The Angry Exile: Flying looks about to get a whole lot... er, similar

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, 21 November 2011

Flying looks about to get a whole lot... er, similar

Great news! You can go on holiday and take liquids with you. Medicines, baby milk, drinks bought away from the airport at considerable less than ludicrous prices, all will soon be allowed through the ring-piece of steel at international airports in Australia, and no doubt other nations.

International travellers will no longer have water bottles, perfumes and other liquids confiscated as they board planes under a radical overhaul of airport security.

Radical overhaul. Sounds good, sounds like it could be what's been needed for a while now.

The easing of restrictions will begin next year as Australia's international airports begin rolling out new explosive detection equipment.

Ah. Now it just sounds like another machine to queue up for.

The shake-up, to be announced by the federal government today, also promises to cut waiting times for passengers by easing bottlenecks at security gates.

Er, but if we've got one more machine to queue up for how's that going to cut times?

The new technology, which has been trialled at Sydney airport, would enable authorities to detect the smallest trace of explosives in liquids.

Okay, and what happens if someone decides to take a pint of the stuff into the queue for the machine and detonate it before they get there? In the queue. You know, attacking the people in the fucking queue instead of screwing around with the impossible task of getting it on a plane. Well, sort of impossible.

January 7th 2011, undercover French journalists are reported to have smuggled a dismantled 9mm pistol through security at two French airports and were able to assemble the gun in the toilets on the plane.

February 21st 2011, in the US a female undercover TSA agent is reported to have carried a handgun through Dallas/Fort Worth airport body scanners in multiple tests by hiding it in her knickers.
[...]
June 13th 2011, it is reported that 30 staff at Honolulu International Airport are fired for not having screened luggage properly.

Still, long as somebody has got a nice big market for their feel good bomb sniffing machines and governments can carry on acting as if they're doing something, eh?

"It will make air travel easier and less stressful for passengers as well as free airport security staff to better focus on their core screening responsibilities without the distraction of having to confiscate items from people's bags," [Federal Transport Minister Anthony Albanese] said.
"While preventing acts of terrorism remains our number one priority, we're also determined to minimise the disruption and inconvenience experienced by passengers as they transit throughout major airports, including by deploying the latest technologies."

Sorry, Tony, but if you're really serious about that I still think you should be looking at how the Israelis do things. In the meantime one more bloody thing to queue up for having already queued for check-in, the X-ray, the metal detector and the bollock baking body scanner and/or professional groper does not tempt me back into flying anywhere except as a last resort.

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Smoking Hot · 696 weeks ago

AE , if a terrorist actually decides to take out Airport Security somewhere and all the waiting passengers it will cause mayhem and no-one can stop it. Once a terrorist decides to do it... that's it ... it will happen. Everybody conveniently forgot about the Moscow Airport Arrivals bomb very quickly ... l wonder why? :)

As it is you can book online, avoid checkin and take your cabin luggage straight to Airport Security. You can get a lot of stuff in a case 55cm x 45cm x 25cm ... and it's on wheels so weight does not matter. The whole Airport Security is just a bloody circus staffed by clowns watching the passengers perform. lt protects no-one!
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Angry_Exile 90p · 696 weeks ago

Quite, and though as I've said before the Moscow bomb was in arrivals there's no reason at all it couldn't have gone off in a queue for one of the security theatre checkpoints. I forgot about online check in though. Shows you how often I fly, or rather how often I manage to avoid it.

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Macheath · 696 weeks ago

It was always a case of something being seen to be done - like Victorians* prescribed noxious patent medicines, the nastier the travelling experience, the more we're supposed to think the measures are doing us all good.

I admit I'm biased. You know when you have to queue for ages at security because some poor mug at the scanner is having to remove most of their clothes? That'd be me (sorry!). Due to a weird electromagnetic field or something, I set the things off with depressing regularity even when I've removed all metal objects from my person - I've had my bags and shoes rummaged through by innumerable spaniels and been been groped with official sanction in more places than I care to remember.

*ie 19th century English people (for any Australians puzzled at their compatriots' alleged attitude to healthcare)
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1 reply · active 696 weeks ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 696 weeks ago

The missus often has the same effect. Go through, set it off, get told to go back and remove metal before trying again, set it off once more, get wanded, etc. Lots of women seem to. I'm sure the damn things are getting more sensitive and starting to pick up the smallest bit of metal in a bra.

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Macheath · 696 weeks ago

I agree about women - actually being one, contrary to online appearances - and always try to wear metal-free underwear when flying (though I doubt if I could remove my wedding ring if I tried, I'm told it won't affect the scanners). However, the baffled expression of a guard running a madly beeping scanner over my bare arm or leg is one with which I have sadly become familiar.

My theory is that it has something to do with migraines, which affect more women than men. By the time I get to the front of the queue, I'm almost invariably brewing an evil bastard-behind-the-eyes; on the few occasions I wasn't, I've gone through without incident.

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1 reply · active 696 weeks ago

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Angry_Exile 90p · 696 weeks ago

Funny, isn't it. Even though we know that everyone in the blogosphere must have the same variety of underpants contents as in RW, and sometimes we even know in a general sense what the contents are for certain bloggers, but when you get down to it the blogosphere contains only one sex: bloggers. At least that's how I see it. Admittedly in your case you've got the standard Intense Debate male-ish silhouette avatar and I hadn't read your Blogger profile properly and seen the clue at the end. I must also admit that I didn't know women's arms and legs were made out of metal. Mrs Exile must be keeping things from me, :D

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