As the rest of the nation wandered about in a continuing overfed stupor, attempting to respond to Gordon Brown’s exhortations to go down with the ship by frantically spending the last vestiges of their hard-earned savings in the sales, New Year’s Eve at the Ed Balls Correction Centre in Feltham was just another day - eleven hours in the bunting factory, two cooked meal, a game of pool and the library being destroyed by fire just before lunch.

Our production figures were down yesterday - just 36 one-mile rolls, which will tend to lower Cell Block C2’s overall weekly average slightly – and this is probably because even we were affected by a degree of ‘end of term’-ism.

I don’t know about you, but my impression was that 2008 flashed by in a trice. I suppose it’s too much to hope that 2009 might follow suit …

[For those who might be interested, there is an entry in the ‘Viewpoint’ section today.]