Bay Watch 3

Bulletin 3: Wednesday 20th January 2010

Joe has gone, in mysterious circumstances, to be replaced by a youthful-looking 51 year-old who keeps fit and jogs three times a week. Fool. He's asking for a heart attack.

I've conducted a survey of the literacy interests of those in the Bay, based on the evidence of the past two days. I claim responsibility for five of the eight items listed randomly below. You'll never be able to guess which are mine:

The text of Lucan, a later Latin epic poet.
The News of the World.
'Rail' magazine.
Women's Own.
Andrew Motion's biography of Keats.
The Sun.
Private Eye.
A Guide to Digital Railway Photography.

A mega-Mars Bar awaits the sender of the first e-mail to list all five items correctly.

High drama: now that I am no longer on 24hr monitoring I have been moved to Bay H. It has a great view of the staff car park, which is an improvement on the landscape afforded by Bay D. There are six beds in the Bay. Good news: the Bay is further away from the staff work-station, so I'm spared staff chit-chat about who's working which shift. Bad news: Bert has followed me. He shoots me occasional glances from diagonally across the Bay, as if to say, "Haven't I seen you somewhere before?" I think I'll offer to buy him a one-way ticket to Switzerland on my credit card. I know just the place.

At least Edna's oral effusions are a thing of the past, though judging by the variety of noisy guttural eruptions emanating from the elderly male Bay inmates I may be troubled by repulsive sounds of vehement expectoration tonight.

Survived - just.

I could easily get used to Papworth: private room, en-suite, TV, no Ednas or Berts on the radar. According to the guide the pond is deep and the swans are aggressive, so I'll steer clear. I've just ticked various boxes to order my supper tonight and breakfast tomorrow - I see that a morning fry-up is not on the menu. There's a surprise.

I have a hi-tech bed whose movements I control via a handset. There is a separate handset for staff, but when they use it an intermittent tone sounds. I keep waiting for a robotic voice to say "attention, this bed is reversing", but it never happens.