The Angry Exile: No photos, please

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

Monday 30 May 2011

No photos, please

photographernotaterrorist.org may have to add "also not a regicide" to their campaign unless they want the Royal Protection Squad, fresh from getting their cars unclamped, to be on their case for using flash photography while Betty Windsor is about.

During the monarch's recent trip to Ireland and throughout US President Barack Obama's visit to the UK, the palace ordered that snappers not use flash photography.

"The Queen has finally had enough of it - and she believes the accredited official photographers should be good enough to take pictures of her without having to use a flash," a palace source told Britain's News of the World newspaper on Sunday.

The unnamed source said that the 85-year-old British monarch and Prince Philip, 90, both find the flashes "quite disorientating".

She may have a small point there. If flash is for inside and anywhere else there's poor light you'd think that in other conditions photojournalists who would know what they're doing could take perfectly good pictures without it. But then what about inside or in the evening? Isn't Betty effectively saying no pictures? What about the crowds of people who come to see and take their own pictures, often with little automatic-everything cameras or even phones that tend to flash or not flash as they rather than their owners see fit?* No pictures again, is it, Liz? Fair enough if it's on private property, whether your own (I'm not going into republican arguments about that) or that of someone else who has banned flash photography or agreed to a temporary ban for your comfort. And I'd certainly agree that any snapper who gets up close and personal before letting a powerful flash off a couple of feet from someone's face is a rude bastard who deserves to have it shoved somewhere the flash will be the only thing that shines. Apart from that though, who the hell has any right to tell everyone else not to take flash photographs in public?

If it's annoying and disorienting, and I imagine it probably is for someone in the public eye, then perhaps it's time to drop out of the public eye a bit and hand over the bulk of the appearances to various adult children and grandchildren. But to demand that nobody ever use flash photography in your presence, and on top of that in a foreign country that you're visiting for the first time - and incidentally one in which there is a small but vocal section who didn't want you there to begin with - as well your own country, is completely unreasonable in what purports to be a free country. I mean, who died and made you Que...

... oh.

* I have one of these, and while you can turn the flash off it's a pain in the arse to do and it leave a permanent whinge icon on the screen until you turn it back on again. I generally leave it switched on auto all the time.