What happened to .. “with hard labour” ?

In the same week that clueless Cameron has been waffling on about crime and punishment, and coming up with the usual half-baked ideas about rehabilitation etc. up pops this example of life behind bars in Britain today. No wonder so many people feel that prison does not work !

So what is the answer ? … Well, obviously…  Make prison work ! … by making life ‘inside’ so uncomfortable that criminals will not wish to return for a second term. Then stop the early release scheme so that prisoners know that ten years will mean ten years and not five as is the case now, and that ‘life’ will mean the rest of their ‘natural’ !

I know that in a perfect world all thieves, rapists, murderers and feckless lowlifes now serving time would be rehabilitated and rejoin society as decent citizens, but unfortunately this is not a perfect world and I doubt if the majority of them will ever change their ways, unless they dread being ‘banged up’ again for at least double their last sentence.

Having said this, I feel that those ex-prisoners who do wish to leave a life of crime behind them should be helped in every way possible including training to improve their education and social skills, so that they stand a better chance of finding employment.

In the meantime I expect that repeat offenders on their way to HMP Haverigg are demanding  …

… a cell with a view !

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“Be Prepared” … Not to be a scout !

I see that some bright young kid has been banned from becoming a scout because he is an atheist ! In other words he is one of the few children in this world who has not been brainwashed by the priests of some religion or other. Lucky young man !

The boy says that he is “disappointed”, but judging by the news from ‘across the pond’ he may have had a narrow escape.

I was never a scout, but some young friends of mine were ‘cubs’ and I remember that they told me about some very strange goings on in the scout hut. I can’t remember all the details after such a long time, but, as I recall, it did involve a lot of “Ging Gang Goolie” singing and a game involving taking their pants down and exposing their own ‘goolies’. I would have loved to have seen the badge awarded for that activity. 

Although I was never a cub or a scout I was, for a brief time, a ‘Life Boy’, but as this meant taking part in church parades, attending ‘sunday school’ in a cold and damp mission hall and learning ‘texts’ from The Bible I was often ‘AWOL’. I don’t know if I ever took an oath, but if I did it would have been just another bit of meaningless ‘mumbo-jumbo’ to me: and so I would advise our young atheistic recruit to tell the local scout master to stick his woggle up his arse, and then to …

… piss on his campfire !

Vatican secrets revealed !

I had to laugh at Grannymar’s comment on my previous post about the Vatican’s secret documents … “Do you think it was the bill for the Last Supper?”, as I can just imagine the disciples arguing over who ate the most gefilte fish and who had more than their fair share of the chicken soup and matzoh balls !  

Rumour has it that amongst the other documents to be burned on the Pope’s orders are …

1. The pawn ticket for the ‘Holy Grail’.
2. The result of the Virgin Mary’s paternity lawsuit.
3. A receipt from a Bethlehem hotel for an en-suite double room with a crib for the night of 24th December 1 BC.
4. A ‘congratulations on the birth’ card from Herod Antipas and Salome.
5. Lazarus’s death certificate.
6. A copy of an order to a Galilee fish shop for cod and chips x 5,000.
7. A letter to an inn keeper in Cana complaining about the quality of the wine at a recent wedding.
8. A note from someone who signed himself ..”Your faithful friend  J.I. xxx”.. to an unnamed resident of Nasereth telling him not to trust a creep named Simon who calls himself ‘Peter’.
9. A letter from Mary Magdalene telling a friend that she was giving up the day job as she was pregnant and about to marry some carpenter who fancied himself as a bit of a preacher.
10. Pontius Pilate’s report to the Emperor Tiberius that only one person had been crucified recently, a bandit named Barabbas, because some long haired Jewish hippy had sold all the spare timber and nails at a Passover ‘closing down sale’.

I feel that the bill for the last supper must be genuine because although it says at the bottom of the page .. “service not included” .. some waiter has noted …

…   “Large tip from a bloke named Judas” !

Pyro-Pontiffs !

I’ve just finished watching the final episode of season two of  “The Borgias” which I enjoyed almost as much as season one, although you can have too much holy ‘humping’.

The latest episodes continued the usual bloody killings, tortures and poisonings: with lots of gorgeous costumes and although, in parts, it was a bit “history-lite” it kept up a pace with the introduction of such famous characters as Machiavelli and the ‘bonkers’ priest Savonarola who put a torch to “The Bonfire of the Vanities”. Of course that was before Pope Alexander VI “put a torch” to him, which brings me on to another subject …

… “Vatileaks”… In other words the show trail of Paolo Gabriele, the Pope’s personal valet, who was convicted of stealing secret papers from the Vatican and sentenced to 18 months in prison. However, it is unlikely that the Vatican employee, who enjoys the privileges of Vatican citizenship and its perks, will ‘do time’ either inside the Vatican or in an Italian jail. He should think himself lucky, for in the days of the Borgia Popes he would have been hanging in chains in a dungeon of the Castel Sant’Angelo while merry Micheletto cut bits off of him before incinerating what was left.

Now it must be remembered that before he became Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger spent twentyfour years as boss of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, previously known as the “Holy Office of the Inquisition”. So it comes as no surprise to learn that during Paolo’s trial it was revealed that some of the documents taken by the butler were so confidential (can you imagine!) that they had been marked, in German, by the Pope himself … “to be burned” ! …  for throughout history, when it comes to the unpleasant truths about their religion …

… That’s what Popes have always done !

Time for turds at ‘The Turner’ again !

Yes, once again it is one of the highlights of my year !  It’s ‘Turner Prize’ time and one of the leading contenders in this  year’s competition is a female performance artist named Spartacus Chetwynd who wears a bushy black beard and lives in a nudist commune in ‘exotic’ Nunhead. So nothing new there then !

Apparently her ‘happening’ takes place in a gallery where some young men cunningly disguised as root vegetables writhe and wriggle around in their tights. Her works are said to be ..“exuberant, spontaneous and filled with a kind of Dionysian and orgiastic energy that some audiences clearly find contagious”. Well they would say that wouldn’t they !  Oh! and I almost forgot. It also includes a puppet show which is something to do with Christ and Barabbas. Perhaps, during the performance, Ms. Chetwynd will have an “I’m Spartacus!” moment and end up hanging on a cross beside poor old Jesus.

Of course  ‘The Turner’ wouldn’t be ‘The Turner’ without excrement featuring somewhere, and this year we have an exhibit showing poo having sex with itself at an orgy, which has been hailed by the judges as “a compelling life project”, and curator Sofia Karamani said that the place where the crap is copulating ..  “is not a coherent geographical location with a linear history. It is an ongoing journey in a world that is the equivalent of reality, a state of mind.”

Critics have described the show as “demanding and thoughtful” where “high seriousness and scatological humour, ribald performance, death and despair all play their part.”  and one con ‘artist’s video exhibit, which splices a lecture on church architecture with footage of a deadly department store fire, is said to be .. “the most viscerally exciting work of art” .. and as having .. “the potential fundamentally to change the way knowledge is transferred”: and if that’s not a load of old bullshit then …

… I don’t know what is !