Monday 3 January 2011

New Year But Will Anything Change Except the Date

Couple of items from the news, first is the confusion regarding the arrest of a man in Bristol on suspicion of murder. Now this is a serious charge. Photos and life story of the suspect were displayed in the papers and on the TV and the www which isn't usual. Then after two days he has been released on police bail. What does that mean? A little later the police issued a statement saying the murderer was still at large. Now there is an old saying, "No smoke without fire." Not true, but now there are a lot of people out there who believe the police arrested the right man but don't have enough evidence to convict and so had to release a murderer. Myself I am keeping an open mind but I imagine Mr Jefferies life will have changed in ways most of us can not begin to contemplate whether he is or isn't the murderer. So what are the police playing at.

Second question is about looking at the rule book and following it no matter what. This can be a mark of a person with high principles or is just pigheaded or maybe even stupid. Imagine what you would have don't in this situation. You are in charge of an open prison and you suspect some of the prisoners have been drinking. It is New Year's Eve after all and experience should have told you how easy it is to smuggle alcohol into the prison. So the rule book says you should breathalyse those you believe have been drinking. Fine. Go ahead. Do it. But first ask your self what chance, realistically, do you have of succeeding considering there are 500 of them and 6 of you. Time to close the rule book and nip down to the off licence and have a quiet drink to celebrate the new year like everyone else.

PS I know all 500 of the inmates weren't all drinking and responsible for the couple of million quid's worth of damage that followed. But who was?

And finally if you have an Apple Phone then you could always chuck it in the bin and get one of these. The alarm always works and it has a couple of other advantages too. One, you can use it as a phone and two, you can send and receive text messages. That's it. Nothing else to play with. Think how much spare time you will have without having to work out what all those apps do.

 

No comments: