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If you enjoyed this you might enjoy Jeffrey Archer's prison diaries - he was a British politician jailed for perjury in the 2000s who wrote up his time inside:

If you enjoyed this you might enjoy Jeffrey Archer's prison diaries - he was a British politician jailed for perjury in the 2000s who wrote up his time inside: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prison-Diary-1-Hell/dp/0330418599 https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prison-Diary-1-Hell/dp/0330418599

celticninja 9y ago
Find a torrent of the book if you really want to read it don't go giving Archer any money.
- vixen99 9y ago
  Archer has sold 330 million copies of his books and thus has no pressing need for money. That however is no excuse for encouraging someone to steal from a writer however successful. What else would you encourage people to thieve and from whom? Anyone who's been to prison?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - alex_hitchins 9y ago
    I'd buy Jonathan Aitken's book... (A fellow Tory jailbird). I do believe Aitken has somewhat reformed. Archer, not so much. Edit to say that I agree with your point that theft is theft.
  - jmnicolas 9y ago
    330 millions copies ? Let's say for the thought experiment that it was sold only on the European continent (including Russia), it would mean that one in two people living in Europe bought a copy. I find it hard to believe !
    - ratherbefuddled 9y ago
      Not this particular novel, he has written dozens.
    - janekm 9y ago
      He’s written quite a bit more than one book (over 25). Sales are >250 million according to his website. His books are practically their own genre in the UK, if second hand shops are anything to go by.
      - celticninja 9y ago
        He also said he raised £52 million for Iraqi Kurds a figure that KPMG said was bullshit. So I would not put too much faith in anything that he says.
  - celticninja 9y ago
    I didn't say that you should steak from someone just because they had been to prison. I suggested stealing from Jeffrey Archer because he is a bit of a cunt who has a very chequered history with the truth and is as dodgy now as he was in the past. Most recently he was likely involved in financing an attempted coup in Equitorial Guinea. Sometimes stealing is ok, in a world where not everything is black and white an inability to distinguish grey is a flaw.
    - Boothroid 9y ago
      Relevant: https://hooktube.com/watch?v=pssI1ZwzcmQ https://hooktube.com/watch?v=pssI1ZwzcmQ
- alex_hitchins 9y ago
  If you like UK slang, look up what 'An Archer' is. Still hear this used today and it never fails to make me smile.
  - Joeboy 9y ago
    I think this might actually be hard to google. An archer is £2000, the amount Conservative Party deputy chairman Jeffrey Archer was caught paying a prostitute to keep quiet about his allegedly being a client of hers. I first heard this usage on The New Statesman (the Rick Mayall TV comedy), but it may have originated elsewhere.
jackhack 9y ago
I would heartily recommend "Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass" by Dr. Theodore Dalrymple. It gives keen insight into the cultural mindset of victimization that produces the persistent underclass. From the overview: "Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in England, has seemingly seen it all. Yet in listening to and observing his patients, he is continually astonished by the latest twist of depravity that exceeds even his own considerable experience. Dalrymple's key insight in Life at the Bottom is that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims. This culture persuades those at the bottom that they have no responsibility for their actions and are not the molders of their own lives."
- influx 9y ago
  Isn't this self contradictory? Instead of taking personal responsibility for a failed set of values, instead the author blames an "elite culture searching for victims".
  - thanatropism 9y ago
    This "everyone has ultimate personal responsibility" way of thinking is uniquely American as far as I can see. Even without giving much leeway to self-victimization politics, analysis leads clearly to (1) you not being a coherent agency, often getting besides yourself or outside of your mind; or even not being the same person who shoplifted as a teen and (2) you been in many important ways a drop in an ocean, an atom of mass being. Of course individuality plays a very important role in the Enlightenment kind of rational civilization we strive for, but it doesn't mean non-individuality ("dividuality" and "collectivity") are not huge aspects of how we live. As Alain de Botton once put it, in England the poor are "unfortunates", in America they're losers. In Dalrymple's world, elites have a duty to set the tone and the agenda; and they are instead shirking from making judgement calls and saying "good is good, bad is bad".I don't agree much (we have elites telling us how to think as it is), but he points in the general direction of something without hitting the bullseye.

