kidding?

Because of the same bug, four wards were closed at Royal Cornwall Hospital last week and cancer and surgery wards in Poole, Dorset, were closed to new admissions. Three wards were closed at West Suffolk hospital.

Again, norovirus in the case of the first two for sure and by implication the third as well, though since the article says no more than that they were closed it could have been for fucking redecorating for all we know.

Now I'm not saying the NHS is struggling to cope or that the restrictions on routine surgery are a non-issue. This is not a dig about health so much as journalism, and in particular the use of this headline

Swine flu: hospitals 'gridlocked'

to describe events that the article itself ascribes largely to other illness such as norovirus, which pops into my head for no obvious reason whatsoever, and standard fucking procedure for this time of year.

All of which leads me to wonder whether the Jellygraph is after the crown of another newspaper.