I got an internship at OxERA, who do economics but don't do it in a classroom, and instead do it for cash wages. I didn't really understand. I asked about it in the classroom, but I was not given a good answer. Then they offered me cash wages, and I decided that I no longer needed to understand. Ever again.

Today's BBC News Have Your Say was all about the comments of Lord Chief Justice Lord Phillips, who yesterday said that some murderers are in jail for too long. The comments were roughly divided in half. The first half disagreed: life should mean life, a tautology and redundant expression if ever one existed. I checked in a dictionary, and the definition of life is exactly that.

The second half agreed that some murderers do spend too long in prison. In fact, this group believed that the exact amount of time a convicted murderer should spend it prison was the amount of time necessary for a suitable length of rope to be found, and, if necessary, a small scaffold to be erected.

In short, the Lord Chief Justice does not seem to be summarising the views of the normal people of Britain. Good. Normal people don't get to become judges (most of them, of course, don't have the Latin for the rigorous judging exams). The real complaint Lord Philips has, one shared by many of his colleagues, is over the mandatory sentences that are now imposed on over 100 crimes in the UK. Removing judicial discretion takes away the experience and knowledge of the very individuals who have the most to give. Some murderers are irrepairably damaged people: for the good of society they should be excluded from it. Some murderers made a terrible mistake, one that if appropriately punished would never be repeated. I can't believe that the appropriate punishment for that is to be locked away for ever. How can it be true that a person's entire life is dictated by the worst thing they ever did? If we can properly rehabilitate people, surely no-one is worse off at that point by allowing them to return to society?

In between that, there are people who committed mutliple offences, but could possibly be helped, and people that committed one offence, but if they weren't locked away for life they would certainly do it again. The point is this: they all have different shaped hands. And, when you have people with different shaped hands, you generally need a variety of gloves. (In this metaphor, gloves are prison sentences.)

This is what happens when the top two party's say, "Race you to the right. Last one there's hoody-hugger".

My Facebook feed tells me Adam Desmond and Mark Skimming are now friends, as of 3.09pm today. I think they met at three o'clock to sit down and finally work out those differences that have been hanging over them for years now: the awful, unspoken truths that filled a room with tension like a sponge. Five minutes were all it took to clear the air and repair the bridges everyone said were too burned down to ever exist again. Two minutes then to draw up the treaty, a minute to sign it (Mark's full name is over 3 pages long, though not always consecutively), and one moment to make a joke about the proper way to clean endangered wildlife for the assembled press.

Facebook is efficient.

Children, gather around. Say you have, I don't know, half an hour of which you have nothing do. Then why not listen to the Sunday Sideshow, a radio program, if that is really the word, of topical material, irreverent discussion and jokes about disabled people. Well, famous people. That's kind of the same.

I went to watch the BJ Show last Wednesday. Brad should be commended for his efforts, because it was basically a one man project, particularly the writing and video production, and not a small part of the acting. The first half was sketch, though with a series of stories or themes running through. Some of it wasn't all that funny, some of it was killer. I was impressed at exactly how offensive the Cancer vs. Genital Warts leadership battle scene was (there was some laughter, but the audience did not seem hugely enthused by a dying cancer kid being credited with popularising the bald head look). The acting wasn't always great, and it occassionaly tried to be cleverer than it actually was, but overall it was an impressive effort.

The second half was Theatresports improv, and I thought it was really tight. Some scenes could have been longer: there was quite a bit of cutting out at a big joke rather than trying for a nicer conclusion, but I probably laughed more during that part than the scripted bits.

Overall, I thought it was a good night's entertainment, if not the pinnacle of comedy in this town. I don't think it deserved all the comments made in Ben Laffery's review, but then as he clearly knows nothing about improv (and our cast member-laden audience) and thinks Facebooking relationship status counts as intelligently researched journalism then I don't think they really would have mattered much.