Note of Thanks

Just a note of thanks to those of you who donate to this blog.  The money sent in to Ben enables him to purchase toiletries, stamps, writing paper, baccy and the occasional bar of chocolate, which I'm told tastes particularly good when coming off hunger strike!

Please Sir, may I have more..?

The food that is shovelled, with various degrees of wit or sarcasm, across the servery towards us seems to exert a weird hold over the minds of tabloid editors and some silly politicians.

A new order from HQ has been revealed, apparently stating that we should have five choices for our main meal. Five! Or, as some numb-nut from the Taxpayers Alliance has it, "five star" catering. Shock! Horror!

You know what happens now, don't you? You know that beneath the manufactured outrage and grandstanding - Phillip Davies MP pops up yet again - there is a layer of truth that these blatherers neither reveal nor care to learn? It is ever so.

We are entitled to only one hot meal a day. Even But1ins does better than that and to describe this as being Five Star is a tad, hmmm, hyperbolic..?

The five choices is actually true. Normal, veggie, vegan, Halal and low-fat. So, in reality, many cons only have one choice, the only ones who can range across the menu being those on a 'normal’ diet, who opt to wander into meatless heaven on occasion.

Why give us any choice? Why not cold gruel for every meal? Because giving us a choice - we work by pre-booking meals days ahead - saves a bloody fortune. If we were just sent crap day after day, much of it would end up in the bin. By giving us some (very limited) choice, the odds are increased that we will actually risk eating what is delivered.

All of this is provided no increase in the food budget, which remains less than it costs to feed your average dog.

But of course, if ill-informed minor politicians and ignorant pressure groups actually want money to be wasted and increase the risk of our dragging our gruel-fuelled carcases onto the roof in protest, then let them have the stones to come out and say it. Loud and clear.

No? Didn't think so.

The Food Budget

The maximum allowance for our food stands at £2.10 per day. I'd like to tell you that this is more than the patrol dogs get, but I'd be lying. This is why prisoners don't have wet noses.

Christmas is on the horizon and some tabloid will reprint a menu handed to them by some landing-rat topping up his beer money. It will read like a fair spread.

Alas, on the plate it is slightly different. Where the menu says 'turkey', and the tabloids conjure up visions of a meaty leg of fowl, the reality is a slice of tinned meat. And so on.

There is no extra money for Christmas, unless the Governor finds some loose change in an obscure corner of his budget. Instead, the kitchen will be chipping away at the daily allowance from here on in, using the savings for Xmas.

When the media cannot even give you the truth about a simple meal, what hope is there for any debate around criminal justice? We all deserve better.