Nothing to see here, Penitentiary Vacation, English football fans

So, most people I know are aware that I like the UK. I very much enjoyed the two weeks I spent there two years ago, particularly London – the only extremely large city I’m partial to thus far. Hell, I’m even in the unconscious habit of sometimes using “s” rather than “z” (zed?) and spelling words with a superfluous “u.” Of course, now I’ll have to do it on purpose for the rest of this post.

But I swear, some of the laws there are worse than those you’d find here. Now, I’m usually one to give law enforcement the benefit of the doubt, unless they’re done something absolutely moronic (which happens with alarming frequency, these days). The newest thing in the jolly old United Kingdom is that it’s illegal to photograph police officers. Yes, illegal. The canned response the police are handing out is that it’s an anti-terrorism measure. Which, to be sure, is probably part of the reason for it. I understand the need for this sort of thing more than most. But I can’t help but feel like that’s not necessarily what it’ll be used for. As everyone knows, not all of our friends in the world of law enforcement are good people.

To quote The Departed: “Do you want to be a cop, or do you want to appear to be a cop?” There are a fairly high number of cases where dirty cops have gotten nailed because they were caught on film. Now, in the UK, that’s illegal. Civil rights? No?

But then again, getting tossed into prison may not be such a bad thing. One of the UK’s convicts (in for murder) has informed us, via Facebook, no less, that doing time is like a holiday. He said, verbatim, in one of his posts – “HMP Holiday’s a place where men can come for a nice relaxin break from their moanin women and crying kids. No stress just rest.” He and Bradley Nowell would have had some things to agree on, apparently. One of his buds even commented that he could do with a stint in the resort prison also. Fun times.

This sort of story has come out in places other than the UK, though. Another nation (which one slips my mind) caught flak about a year ago for building a “luxury prison.” Luxury. Fucking. Prison. No more capital punishment and luxury prison cells – where the fuck’s the deterrent for criminal behaviour? I think I need a free holiday. Anyone else want to come?

Hell, the Brits are implementing something next year called the Body Orifice Security Scanner, so you can go to prison without the indignity of a cavity search, too.

To round out our… trifecta, if you will, of “Wow the UK is fucked up” we have the hardcore football fans. No, not soccer. Shut the hell up. Anyways, apparently after a bit of a spat, a pair of jackass Liverpool fans (nothing good ever came out of Liverpool, anyways. Yes, I’m including The Beatles in that blanket statement. You’ll get over it.) decided to chuck a ManU fan into a pool, busting one of his ribs and breaking his ankle. Now, this is relatively mild for European football (you should see the Germans) but they weren’t done yet. Instead, they fabricated a woman on Facebook, and had him drive 400 miles to find him, having him send humiliating photos along the way. Among these was apparently some of him sucking on a dildo. Wacky Brits. Anyways, when he got there they sprang it on him, and posted all the phone calls and pictures and whatnot to the internet, spawning news stories and notifying his wife, who subsequently left him.

Now here’s where I have this debate with myself about whether or not this is real. Football fans are crazy, to be sure, but the last lines of this article seem to be a bit of a tip off -

Last night, the father-of-one, a building labourer, said: “There’s no doubt I’ve been done good and proper by the lads from Liverpool.

“It was cruel, but I’ll hold my hands up and say they really wound me up.”

Now, I know the sense of humour over there is a bit odd (See: Eddie Izzard, Monty Python, etc) but this seems like a bit much. Roughing you up and ruining your life would NOT prompt a “oh, you guys got me GOOD!” reaction. Seriously, now. I wonder what the over/under is on how long before this comes out as a hoax?

~ D