It’s for this sort of reportage that I admire and respect Craig, notwithstanding all his - entirely human and normal - glitchettes. Good man. I hear all the slanderous accusations against him, but so far I’ve never seen or heard any substantive evidence for them, and usually I categorise them as nothing more than internet dross.
As ever, hard, verifiable evidence is what counts. Sine qua NON.
That was good, in an odd way it reminded me of an extract from Cold Stone Jug by Herman Charles Bosman ¶
A couple of observations. Unless Craig has lived a very sheltered life he must surely know what mice smell like, rats seldom smell, they keep themselves meticulous. So I suspect his fellow inmates are right.
The TV, and the pretence at discouraging drug smuggling, are both of course ways of stopping too much boredom setting in.
Geezers need excitement. When their lives don’t provide this they incite violence. Common sense. Simple common sense. (Might be a slight mondegreen going on here, I’m paraphrasing The Streets)
The lovely irony of course is that if you watch TV without a license and are caught (like…how??) you could end up imprisoned for non-payment of fine. Free telly all day long.
¶ South African journalist and author, early c19, mainly short stories, but CSJ is an account of his imprisonment for about five years in, I think, Pretoria. He was originally sentenced to death, for murder, had that commuted to life imprisonment, then ten years, then was paroled. SA jails were, probably still are, utterly disgusting.
I don’t wish to be unsympathetic to Craig. He’s a little bit older than me and has quite a few medical problems. I hope he’s recovering from his ordeal. There’s nothing worse than being banged-up.
Talking of which, in the early 80’s, when the Cold War was very hot, I spent time in a cell in (then) communist eastern Germany, under the tender mercies of the Stasi. Before being banged-up we were strip searched, and then told to bend over. I won’t describe what happened next.
Anyhows, I ended up in a cell with a huge Polish guy who looked a bit like Giant Haystacks (for those of a younger generation, or from outside the UK, back in the day Giant Haystacks was a popular wrestler). Giant Haystacks was completely fecking mad. There were no beds in the cell. We had to lay on a very cold concrete floor with just a thin blanket. The guards allowed us to drink beer in the cell, providing that we paid for it. I suppose the Stasi figured that in the freezing temperatures the beer would subdue us.
Anyhows, Giant Haystacks would bite the beer bottle caps off with his teeth, and then down the bottle in almost one go, laughing all the while. I was a tad concerned, because I only have a few words of Polish and Giant Haystacks didn’t speak any English. Giant Haystacks was ok, though, no matter how drunk he got. We were able to converse a little bit in the German language.
The worst thing was always in the morning, because of course the cell didn’t have a toilet or running water. Instead a slop bucket.
I was only in that cell for a matter of days. It made me resolve that never again would I allow myself to be banged-up.