Amateur Brain Surgery

TV in prison isn’t always a benefit. The Nurse is finding the news particularly irritating at the moment. Thankful for the opportunity to vent, she scribbles by the dim light of a crescent moon, her paper criss-crossed with shadows. In the next cell, someone weeps and gnaws at the bars…

More things that make The Nurse very, very cross. And that’s not a nice thing to see.     

1. Ireland versus Zimbabwe. Is The Nurse the only one to see an astonishing parallel between Mugabe ignoring the civil and human rights of his countrymen and European bosses ignoring Ireland’s clear refusal of the EU Treaty? The Nurse is nigh on speechless at the irony. And at the sheer cheek of it.

2. What’s going on with the media and science?  The Nurse likes to read New Scientist. Sod womens’ magazines. She wonders why some of the amazingly good news reported in New Scientist never reaches the TV or mainstream media. All they report is doom, gloom, contradictory stories, scare mongering and junk science.

3.  Women, know your place. The Nurse is grinning while typing this… golly, she’s going to make some blood boil! She argues that women who want everything are asking for trouble. It is clearly almost impossible to cope with a job, a bloke, a house and kids. So just accept that you can have kids or a job. Not both. And if you insist on making such a rod for your back, stop moaning that you can’t cope.

4. Tracy Emmin, kindly fuck off! Back in the olden days The Nurse went to Brighton College of Art and Design, and left proudly clutching one BA Hons degree. So the antics of Ms Emmin just piss her off. Enormously. On one hand you have Picasso, who could draw like an angel. A technical genius who learned his craft painstakingly before abstracting his way into totally new territory with courage, vision and wisdom. And on the other hand you have Tracy Emmin.  Enough said. Words fail The Nurse. Although the advice ‘fuck off and grow up’ comes to mind.

5. What is art? The Nurse would like to propose a new sub-category called ’Experiential’ art. Damien Hurst, Tracy Emmin and the rest of the shock merchants would neatly fall into this new category, preserving the term ‘art’ for sculptors, painters, photographers etcetera

Shite. The Nurse’s biro has run out and try as she might, it’d take a better man than her to make a mark on Izal loo paper with a pencil.  Stuff the news, anyway. She lies on her bunk and thinks about the old days instead.  Meeting Lecter in Bogata. Lunch with Gilmore and sharing cake with the charming Mr Dahmer.  While she doesn’t really miss being outside, freedom had its compensations…