Thanks everyone - from the Sunshine Paradise For The Elderly

No place for old men

There is no news this week yet again - as I have said somewhere before, every day is Groundhog Day here at the Lazy L, the fiefdom of Hoss the Boss. When I opened my eyes this morning and lay there in all my glory, snorting and gronfing as I contemplated yet another day on the pampas in the wilds of Worcestershire, it occurred to me that we seem to be gathering quite a few senior citizens and older cons on this wing lately. The latest two to arrive came the other day from another wing, and I think they came for the peace and quiet. What came to my mind was the fact that there seems to be an ageing population within the prison system and very little is being done to cater for them. Older people have needs that younger folk don't have basically.

Well, the Lazy L is no place for old men, that's for certain. George Bernard Shaw once wrote:

Youth, which is forgiven everything, forgives itself nothing; age, which forgives itself anything, is forgiven nothing.

He also added that every man over forty is a scoundrel, so maybe he isn't the one to be quoting from...

The Lazy L provides nothing for the older person, nothing. Considering that fact (as I consider most facts from time to time seeing as I have bugger-all else to do with my time), last week I decided to begin the process of turning this wing into a wing that IS a place for old men.

When anyone needs or wants the prison service to take an idea on board, the hardest part of all is to get the powers-that-be to think it is their idea in the first place. If a con has an idea, no matter how good that idea may be, it must be bad, there must be an ulterior motive and therefore the idea must be killed off with unseemly haste and vigorous zeal. Only the powers-that-be have ideas which are good enough to be nurtured and allowed to flourish.

Given that, the trick is to get them to think that the idea is theirs in the first place, and the best way to do that is to use the rumour machine, the gossips and the tellers of tales. I started a rumour that this wing was to be turned into the Sunshine Home For The Elderly.

There are forty-two places on this wing and at the minute maybe fifteen places are taken up by the over 50's - maybe more, I haven't actually counted, not yet. So I started the rumour that, via the agency of natural wasteage, as a young con moves from this wing for whatever reason, his cell will be filled by an older con from another wing or prison until, in the end, over a period of months, the wing will become a geriatric haven of peace and tranquility. Of course (my rumour stated) a small number of younger cons would be kept on the wing to do the cleaning and other like jobs.

The rumour came back to me yesterday. Someone told me that they were turning this wing into an old folks' wing - the Number One Governor had told someone who had told someone else, and the fellow who told me had heard two kangaroos talking to the wing Gov about it. As evidence, they quoted the fact that two older fellows had been moved onto the wing just the other day!

So, my work is done. It shouldn't take long now before we are officially informed that this wing is to become the Sunshine Paradise For The Elderly (jaccuzzis extra).

Having said all that, it can't really stay the way it is - the place is turning into a retirement home for the young and they should be living with their own age groups, putting the world to rights and having pissing contests to see who can impress the female kangaroos (or should I call them Kangaresses?).

But, as the place sits at the minute, it is no place for old men.

Thank you

I had a letter from Lesley yesterday - she of the bad temper and proclivity for bullying. (She's not very good at it but it's the thought that counts.) Apparently I have to stop telling the whole world about her being a bully, so I've done that now. (She's blonde, what do you want from me?)

She also told me that I now have several drinking establishments who have signed up or clicked on (or whatever the correct term may be) as friends of yours truly. These pubs and clubs seem to be in the Worcester area and I blame young Jamie for that.

Now it occurs to me that I seem to have gradually accumulated quite a lot of people who are supportive to my cause in one way or another. I don't know how these Facebook things work (I haven't seen my website yet, let alone Facebook), and I'm still not entirely certain what Facebook is. People have told me of course, but I suspect I need to see it for myself to fully appreciate what it is.

Lesley tells me about various things which connect one profile to another and in that way circles grow - or something like that - but I don't really know what it is all about, and I'm not even blonde! As a matter of fact, I am as grey as a badger's arse - and that is what is left after most of it seems to have departed. However, I digress, as usual.

What I really wanted to say is that there are all of these people who are now supportive of me in one way or another and yet I have no way of expressing my thanks and gratitude to them all as individuals. That's what I thought. But there is a way - I can do it right here on this page using this decrepit old typewriter. (Actually it is new - it's "retro".) So that is what I will do.

I wish I could write a letter to everyone individually but that is quite clearly out of the question, as is individual messages on the blog. But I CAN thank everyone collectively. Sitting as I do in a cell, with the typewriter before me, I can appreciate all of the comments made by kindly and well-meaning people from all over the place who have said nice and encouraging things about me. I want to say a heartfelt thank you to each and every one of you - you will never know what it means to a person in my position to be able to sit here, in occasional dudgeon, and know that there are people who actually care what happens to me.

I am given to understand that the list grows steadily and that I have supporters from as far away as China who log on to see how things are going with me. I thank you all, sincerely and without caveat. Thank you all very much. As long as there are good, decent folk in this world then people like me will always have something to hope for.

By the way, I have been informed that I CAN do smiley faces with a typewriter, that I have to use a colon and a right hand bracket - :) I can't say that I am too impressed by that, but if you have a crick in the neck I suppose it could pass for a smiley face and, until something better comes along, it will have to serve :)

Thank you, everybody :)

The Voice In The Wilderness