Monday, October 19, 2009

What's in a name?

It seems that Lady Luck (that perfidious ould tart with the Doc Martens and the desire to do me personal injuries at fairly regular intervals) has gone on holiday. She was here at the start of the week, giving me my normal casual kick in the knackers (she does it out of habit these days), but she must have gone off to Benidorm or the Valley of the Shadow or wherever it is she goes to get her boots re-spiked. Now, I know that none of this will be making any sense - and that's the story of my life in many ways - but I will explain.

To begin with, I am not allowed to use proper names of people who work in the prison service, not even to be nice to them because, apparently, they may be identified! So what? Are they ashamed of what they do? Is it a secret? Does the idiot who made that wise observation know what a Voters' Register is? Has he never heard of the internet and its search engines? Anybody working anywhere can be identified, and that includes those working for the Security Services, so telling me that using a real name may cause a problem for someone is complete and utter rubbish. And I can't use other prisoners' real names for the same reason - but it is okay for the prison to do so at their convenience. Never mind, instead I will make up pseudonyms for the characters in this effort - everybody knows who they are anyway.


I have recently been involved in lengthy discussions with a Governor of Security about what I can and cannot send out of the prison. But I have no desire to upset this erudite and wise fellow and so he will require a nom-de-guerre. I shall call him Fiddler the Wise. Fiddler the Wise has decided that I cannot send out the true tale of my incarceration from the year 2001 onwards. The fact that I have already sent out the years 1986 to 2001 (1,400 pages) has obviously slipped his mind. Those one thousand four hundred pages are full of names of kangaroos and cons and their deeds, none of them very nice either. Not much he can do about that now, my ould pal Fiddler the Wise. However, he CAN and HAS stopped me sending out the tale of people who have acted decently. In fact I wrote something nice about one kangaroo and THAT caused all the trouble in the first place! Maybe they don't know how to handle it when someone is nice about them - no experience you see! No precendence, no yard-stick to go by.

So here was Lady Luck dealing me one of her specials in the nether regions. It didn't really hurt - it never does these days, I'm immune to it all now. But then the cruel ould hooer went off to wherever she goes on her holidays, probably helping the Taliban decorate or something. And no sooner had she gone than a letter arrived out of the blue from a fellow who, on the face of it, would seem to be a brand new witness in my case. I can't give his name or where he lives because I should think it is sub-judice and probably has to be kept secret so that the police don't kick his door down in the middle of the night to get him to change his mind about telling the truth after almost twenty-four years.

This fellow says he saw someone disposing of the clothing and the weapon involved in the murder! That's new evidence in my book. We now have an actual eye-witness to something that is actually to DO with the murder - the only one we have ever had. There has never been one single witness to anything at all to do with the murder up to now. Let's see what happens when the C.C.R.C. get the information. I sent the letter and its envelope to Campbell Malone asking him to get it transcribed and to send the original to the C.C.R.C. along with a transcription.

New evidence! Wonderful!

The interesting part is that the witness hasn't asked me to keep his identity secret! He is clearly not ashamed of anything. Of course Fiddler the Wise will say that the whole thing isn't personal and that he is merely doing his duty, it is his job. As George Bernard Shaw put it:

When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.
The Voice in the Wilderness

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