Feeling fed up and tired of waiting in for Amazon to deliver Christmas? Bored and suffering sensory overload watching digital perfection on your high definition flat screen? I thought so.
Then why not grab a sherry, light a Hamlet and be transported back in time. Settle down and marvel at what was on offer in the 1980's via analogue low resolution VHS, complete with drop-outs, creases, shaky and sometimes very unstable images. Enjoy!
Happy Christmas!
JB - Thx.
ReplyDeleteMX & HNY
TTFN
Such fond memories of when life was simple and I could operate everything in my home without asking the kids to help!!! Merry Christmas everyone x
ReplyDeleteFor many people, receiving a jail sentence would be the worst thing that ever happened to them. But when you've been experiencing domestic abuse - as most female prisoners have - you may see things slightly differently.
ReplyDeleteAs she sat in the dock, waiting for the judge to send her to prison, Lilly Lewis found to her surprise that she couldn't stop laughing.
She didn't understand why. It wasn't nerves, exactly, and there wasn't anything remotely funny about her situation. Lilly's lawyer had warned she was looking at an eight-year sentence.
But somehow the entire court case had seemed unreal to her, like a huge, elaborate joke. Each time the prosecuting barrister stood in front of her, clutching his lapels for emphasis, she'd think how absurdly theatrical the whole thing was.
Next to Lilly, one of her co-defendants was crying. "I'm scared," she told Lilly between sobs. Lilly tried to pacify her, but didn't see what there was to be frightened of.
Outside, Lilly had been used to being shouted at, bullied and assaulted. She'd been a victim of domestic violence - like 57% of woman prisoners, according to the Prison Reform Trust. She'd overcome addiction and attempted suicide numerous times. In prison, she'd be safe from the man who'd beaten and raped her, the boyfriend who'd held her at gunpoint, the partner she says preyed on her addictions and ended up as another co-accused.
Her children had already been taken from her, and the pain of the separation gnawed at her relentlessly. So what else was there to lose?
Just get me to jail now, she thought. I'm ready, take me now.
And then it was time for Lilly to stand up and hear her sentence. She wore black trousers, an orange jumper from Matalan and a fake hair bun - her real hair was thin from where she'd pulled at it over and over again.
She'd spent the weekend in a prison cell for the first time, after the guilty verdicts had been handed down. Lilly had sat there in her grey prison clothes and thought how easy it would be to fall into a routine here. It would be just like school, she decided.
"Seven years," the judge told her. The charge was conspiracy to defraud. She'd been given a reduction for changing her plea to guilty during the trial.
The smile didn't leave Lilly's face. "At least it wasn't eight," she thought. Half of seven was three-and-a-half years, so she might get out then if she behaved herself. She could do that, she told herself. It was manageable.
Then she was in the van, on her way to begin her sentence. The other prisoners called the prison guard "miss" - How far, miss? I need the toilet, miss. Lilly silently vowed never to speak in such a servile way. She thought about her four children, and how they would cope for so much longer without their mum. What would happen next, she wondered? When would she get her uniform? What job would she do in prison?
Lilly started laughing again, and she didn't understand why this time, either.
From inside the van, Lilly looked up to God with a feeling of gratitude. "You've given me all this time," she thought. "What am I going to do with it?"
Lilly was born in 1971 and grew up on the Wirral in Merseyside. She was the youngest of three sisters by seven years, the baby of the family. Her dad was Ghanaian and her mum was white, and she was the only mixed-race girl at her primary school.
DeleteAll through her childhood she felt keenly aware that she was different. At school she didn't have many friends.
One morning, when she was seven years old, Lilly ran into the school playground. A group of girls stood in a semi-circle, singing:
Where's your mama gone? Where's your mama gone? Far, far away…
The girls looked at Lilly and laughed. They knew something that she didn't.
That afternoon, when her mum picked her up from school, Lilly asked her mum what the girls had meant.
For the first time, Lilly says, her mum told her she was adopted. She said it was as though she and her husband had chosen Lilly off the shelf like she was a little doll. When they'd taken her home, Lilly's mum said, she'd smelt so terrible they'd had to throw her clothes away.
When Lilly pushed for more information about her birth mother, she only remembers her mum saying: "She didn't want you." The birth mother had been given the opportunity to say goodbye and hadn't taken it. There was no mention of her birth father.
Lilly tried to absorb this. She couldn't understand why her birth parents hadn't wanted her. She wondered what had caused her to smell. Lilly would try to make herself look like a doll, because, she reasoned, if you were the prettiest doll on the shelf, then you'd be picked. Above all else, she feared being abandoned again.
Later, looking back on her life, Lilly realised she'd never really developed emotionally after that point. Her terror of being rejected or left alone never went away. From the age of 15, she was introduced to alcohol, and when she drank she wouldn't stop. She had a chain of boyfriends. "I became quite promiscuous, really, and just felt that was love - when somebody was showing me that affection, it felt like I was being loved and wanted." When her boyfriends beat her, she rationalised it as an act of love, too.
The wardens walked Lilly to the induction wing of the women's prison. They led her along a narrow corridor, underground. The ceiling was low and the walls were yellow. Every few yards she heard the doors slam behind her: BANG. BANG. BANG.
DeleteIt looks like Death Row, she thought.
Then she was in her cell. She looked at the bars on the window, the metal toilet in the corner. Even compared to the police station cells she'd been inside, or the prison in which she'd been held the weekend before being sentenced, this was austere. She really was in jail now, she thought.
A week later, Lilly was moved to a different wing. She had a cellmate now, a woman who self-harmed. Lilly looked out the window. It was March and bitterly cold outside. She could see a group of inmates walking in the snow. Their hair was cut boyishly short above their red uniforms. They reminded Lilly of prisoners of war. She might as well have been in Siberia.
