The Angry Exile: Useful idiot wants thought police to get money for her.

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 4 February 2011

Useful idiot wants thought police to get money for her.

Oh for fuck's sake.

A Mexican has instructed lawyers to bring a test case against Top Gear after her countrymen were branded 'lazy, feckless and flatulent' on the hit show.
Iris de la Torre, a jewellery design student in London, is bringing the claim under a new equality law. Her lawyers claim it could cost the BBC £1million in damages.
They have demanded the hit BBC1 motoring show is taken off the air and an investigation made into the comments.

For holding a fucking opinion, even if it is a bit of a childish one?! And only the other day they were saying how things had apparently now reached the heresy by thought stage.

On Sunday night's show, Richard Hammond was discussing a Mexican sports car and suggested that vehicles reflect the national characteristics of the country they are from.
He added: 'Mexican cars are just going to be lazy, feckless, flatulent, leaning against a fence asleep looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle on as a coat.’

Oh, dear, poor poor Iris. God, being a Mexican in England and dealing with that must be like, oh I don't know, maybe being English and living in Australia where everyone calls you a pom and jokes that you're from a nation of people who can't cook and won't wash properly. Oh, hey, that's... that's awful. Where's my cheque? Who do I sue? C'mon, Iris, help me out here. We're in this together, you and me and other folk oppressed by the hurtful thoughts of other people.

Or we could just, y'know, grow the fuck up and laugh it off. You are, if reports are to be believed, thirty years old. Thirty! You're not a child anymore, Iris. You're a grown woman, for fuck's sake. Isn't it time to act like an adult instead of a kid whining about what someone else said in the fucking playground? Or is there a possibility that a big fat cheque for basically doing nothing at all other than holding an opinion and taking umbrage that not everyone shares it just too big a fucking lure? For what it's worth I'd agree that Hammond's comments are probably ignorant in a literal sense, especially about the food - just watch the show for a while and you'll see how his laughable unadventurous and picky eating is a running joke whenever they go abroad. And the whole idea that cars reflect national character is silly anyway. Aussie cars don't chuck a sickie when the cricket's on and British made cars come with a satnav that doesn't know anything about anywhere beyond the end of your own road.

'I was shocked at what the BBC allowed to be broadcast. I have never had a bad experience in the UK due to my nationality.'

Well you can probably fucking expect a few now, though not because of your nationality so much as your character. It took me less than ten minutes online to find both your website and that of a gallery where you've worked or exhibited your work, plus your rough CV and your photograph. And if I can then what's to stop someone else? So don't be surprised if some "grow the fuck up" type messages appear (though not from me - I've better things to do).

And you want to know what the really sad thing is for Mexicans? British perceptions of their national character probably will change as a result of this, and not for the better. Because the two Mexicans who had more newsprint used to write about them in the UK than probably any of their countrymen in the last decade or more (with the possible exception of Alfonso Cuarón - directing a Harry Potter film will do that) are acting like whiny little children with angstrom thin skins, fragile egos, low self-esteem and absolutely no sense of humour. Which I'm sure is unrepresentative of most Mexicans, and is certainly unedifying even by comparison with what was said on Top Gear. Fat, feckless and flatulent actually sounds like much better company to be with than pathetic, attention-seeking, whinging crybaby.

Oh, and a special nod to Harridan Harperson, without whose work this woman might have had to act like everyone else does when they hear something they don't like and just fucking deal with it.

If it goes to court, the case could be the first to be brought under the Equality Act which came into force last year.

Well done, Harriet, you've made thought crime even more of a reality than it was before. Thanks for fucking everything, you hateful bitch. Now do the human race a favour and disappear up your own arse before you deal any more harm to personal liberty.

H/T Down With That Sort Of Thing.