The Angry Exile: A personal plea

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

Thursday, 3 March 2011

A personal plea

Could all parts suppliers please just fucking admit that in the twenty-first century it should not take two and a half fucking months to move things that weigh a few hundred grams a couple of thousand miles, okay? Melbourne is not on the fucking moon, and even if it was NASA used to manage the trip in a few days. Even if you insist on rogering me for shipping and then sending the cunts by surface it surely shouldn't take three weeks longer than an efficient company managed to move the contents of a whole fucking house from Southampton docks halfway around the fucking planet a few years ago. JIT, folks, do please look it up. It's the new alternative to SIA.* Now, if you all take this point on board then perhaps I will not be left with nearly bugger all to do than play with myself for half a month before suddenly being buried by a fucking avalanche of shit that's been on the back burner waiting for fucking parts that all fucking arrive at once.

I'd be so grateful.

* Sometime in autumn.

Comments (11)

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SBC · 734 weeks ago

AE, I feel your pain. Take Royal Snail (and I wish someone would) ; they can get my Dan Posts to me in the (Y)UK from Chicken Shit Alabama in 3 days or a parcel from Bavaria in two. BUT a 1st class small packet that needs to go a mere 5 miles down the road will be TFL (Too Fucking Late) having been routed via Scotland.

1 reply · active 733 weeks ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 733 weeks ago

Royal Mail and Auspost are of a kind. Either absolutely brilliant or fucking hopeless, and rarely anything in between. I slag Royal Mail off, but then I remember that they do still move squillions of bits of mail and most of it gets where it's supposed to the next working day. And I slag Auspost off too, and then I remember that they most people live on or near the coast and mail that has to cross the bit in the middle has a bloody long journey. However, in this case no fault of the mail services, just twats who take fucking weeks just to take the bastard bits off a shelf and stick them in a fucking box, much less put a fucking stamp on the outside.

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microdave 58p · 734 weeks ago

Back in the 80's when I was an avid Shortwave listener, I used to exchange cards, letters and small packages with Australia and Holland*. It was quite astonishing how fast some of the travelled. So how come with the advances in transport & technology since, that service standards appear to have fallen?

* Back then I couldn't simply email an mp3 file of Radio Caroline or Lazer 558's latest test transmissions to my friend at Radio Netherlands. I had to copy it onto a cassette, rush down to the Post Office and bung it in a Jiffy bag with the obligatory "Air Mail" sticker... And he used to edit his enthusiasts programme by physically cutting and splicing reel to reel tape!

Happy days...

1 reply · active 734 weeks ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 733 weeks ago

I think Pete Soakel has hit the nail on the head.

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pete soakel · 734 weeks ago

I 'rekon 'fukin 'letronic revolution has turned everyone into a lazy cunt, unable to do simple tasks.

1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 733 weeks ago

True. It'd be okay if we could email components.

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AllSeeingEye 55p · 734 weeks ago

At least you've got a timescale and the prospect of chaos.

These days we can send stuff, neatly tracked and audited, across the entire planet and know what sorting office it's in at any time. Then it gets to Gibraltar Customs, who impound every single package. And don't have a computer. Really.

At this point they eat the parcels. They must do - there's no other explanation for how unreliable they are.

Have lost count of the number of bits of tech kit that I can track through the system right up to the border...and that final 100 yards is the doom of something which has made it from Hong Kong.

1 reply · active 733 weeks ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 733 weeks ago

I had a timescale from the word go. The problem was that it was wildly inaccurate. Mind you, at least the customs men here aren't eating the parcels. xD

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microdave 58p · 734 weeks ago

@ ASE - can't you arrange for your co-conspirator to "parachute" in with your parcels? Just make sure they're in waterproof containers first...

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DV4UB 0p · 734 weeks ago

That's a damn good plan microdave. Herc drops over the bay. I like that. It'd annoy the Spanish too, which makes it even better.

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AllSeeingEye 55p · 734 weeks ago

That's a damn good plan microdave. Herc drops over the bay. I like that.

It'd annoy the Spanish too, which makes it even better.

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