A national mental asylum?

 

Once in a while I find myself thinking that the experience of being transported at night by ambulance or police van, strapped or caged at a right angle to the direction of travel, becoming progressively disorientated as the streaking neon lights wipe short term memory, is not dissimilar to always being escorted whilst moving along the remorselessly straight corridors of the old Victorian asylums - and not necessarily because you were a threat to self or others - but because without help you would rapidly become lost.

For almost a decade now people have been saying that almost all confined young offenders have some form of mental disorder and/ or substance misuse problem. Amongst adults who are confined the official rate of ‘serious’ mental disorder is barely higher than amongst the general population - but that’s just a joke, nobody believes it. Much better to accept that a majority of the entire prison population now has a drug and/ or mental health problem - that prisons combined with special hospitals, regional secure units and other secure psychiatric wards - add-up to a new asylum system to replace the old. Given modern transportation and communications the corridors are now dual carriageways and motorways. Mental health law is as strong (and flexible) as it ever was. The impersonal bureaucratic rules and regulations remain. The NHS now runs prison medical services, so we can look forward to more and cleverer drugs!

During my career as a mental patient I spent time in two Victorian-style asylums, albeit towards the end their existence, I also had occasion to visit three others. Recently I was directed to a site with some photos of the first hospital in which I was a patient - Severalls in Colchester - I was amazed it hadn’t been redeveloped. The site is about 300-acres and held up to 2000 patients. Opened in 1913, it was based on the ‘echelon plan’, individual buildings but linked by interconnecting corridors to avoid the weather! Over the years the buildings have suffered vandalism and fire attacks but as the pictures here show you can still get a flavour of the environment. When I was there the staff were very proud of the murals, part of which are still visible. I was also told that one of the corridors was the longest of any asylum in the country - is that true?

Forensic unit 2017

Last Year's April Fool

Twelve months is a long time in online history. Last year I distributed the following April Fool to academic acquaintances, linking it to the one that appeared in The Guardian - a year on it all seems to have come true!

ACADEMICS MASS HYSTERIA SHOCK

Dear All

How sad that social scientists across the country have reacted in such a panic stricken way today to the news of the end of The Guardian (see below). Whilst it is true that for decades they have relied upon it as their sole source of ideas, surely they have registered some of the changes in knowledge acquisition over the last two decades.

The realisation that the majority of journal articles are never read.

The fact that students don't take books out of libraries, but just photocopy the introduction and conclusion.

That software could write a fake article on post-modernism and that it would be published.

That the reason the entry for your subject in Wikipedia is being edited every other day is that not just your rivals, but your research students and even your research subjects contest your authority.

The fact that the more enterprising of your colleagues have gone over the heads of the academic audience to the public at large on video at TED, Web2Expo, Meaning of Life TV, Blogging Heads, Edge.org...

Now with the advent of twittering there is no need to find research participants or record them. They've done it for you - you can see the world as it is today. With the development last year of a search engine to go with it, you can do global research on any issue tomorrow!

Flexibility in the face of change I am told is the key to mental wellbeing.

Best wishes

Nick

Twitter switch for Guardian, after 188 years of ink

Newspaper to be available only on messaging service

Experts say any story can be told in 140 characters

Rio Palof
The Guardian 1.4.09

Consolidating its position at the cutting edge of new media technology, the Guardian today announces that it will become the first newspaper in the world to be published exclusively via Twitter, the sensationally popular social networking service that has transformed online communication.

The move, described as "epochal" by media commentators, will see all Guardian content tailored to fit the format of Twitter's brief text messages, known as "tweets", which are limited to 140 characters each. Boosted by the involvement of celebrity "twitterers", such as Madonna, Britney Spears and Stephen Fry, Twitter's profile has surged in recent months, attracting more than 5m users who send, read and reply to tweets via the web or their mobile phones.

As a Twitter-only publication, the Guardian will be able to harness the unprecedented newsgathering power of the service, demonstrated recently when a passenger on a plane that crashed outside Denver was able to send real-time updates on the story as it developed, as did those witnessing an emergency landing on New York's Hudson River. It has also radically democratised news publishing, enabling anyone with an internet connection to tell the world when they are feeling sad, or thinking about having a cup of tea.

"[Celebrated Guardian editor] CP Scott would have warmly endorsed this - his well-known observation 'Comment is free but facts are sacred' is only 36 characters long," a spokesman said in a tweet that was itself only 135 characters long.

A mammoth project is also under way to rewrite the whole of the newspaper's archive, stretching back to 1821, in the form of tweets. Major stories already completed include "1832 Reform Act gives voting rights to one in five adult males yay!!!"; "OMG Hitler invades Poland, allies declare war see tinyurl.com/b5x6e for more"; and "JFK assassin8d @ Dallas, def. heard second gunshot from grassy knoll WTF?"

Sceptics have expressed concerns that 140 characters may be insufficient to capture the full breadth of meaningful human activity, but social media experts say the spread of Twitter encourages brevity, and that it ought to be possible to convey the gist of any message in a tweet.

For example, Martin Luther King's legendary 1963 speech on the steps of the Lincoln memorial appears in the Guardian's Twitterised archive as "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by", eliminating the waffle and bluster of the original.

At a time of unprecedented challenge for all print media, many publications have rushed to embrace social networking technologies. Most now offer Twitter feeds of major breaking news headlines, while the Daily Mail recently pioneered an iPhone application providing users with a one-click facility for reporting suspicious behaviour by migrants or gays. "In the new media environment, readers want short and punchy coverage, while the interactive possibilities of Twitter promise to transform th," the online media guru Jeff Jarvis said in a tweet yesterday, before reaching his 140-character limit, which includes spaces. According to subsequent reports, he is thinking about going to the theatre tonight, but it is raining :(.

A unique collaboration between The Guardian and Twitter will also see the launch of Gutter, an experimental service designed to filter noteworthy liberal opinion from the cacophony of Twitter updates. Gutter members will be able to use the service to comment on liberal blogs around the web via a new tool, specially developed with the blogging platform WordPress, entitled GutterPress.

Currently, 17.8% of all Twitter traffic in the United Kingdom consists of status updates from Stephen Fry, whose reliably jolly tone, whether trapped in a lift or eating a scrumptious tart, has won him thousands of fans. A further 11% is made up of his 363,000 followers replying "@stephenfry LOL!", "@stephenfry EXACTLY the same thing happened to me", and "@stephenfry Meanwhile, I am making myself an omelette! Delicious!"

According to unconfirmed rumours, Jim Buckmaster, the chief executive of Craigslist, will next month announce plans for a new system of telepathy-based social networking that is expected to render Twitter obsolete within weeks.