http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/4775532.stm
Houdini, to while one’s sentance away…lovely.
Somebody seems to have made Beckley’s good sense disappear! 
Wouldn’t even escapology be essentially tricks, though?
Perhaps they could let him have books about pulling rabbits out of hats and white doves out of handkerchiefs and so on. Keeps him out of mischief and he can provide the entertainment at the prison officers’ christmas party. 
Plus, the kitchen might be glad of the rabbits.
No idea what to make of that, whether to think the Prison Service is worrying a bit too much and doesn’t trust its own arrangements for *maximum security” prisoners, or whether this nasty murderous piece of excrement should shut the hell up and choose another “hobby” and be glad he gets any books at all. As long as his alternative hobby does not turn out to be fencing, or knitting …
It sounds as though this is a tiresome fella merely making a fuss for the fun of it. :rolleyes:
Funny, when I first saw the headline, I also asumed it was yet another story about Harry Potter.
Oh, and we don’t want his next hobby to be sawing ladies in half either. :eek:
Not all of it, exactly. For example, techniques for hiding lockpicks while being searched are of obvious use to a prisoner, as are lockpicking techniques themselves. So are methods for slipping restraints.
On the other hand, I suspect maximum security prison is quite full of people who already know such things, so I’m not sure it matters. He could probably just ask.
Illusions, Celyn. Tricks are what whores do for money. Or cocaine.
I knew that skinny dog’s eyes looked red when he offered to roll over for me. He wanted crack. :smack:
Ah, U.K. language person here - although I have encountered that phrase, I didn’t notice that slip when typing. And I’m FAR too ladylike even to know of such things, of course.
Zigzackly! I seem to recall a news item some years ago where the prisoners who showed an interest in baking were really interested in somehow making moulds of keys.
Well, it’s fine by me if he doesn’t get his book.
(I once went to an interview for a post as librarian in a prison: I’m actually quite glad I did not get that one. For one thing, apparently t his was the first time they had decided to give more importance to library, information, literacy services and look for a qualified librarian – previously their habit had been to regard it as simply keeping track of an amount of books, no big hassle, and had normally viewed this as a useful sinecure for a long-time prison officer who was nearing retirement. Right, so I might just think that a bloke who has been a prison officer there for many years and knows the others and knows all the ways of the inmates might have an easier time of it than one new and female Celyn. As it happened, they chose unwisely, as a couple of years later, I read a news item to the effect that the the bloke they did employ was now in big trouble because he had been helping the inmates get drugs. )
Heh, it’s actually a reference (or allusion, if you will;)) to Arrested Development.
:smack: