Before I write too much, can I be very clear that life in prison is horrific. It is worse than horrific, particularly with the aggravating factor of a wrongful conviction.

Now that is out of the way, yes this place can be bloody funny at times! So much has been happened or been said that has left me questioning the strength of my bladder. I once overheard a prison officer telling a vegetarian prisoner he shouldn’t be eating chickpea curry because chickpeas are made from chicken. (He was being serious, too, which is worrying!) Another time, a group of prisoners were talking about homophobia when another junkie prisoner came up and commented that homophobia doesn’t make sense because why would anyone be scared of their own house?

The pranks can be so funny, too = the cold bucket of water over the shower cuicle and also the continuous shampoo prank which I’m sure you’ve all seen on YouTube.

I think guys in prison are really hungry for some light hearted relief in this world of horror so when there is the potential for humour, it is maximised despite the situation. So there are coins glued to the floor, there are toilet doors locked from the outside, amusing medical requests are submitted “on behalf” of other prisoners and, because we all have the same remote controls, guys change other prisoners’ TV channels through the spy hole.

Naturally, some of the good intentioned humour goes too far – I heard of a prisoner who was pranked by a friend who ordered an adult magazine on the other guy’s number. It was funny until a guard wrote it up on his PR2 (Prisoner Record computer system) which may well create problems for him later at parole.

Sometimes, though, the humour is malicious, mostly from guards to prisoners, and shamefully it’s often towards prisoners whose first language isn’t English. The most inappropriate example I remember was a prisoner from Albania who got mixed up between insect and incest. The guard took it to a really low level and showed extremely poor judgement.

Anyway, back to the main point. It really can be funny whenever you get a load of people together and prison is no different. We laugh when someone drops their doughnut in their soup, we laugh when someone orders a menu change for someone else and we laugh when someone farts in the gym while lifting a big weight.

We try our best to laugh, laugh, laugh because all too often, the only other option is to cry, cry, cry.

NaN.