Heaven

DAY 122 SATURDAY 17 NOVEMBER 2001

Anyone who’s incarcerated wants their sentence to pass as quickly as possible. If you’re fortunate enough to have an interesting job, as I have at SMU, that certainly helps kill Monday to Friday. That just leaves the other problem – the weekend. Once you’ve reached your FLED and can work outside the prison, have a town visit every week and a week out every month, I’m told the months fly by, but should I fail to win my appeal against length of sentence, none of this will kick in until July next year – another eight months. So boredom will become my greatest challenge.

I can write, but not for every hour of every day. With luck there’s a rugby match to watch on Saturday afternoon, and a visitor to look forward to seeing on Sunday. So, for the record:

Saturday

6.00 am Write this diary for two hours.

8.15 am Breakfast.

9.00 am Read The Times, or any other paper available.

10.00 am Work on the sixth rewrite of Sons of Fortune .

12 noon Lunch.

2.00pm Watch New Zealand beat Ireland 40-29 on BBC1.

4.00pm Watch Wales beat Tonga 51-7 on BBC2. *

4.40 pm Watch the highlights of England’s record-breaking win of 134-0 against Romania on ITV.

6.00 pm Continue to work on Sons of Fortune and run out of paper. My fault.

8.15 pm Sign in for roll-call to prove I haven’t absconded, or died of boredom.

8.30 pm Join Doug in the hospital and watch a Danny de Vito/Bette Midler film, followed by the news.

10.30 pm Return to my room, go to bed and, despite the noise of Match of the Day coming from the TV room next door, fall asleep.