A Broken System

 There are rats on the lower levels- rats and cockroaches- and on the higher levels there are mice and silverfish. Cells that are little bigger than walk-in wardrobes and designed to hold a single person now hold two as a matter of course. Clean clothes are handed out parsimoniously and it's not unknown for a person to go three weeks without a change of socks and underwear....

This is Wandsworth prison as described by Liz Bridge- who was Quaker Chaplain there- and was awarded an MBE for her imaginative work- until barred from the place for what seems like a minor infringement of the rules- which made the management look bad.

She spoke to us after Meeting for Worship yesterday. 

Wandsworth is a Victorian institution.   As the stories mounted up I found myself thinking, "But the Victorians were more humane than we are...."

 I think we all know the prison system is broken. Only we don't know it very often because we don't think about it. "What can we do?" asked Ailz and Liz answered, "Just talk about it. Tell your friends...."

 Oh, and it costs as much to keep a man in Wandsworth as it does to keep a child at Eton....

Redressing The Balance

 We're in a phase where we're taking more things to the Recycling Centre shop for resale than we're buying there. This redresses the balance somewhat. I sometimes think it would be good to have a "one in, one out" policy- never buying anything without getting rid of something of the same kind, but we've never even tried to enforce it on ourselves.

All we bought at the shop today was a mug. Only we didn't buy it: the woman who is second-in-command at the shop is getting to be a mate and let us have it for free. "Have a cup of tea on me," she said.