The Rusty Wire Service

So farewell then 2012. It was -- yet again (and rather disappointingly it must be said) -- the year when the world didn't end.  As doomsday scenarios go, the Mayan calendar couldn't match the Millennium Bug for sheer hysteria but it still had that 'trap 6' kind of likely long-shot feel about it; like it could come up the inside track and blindside us all with a virtuoso display in apocalypse. But sadly for the Mayan Cassandras, it was not to be. Never mind, it's not the end of the.... No doubt about it, 2012 sucked balls and that's the official verdict from up here in the penurious garret (I'm not kidding) of Croppy Towers. From January on, it was bad-news-mageddon right from the get-go. Iran, Syria, Palestine, it all had a familiar kind of ring to it; another year of grim role calls. The world economy continued to drag along the bottom with the Greeks spending another year in the ante-room of currency exit while the right and left in the c...

Gaol, Jail, prison, nick, chokey, the stripey hole...call it what it you want but its over-use in Britain detracts hugely from the nation's traditional self-image as a land of tolerance and forebearance. It's one of those hot-button issues which seems to unite the foaming-at-the-mouth, hang'em and flog'em types with apparently liberal minded folk who feel they've got something (usually property) to protect. It would appear – at least if the established media is to be believed – that British people seem to lose all rationale when it comes to to the sentencing and re-offending debate. As of last Friday, the UK prison population stood at 86,407, of which 4,091 were women according to figures from the Ministry of Justice. This is one of the highest per capita prison populations in the western world. Furthermore, this number continues to rise year-on-year despite re-offending rates remaining high and consistently so. That being the case, it's cle...