The Angry Exile: Reading's most expensive joke?

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

Friday 11 February 2011

Reading's most expensive joke?

What's nearly 400 foot tall, cost £130,000 in subsidies last year and was only worth a hundred grand? Reading's wind turbine, badoom tish!

What? I never said it was a funny a joke, did I?

The 280ft turbine situated in a business park near the M4 in Reading operated at just 15 per cent of its capacity year, meaning it generated £100,000 of energy, despite attracting subsidies of £130,000 from the Government.

What a great investment. Oh, not in terms of energy generation obviously. And since wind turbines need backup for when it's not windy or, amusingly, when it's too windy, which is typically a conventional power station running on spinning reserve and, if fossil fuelled, spunking terrible carbon death into the air, it's not a great investment in terms of saving our fragile planet either. That's before you even think about the effects turbines may be having elsewhere. Even if you believe in man made warble gloaming a wind turbine to a greenie should be seen, in their parlance, as environmentally unsound. But it is a good business investment to stick up something that will pay you more just for it being there than you get from selling the electricity. Who gives a rip that it only operates at a fraction of it's capacity when what it does generate pays you a 100 grand and then the government holds the taxpayer's head against a wall for a bit until you get another £130K (plus a little for the government's time, natch). Seriously, that's like striking oil.

Well, except you can use oil to make electricity when the wind doesn't blow.

Since 2005, when it began producing energy, the turbine has been subsidised with £600,000 of public money but has run at an average of 17 per cent of its capacity.
The turbine in Reading is capable of generating two megawatts (two million watts) of electricity at any time, but last year worked at 15.4 per cent of this rate, producing 2,692 megawatt-hours (MWh) – the total amount of energy measured in hours – over the year.
Government subsidies of £48 are paid to wind turbine owners for every MWh generated, with the Reading turbine's owner Ecotricity earning £130,000.

Hang on a mo, they get £48 per MWh no matter what? So if they get £130K for for making £100K worth of electricity and presumably also got paid for the £100,000 worth of electricity it generated, doesn't that mean that over the time period they got a total of £600,000 in subsidies they also made over £450,000 from just ordinary turnover? Doesn't it mean that unless the value of the electricity they produce rises above the value of the subsidy they get the wind turbine always gets more subsidies than it makes from generation? And since consumers pay twice, once as customers and once as taxpayers coughing up for the subsidy, doesn't it mean that the wind power is more than twice as much per unit? And that ignores the associated costs of backup for the 83% of its capacity that it couldn't supply.

In fact, is it fair to say that the core business of wind turbine operation is not power generation but attracting subsidies, and on those numbers would anyone be doing it if the subsidy wasn't there?

PS - and if they were so fucking wonderful to have around would it be necessary to do this?