celticninja 9y ago

Find a torrent of the book if you really want to read it don't go giving Archer any money.

vixen99 9y ago
Archer has sold 330 million copies of his books and thus has no pressing need for money. That however is no excuse for encouraging someone to steal from a writer however successful. What else would you encourage people to thieve and from whom? Anyone who's been to prison?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- alex_hitchins 9y ago
  I'd buy Jonathan Aitken's book... (A fellow Tory jailbird). I do believe Aitken has somewhat reformed. Archer, not so much. Edit to say that I agree with your point that theft is theft.
- jmnicolas 9y ago
  330 millions copies ? Let's say for the thought experiment that it was sold only on the European continent (including Russia), it would mean that one in two people living in Europe bought a copy. I find it hard to believe !
  - ratherbefuddled 9y ago
    Not this particular novel, he has written dozens.
  - janekm 9y ago
    He’s written quite a bit more than one book (over 25). Sales are >250 million according to his website. His books are practically their own genre in the UK, if second hand shops are anything to go by.
    - celticninja 9y ago
      He also said he raised £52 million for Iraqi Kurds a figure that KPMG said was bullshit. So I would not put too much faith in anything that he says.
- celticninja 9y ago
  I didn't say that you should steak from someone just because they had been to prison. I suggested stealing from Jeffrey Archer because he is a bit of a cunt who has a very chequered history with the truth and is as dodgy now as he was in the past. Most recently he was likely involved in financing an attempted coup in Equitorial Guinea. Sometimes stealing is ok, in a world where not everything is black and white an inability to distinguish grey is a flaw.
  - Boothroid 9y ago
    Relevant: https://hooktube.com/watch?v=pssI1ZwzcmQ https://hooktube.com/watch?v=pssI1ZwzcmQ
alex_hitchins 9y ago
If you like UK slang, look up what 'An Archer' is. Still hear this used today and it never fails to make me smile.
- Joeboy 9y ago
  I think this might actually be hard to google. An archer is £2000, the amount Conservative Party deputy chairman Jeffrey Archer was caught paying a prostitute to keep quiet about his allegedly being a client of hers. I first heard this usage on The New Statesman (the Rick Mayall TV comedy), but it may have originated elsewhere.

jackhack 9y ago

I would heartily recommend "Life at the Bottom: The Worldview That Makes the Underclass" by Dr. Theodore Dalrymple. It gives keen insight into the cultural mindset of victimization that produces the persistent underclass. From the overview: "Theodore Dalrymple, a British psychiatrist who treats the poor in a slum hospital and a prison in England, has seemingly seen it all. Yet in listening to and observing his patients, he is continually astonished by the latest twist of depravity that exceeds even his own considerable experience. Dalrymple's key insight in Life at the Bottom is that long-term poverty is caused not by economics but by a dysfunctional set of values, one that is continually reinforced by an elite culture searching for victims. This culture persuades those at the bottom that they have no responsibility for their actions and are not the molders of their own lives."

influx 9y ago
Isn't this self contradictory? Instead of taking personal responsibility for a failed set of values, instead the author blames an "elite culture searching for victims".
- thanatropism 9y ago
  This "everyone has ultimate personal responsibility" way of thinking is uniquely American as far as I can see. Even without giving much leeway to self-victimization politics, analysis leads clearly to (1) you not being a coherent agency, often getting besides yourself or outside of your mind; or even not being the same person who shoplifted as a teen and (2) you been in many important ways a drop in an ocean, an atom of mass being. Of course individuality plays a very important role in the Enlightenment kind of rational civilization we strive for, but it doesn't mean non-individuality ("dividuality" and "collectivity") are not huge aspects of how we live. As Alain de Botton once put it, in England the poor are "unfortunates", in America they're losers. In Dalrymple's world, elites have a duty to set the tone and the agenda; and they are instead shirking from making judgement calls and saying "good is good, bad is bad".I don't agree much (we have elites telling us how to think as it is), but he points in the general direction of something without hitting the bullseye.