I'm really dubious about this scheme in East Yorkshire whereby adults write lines instead of paying a fine for parking their car illegally outside the school gates.
Partly, I think it's a cruel and unusual punishment. The whole horrible idea takes me back to the harrowing days more than a quarter of a century ago when I emerged from the examination halls after three hours of writing my finals paper. After getting down my thoughts on Saul Kripke's sceptical analysis of Wittgenstein's private language argument, my right hand was so overused and painfully deformed that it looked every bit like the one that Jim Carrey uses in Liar Liar to simulate a terrifying monster called the Claw when playing with his son, Max.
It really, really hurt. Remembering that suffering gives me an insight into what punished motorists in east Yorkshire are going through. But the pain is even worse for them than it was for me all those years ago, because so very few Britons today are used to writing by hand for long periods. Is this the kind of pain that we want to be inflicting on already undervalued school-run mums and/or nans? Or should Shami Chakrabarti weigh in on their behalf? The answer, I feel, is obvious.
But I also don't believe that writing lines ever made anyone better (he claimed wildly). This, quite possibly, is why schoolchildren are very rarely kept after school to write: "There was no ancient Roman called Fartacus" or "Burping is not a science experiment". If you think differently, please let me know. And if, in particular, you were punished by writing lines at school and didn't repeat the offence as a result, please tell me the embarrassing details. In the mean time, here are my lines:
I will try not to be so sceptical in future. I will try not to be so sceptical in future. I will try not to be so sceptical in future. I will try not to be so sceptical in future. I will try not to be so sceptical in future. I will try not to be so sceptical in future.
