The Angry Exile: Thanks to the unique way the BBC is funded...

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

Saturday 19 February 2011

Thanks to the unique way the BBC is funded...

A fact that the BBC might prefer not to dwell on when it comes to discussion of licence fees is the fact that it's a very successful commercial international media organisation. Being a Brit abroad I'm reminded of this every time I open a TV guide and see BBC programs in the schedule - glancing at today we've got Three Men in a Boat and The Graham Norton Show on ABC1 and Who Do You Think You Are? on SBS, and off the top of my head I know that tomorrow there'll be Doctor Who on ABC1 and old Top Gear repeats on one of the digital commercial channels (which has also bought the current series as well as the format so it can do Top Gear Australia as well). Obviously they're making a few quid out of this to add to what they get from all the book and DVD sales. Oh, and the licence fee of course. And how much money they have sloshing around has been brought home to me just now when I read that they've recently found £42 million down the back of the BBC Breakfast sofa to spend on a 25% stake in the Lonely Planet.

To add to the 75% stake the corporation already owned.

THE BBC's commercial arm says it has bought the remaining 25 per cent stake in travel publisher Lonely Planet that it did not already own for STG42.1 million ($67.31 million).

BBC Worldwide said it had this week acquired the final part of the Australia-based company that produces the popular travel guides, dubbed the "backpackers' bible", after purchasing 75 per cent of the firm in 2007.

And it might well be a decent investment, but looking at the Business section of the Beeb's website there's not a peep about it. Whether that's because they think it's not newsworthy or because when they want £145 off of everyone they'd no more want to shout about this than they would if they'd given it to George Allegation to snort lines of coke off of Kate Silvertongue's backside.

The Grauniad do mention it, but rather than asking why, when they're clearly fairly a commercial operation that's at least moderately flush, their broadcast buddies the BBC are allowed to continue feeding parasite like off of Britain's poor TV owners The Graun's business reporters would rather focus on Barclays, which in 2009 made £11.6 billion profit and used perfectly legal tax minimisation strategies to reduce it's corporation tax bill to £113 million (to howls of protest in the comments, natch).

2009, The Guardian is unlikely to mention, is the year after the Guardian Media Group paid only £800K tax on profits of 300 million pounds.

Motes and beams, fellas, motes and beams. Barclays is using legal means to keep its tax bill down, just as GMG did, and has also stood on its own feet as corporations as supposed to rather than feed of the taxpayer's back as so many other banks have done to survive. And as the BBC has been doing for decades.

Hypocritical wankers.