Lilly was given a job on reception. She'd welcome new prisoners as they arrived. Many of them were heroin addicts. Often, they had soiled themselves or vomited on the journey and had to be taken straight to the shower. Anxiously, they'd tell her: "We need our meds" - meaning their methadone, the heroin substitute. They'd cry and shake as they waited for it.
Other inmates were clearly mentally ill. One tugged and twirled at her hair so much that it looked as though it was in dreadlocks, interspersed with bald patches. Another sucked on her pillowcase and spoke in a baby language. Lilly couldn't believe that, in 2018, these women were being held in a prison - they should be somewhere they could get help, she thought.
Very quickly, she settled into a routine. She went from reception to a job as a wing cleaner. It kept her busy. She'd forget which day it was, which month it was sometimes. The only date that mattered was the date she would leave prison, and that was still years away.
She never once cried about her sentence. Before it began, Lilly had known that she'd be doing it alone. There wouldn't be any visitors. Her children had been taken from her and she'd had limited contact with them ever since, which made her desperately sad.
More at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-45821932
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-50923289
ReplyDeleteThe retiring president of the Supreme Court says legal aid cuts in England and Wales have caused "serious difficulty" to the justice system. Baroness Hale, who was guest editing BBC Radio 4's Today, said it was a particular problem in family courts.
DeleteIn 2013, legal aid was removed from many civil law cases to achieve a saving of £350 million a year. The government said it was piloting early legal advice in some welfare cases, plus extra financial support.
Baroness Hale of Richmond, who retires next month, is the first female president of the Supreme Court, which is the final court of appeal in the UK.
She said: "I don't think that anybody who has anything to do with the justice system of England and Wales could fail to be concerned about the problems which the reduction in resources in several directions has caused for the system as a whole."
The outgoing president said the problem was particularly evident in family courts. Lady Hale said:
"It's unreasonable to expect a husband and wife or mother and father who are in crisis in their personal relationship to make their own arrangements without help." She said in such family dispute cases "there may be an imbalance in resources because of the lack of access". Most people require legal help at the beginning of cases, she said.
Additional resources would allow many disputes to be resolved at an early stage, without the need to go to court or stretch their finances, she added. "It is that lack of initial advice and help which is a serious difficulty."
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "We are improving early legal support to reduce the number of people going to court unnecessarily and prevent undue stress and costs. We are piloting early legal advice in certain welfare cases, have committed £5 million for a Legal Support Innovation Fund to identify and resolve legal problems, and will soon launch an awareness campaign to improve understanding of entitlements. This is on top of £1.7 billion we spent on legal aid last year and ongoing work to improve the Exceptional Case Funding scheme and legal aid means testing."
The BBC found last year that about a million fewer claims for legal aid are being processed each year, with "deserts" of provision across England and Wales.
Lady Hale turns 75 years old next month, which is the mandatory retirement age for judges appointed before 1995. She made headlines in September when she delivered the Supreme Court's ruling that Prime Minister Boris Johnson's decision to suspend Parliament was unlawful.
The establishment lies are manifold & their attempts to spin are vile & offensive:
Delete"A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: "We are improving early legal support to reduce the number of people going to court unnecessarily and prevent undue stress and costs. We are piloting early legal advice in certain welfare cases, have committed £5 million for a Legal Support Innovation Fund to identify and resolve legal problems, and will soon launch an awareness campaign to improve understanding of entitlements."
Legal Action group 2013: "The Lord Chancellor, Chris Grayling, tries to justify the latest round of proposed legal aid cuts by arguing that expenditure under the last government 'spiralled out of control' (see the introduction to Transforming legal aid: delivering a credible and efficient system, Ministry of Justice, 9 April 2013)."
Chris Grayling in the Telegraph, 2014: 'We must stop the legal aid abusers tarnishing Britain’s justice system. Pressure groups and lawyers exploit our legalistic society – leaving taxpayers to foot the bill’
FT Sept 2018: Justice for all? Inside the legal aid crisis... Severe cuts are putting justice out of reach for many ordinary Britons
Impact Assessment of Grayling's "Transforming Legal Aid: Reforming fees in civil legal aid and Expert Fees in Civil, Family and Criminal Proceedings"
https://consult.justice.gov.uk/digital-communications/transforming-legal-aid-next-steps/supporting_documents/latcivilfeesresponseia.pdf
https://www-dailymail-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7797713/amp/Taxpayers-spend-1-5m-compensating-injured-prison-officers-three-months.html?amp_js_v=a2&_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCKAE%3D#aoh=15775301476186&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&_tf=From%20%251%24s&share=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailymail.co.uk%2Fnews%2Farticle-7797713%2FTaxpayers-spend-1-5m-compensating-injured-prison-officers-three-months.html
ReplyDeleteScary shit on AOL. A 'click survey' asks "Do you think man-made global warming is a threat to humanity?"
ReplyDeleteTo date, 37% have replied "No, we have much more pressing issues to deal with" - wonder what they might be?
Seems we are a species with a death wish, the species to end all species. Literally.
F.F.S.
H.N.Y.
Whilst it is an important issue, I would argue that terrorism and the fact Russia have now deployed hypersonic nuclear missiles are far greater threats. We need to increase our spending on defence as a matter of urgency.
DeleteOn R4 now - keeping whitney out of jail
ReplyDeleteJo Fidgen explores how we can stop women from going back into prison. There are around 4,000 women behind bars in England and Wales. They make up 5% of the total prison population. And yet their incarceration has an outsized impact on society. In the first of a new series, Jo Fidgen goes with a young woman who has been in and out of the criminal justice system to try to find out how different approaches could change things. They look at the kinds of local, community-based responses that are changing lives across the UK, as well as a more radical approach that calls into question assumptions about women and crime.
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