Surreality
Monday, 17 January 2005 08:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keaaluJust looking through my website stats, as I've been trying to work on it now I'm actually ABLE to, and one hit on my site was from an "Ask Jeeves" search for "Baby fox cubs for sale". WTF? *blinkblink*
That's just plain odd.
On another slightly surreal note, I was in court today. :) Not as a criminal, just as a visitor, with the "Criminal Justice Mental Health Nurse" or whatever his title was, and it was fascinating to watch - you don't realise what it's like in real life unless you see a real court case - or how BORING it can be. Case was: two brothers, estranged from their mother at a young age and now in their late twenties, decided they were going to go round her house and beat her up, for some reason - maybe resentment? She managed to escape, hid in her room while they tried to batter the door down with a claw hammer, and blocked the door with a wardbobe so they couldn't get in. The brothers then went on a rampage around the estate where she lived, smashed up a few cars and threatened some children. The first brother, who had the hammer, was refused bail outright, and the hearing I was in was the defence trying to put the case to the magistrates that the defendant deserved bail. The advocate was very eloquent, and very persuasive ("you'll see since 1998 my client has only been in x number of incidents, compared to y before this date" - although he didn't indicate that the defendant could have been in jail for anything like 2/3 of this time), but watching the way the defendant was behaving in the dock showed you that the second he got out on bail he'd be off and causing more trouble. When the magistrates came back and gave sentence (or whatever you call it) he immediately started ranting and being childish, yelling "Well, like THAT wasn't too predictable!" when they told him his bail was refused and then refusing to answer the magistrate (the magistrate told him that "one more word out of him and he'd be ejected from court and the rest of sentencing and the reasoning would be relayed via his solicitor", so the defendant was instantly back in the school classroom and being a smart-arse, refusing to answer when the magistrate asked him "do you understand". So he kicked him out of court. I'm sure even the defendant would cringe if he could see just how stupid he looked - like a 14-year-old trying to be smart to the teacher, and ending up... well, just looking like a 14 year old trying to be smart.
But in all it was a good day. Went to the police station to start, to see if there was anyone needing assessing - that's the nurse's proper job, to assess if a prisoner is fit to be interviewed and stand trial, and there were only a couple of people in the cells - one girl they'd nabbed for shoplifting, one bloke who'd been got for violence, and one who was apparently on his 69th time in the nick - a "real psychopath" in the nurse's words. He beat up his partner and ex-partners, and then intimidated them so they withdrew their evidence, so he'd only be done for driving offences and stupid petty things like that. I mean, he threw his ex-partner out of a window, and she was so scared he'd kill her after he got out of prison, for testifying against him, that she withdrew her evidence and refused to testify. It's a sad state of affairs when the justice system seems to work to protect the accused, but I suppose that's just a fault of the legal system - you can only convict on evidence, and if a person won't give evidence... we need a better witness-protection scheme. Mind you, he was apparently just burning himself out - running out of strength to do as much as he used to do, as he was a multi-drug abuser - only on heroin and benzos at the moment, but he'd apparently used all sorts of things in the past.
And then I realised I had no food, so I got a curry for tea. :) All right, it wasn't a "curry"-curry, it was chicken passanda with special rice and a naan, but hey. The Delta indian round the corner do great meals, no wonder they've won so many awards in the local papers. The passandas are a little odd - they put a cherry in it. *puzzled* I thought it was a tomato - you know where you're ready for one flavour, and suddenly it's not what you thought it was? Yeah, like that. A little maraschino cherry. Didn't affect the curry, but it amused me. :) I think next time I'm going to get the chicken tikka badami, though, that sounds nice. Yaay, curry.
All right, I'm rambling now. I need a cuppa.
That's just plain odd.
On another slightly surreal note, I was in court today. :) Not as a criminal, just as a visitor, with the "Criminal Justice Mental Health Nurse" or whatever his title was, and it was fascinating to watch - you don't realise what it's like in real life unless you see a real court case - or how BORING it can be. Case was: two brothers, estranged from their mother at a young age and now in their late twenties, decided they were going to go round her house and beat her up, for some reason - maybe resentment? She managed to escape, hid in her room while they tried to batter the door down with a claw hammer, and blocked the door with a wardbobe so they couldn't get in. The brothers then went on a rampage around the estate where she lived, smashed up a few cars and threatened some children. The first brother, who had the hammer, was refused bail outright, and the hearing I was in was the defence trying to put the case to the magistrates that the defendant deserved bail. The advocate was very eloquent, and very persuasive ("you'll see since 1998 my client has only been in x number of incidents, compared to y before this date" - although he didn't indicate that the defendant could have been in jail for anything like 2/3 of this time), but watching the way the defendant was behaving in the dock showed you that the second he got out on bail he'd be off and causing more trouble. When the magistrates came back and gave sentence (or whatever you call it) he immediately started ranting and being childish, yelling "Well, like THAT wasn't too predictable!" when they told him his bail was refused and then refusing to answer the magistrate (the magistrate told him that "one more word out of him and he'd be ejected from court and the rest of sentencing and the reasoning would be relayed via his solicitor", so the defendant was instantly back in the school classroom and being a smart-arse, refusing to answer when the magistrate asked him "do you understand". So he kicked him out of court. I'm sure even the defendant would cringe if he could see just how stupid he looked - like a 14-year-old trying to be smart to the teacher, and ending up... well, just looking like a 14 year old trying to be smart.
But in all it was a good day. Went to the police station to start, to see if there was anyone needing assessing - that's the nurse's proper job, to assess if a prisoner is fit to be interviewed and stand trial, and there were only a couple of people in the cells - one girl they'd nabbed for shoplifting, one bloke who'd been got for violence, and one who was apparently on his 69th time in the nick - a "real psychopath" in the nurse's words. He beat up his partner and ex-partners, and then intimidated them so they withdrew their evidence, so he'd only be done for driving offences and stupid petty things like that. I mean, he threw his ex-partner out of a window, and she was so scared he'd kill her after he got out of prison, for testifying against him, that she withdrew her evidence and refused to testify. It's a sad state of affairs when the justice system seems to work to protect the accused, but I suppose that's just a fault of the legal system - you can only convict on evidence, and if a person won't give evidence... we need a better witness-protection scheme. Mind you, he was apparently just burning himself out - running out of strength to do as much as he used to do, as he was a multi-drug abuser - only on heroin and benzos at the moment, but he'd apparently used all sorts of things in the past.
And then I realised I had no food, so I got a curry for tea. :) All right, it wasn't a "curry"-curry, it was chicken passanda with special rice and a naan, but hey. The Delta indian round the corner do great meals, no wonder they've won so many awards in the local papers. The passandas are a little odd - they put a cherry in it. *puzzled* I thought it was a tomato - you know where you're ready for one flavour, and suddenly it's not what you thought it was? Yeah, like that. A little maraschino cherry. Didn't affect the curry, but it amused me. :) I think next time I'm going to get the chicken tikka badami, though, that sounds nice. Yaay, curry.
All right, I'm rambling now. I need a cuppa.
