The Angry Exile: There oughtta be a law against it

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

Tuesday 8 November 2011

There oughtta be a law against it

Oh yes, a law. God forbid that we should sit down and think an important decision through rationally. That would never do, so having done something remarkably silly that we now regret we should demand that the state protect us from ourselves. That's partly so that nobody else makes the same mistake, but when it's something really exceptional that very, very few other people are inclined to do in the first place I can't help but wonder if people demanding a law actually want it to stop themselves. In case they try to do it again.

Susan Tollefsen became a mother after receiving IVF treatment at 57 from a Russian clinic in 2008, where she conceived daughter Freya.
Many criticised her decision, saying she was too old to become a parent.

Not me. Personally I wouldn't, but if someone's decided to ignore nature's subtle hints I'm inclined to trust that they've thought it through. All the way through. Of course I would be aware that that trust might be misplaced, but with nothing to contradict it I'd still give them the benefit of the doubt.

At the time, Mrs Tollefsen defended her choice and pointed out that her partner Nick Mayer was 11 years her junior – and would therefore be around to care for their daughter Freya during all of her childhood.

So she had thought it all the way thr... oh.

However, she says the couple have now split and concedes her critics were right as she encounters the difficulties of bringing up a three-year-old child alone at the age of 61.

Right, so apart from the 'what if my partner's not around' point she thought it through.

"Every Saturday he wanted to go and watch them, either home or away, and some weekdays. I felt as if he didn’t want his life to change at all after Freya came along, even though mine had changed completely."

Okay, okay, she didn't really think it through far enough at all, and if he thought it wasn't going to change his life much then I'd say he didn't think it... ooooh, footie. In fairness to both of them it strikes me that this isn't unique to people their age getting IVF - sadly there are plenty of children who were conceived naturally but whose conception was ill conceived, and whose parents love their offspring, sorta kinda, but miss the days they didn't have this small person depending on them so much. Tough shit, folks. If you want your life to stay the same as it is now the obvious thing to do is not fucking change it.

"I never imagined it would work out this way,’ Mrs Tollefsen said. "I’ve never regretted having Freya but I’ve had to pay a heavy price for my dream of being a mother. In fact, it’s cost me my relationship. You think you’re madly in love with someone and you just don’t realise what they’re going to be like after you’ve had children."

/ looks skyward with hands in pockets and begins to whistle

So now she's decided as wonderful and precious as her daughter is to her it really wasn't such a smart move after all, and that means - you guessed it - she wants there to be a law to stop the infinitesimally small number of people who want to become a new parent in their late 50s from doing the same thing.

Mrs Tollefsen, who is deaf in one ear and having a knee replaced, also agrees that, with hindsight, there should be an age limit of 50 for IVF treatment for women in this country.

Except she's still not thinking things through properly, is she? Hello, Susan? You went ... Susan? Susan? Hello? Sorry, wrong ear. Hello, Susan, you went to Russia to get your IVF, remember? And if there'd been an age limit of 50 at the time, and remembering that the NHS won't provide IVF to anyone 40 or over and even private clinics tend to balk at treating women over 50, exactly how would that have stopped you from doing what you did? Exactly how would bringing in such a law now prevent any other woman whose desire for a child has eclipsed everything else, including rational thought and taste and decency...

"Sperm! Sperm! Sperm! Sperm! Lovely sperm, wonderful sperm!" *

... from doing the same thing? Unless you want this law to ban women over 50 from getting on a plane as well you simply can't prevent doing the same thing. Your own story is a cautionary tale and should put a few people off, but unless we want the already far too powerful nanny state to grow yet more powerful we must accept people ignoring advice and making short sighted decisions as being facts of life.

* Apologies to Monty Python for ruining one of their most famous skits.