Peter Wayne
February 3, 2008 7:17 PM Subscribe
Meet Peter Wayne. Prolific literary writer, book reviewer, architectural correspondent, church organist, chronic recidivist, drug addict, released, homeless, back in prison
Nice writing - I'm going to get to a bunch of these tomorrow. Thanks!
posted by carter at 9:57 PM on February 3, 2008
posted by carter at 9:57 PM on February 3, 2008
I wish I had a foreskin under which (if I so chose) I could smuggle heroin.
It's not something that gets mentioned often in the regular Mefi circumcision flamefests, but it's a definite advantage. And the older you get, the more it holds. I can get an eightball under mine these days.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:47 PM on February 3, 2008
It's not something that gets mentioned often in the regular Mefi circumcision flamefests, but it's a definite advantage. And the older you get, the more it holds. I can get an eightball under mine these days.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 11:47 PM on February 3, 2008
Also: if he's been in prison for twenty years, how does he come out with a heroin dependency so severe that he's in withdrawal and in need of an immediate methadone script on the way out?
Not to say that there isn't heroin in prison, but it's expensive. Much more so than outside. Current rate is £40 for a single Subutex tab. Prisoners wages are about £8. And more than half of that will go on tobacco for anyone who smokes. This guy is the low man on the totem pole. No family to buy his dope. No status as a prison baron, or he wouldn't be coming out homeless.
Not that I begrudge him his methadone, mind. Or that the situation he describes isn't one that affects discharged prisoners every day of the week. But I do smell a little James Frey-style poetic license going on here.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:06 AM on February 4, 2008
Not to say that there isn't heroin in prison, but it's expensive. Much more so than outside. Current rate is £40 for a single Subutex tab. Prisoners wages are about £8. And more than half of that will go on tobacco for anyone who smokes. This guy is the low man on the totem pole. No family to buy his dope. No status as a prison baron, or he wouldn't be coming out homeless.
Not that I begrudge him his methadone, mind. Or that the situation he describes isn't one that affects discharged prisoners every day of the week. But I do smell a little James Frey-style poetic license going on here.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:06 AM on February 4, 2008
I don't know, but he seems to be getting published regularly for the past ten years, so maybe that's helping.
In fact, on reflection, he is not got a heroin dependency so severe that he's in withdrawal and in need of an immediate methadone script on the way out, but he has been taking methadone every day in prison, so for that reason he is in withdrawal and in need of an immediate methadone script on the way out
my heroin smuggling days are alsocircumcised circumscribed
posted by criticalbill at 4:24 AM on February 4, 2008
In fact, on reflection, he is not got a heroin dependency so severe that he's in withdrawal and in need of an immediate methadone script on the way out, but he has been taking methadone every day in prison, so for that reason he is in withdrawal and in need of an immediate methadone script on the way out
my heroin smuggling days are also
posted by criticalbill at 4:24 AM on February 4, 2008
Also, he's not been in for 20 years, he's goes in-and-out. His longest stretch was 10 years, I believe, released in about 1998.
posted by criticalbill at 5:58 AM on February 4, 2008
posted by criticalbill at 5:58 AM on February 4, 2008
but he has been taking methadone every day in prison, so for that reason he is in withdrawal and in need of an immediate methadone script on the way out
Perhaps it was a pilot programme, but I'm pretty sure that we didn't have any methadone maintenance programmes for prisoners in England prior to the lawsuit in 2006. That said, I'm guessing if they'd do it anywhere, Wandworth, being as close as it is to the major London teaching hospitals, would be the place you'd get it.
Ah, OK. I see it was a pilot. Even so, I'm surprised that his prison CARAT team didn't ensure he went straight into a CJIP programme to ensure continuity of care.
Good post though.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 6:41 AM on February 4, 2008
Perhaps it was a pilot programme, but I'm pretty sure that we didn't have any methadone maintenance programmes for prisoners in England prior to the lawsuit in 2006. That said, I'm guessing if they'd do it anywhere, Wandworth, being as close as it is to the major London teaching hospitals, would be the place you'd get it.
Ah, OK. I see it was a pilot. Even so, I'm surprised that his prison CARAT team didn't ensure he went straight into a CJIP programme to ensure continuity of care.
Good post though.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 6:41 AM on February 4, 2008
I remember reading his column regularly in Prospect. His writing was always interesting, as was the occasional hang-wringing by the editor about whether by publishing his column they were enabling his drug abuse/crime.
posted by patricio at 9:47 AM on February 4, 2008
posted by patricio at 9:47 AM on February 4, 2008
No serious British paper or magazine is complete nowadays without a column by a literate convict. Oh sorry, Archer, you don't count!
See also CAR Hills, whose bumpy history is described here, or Erwin James, who as a presumed murderer is the most thrilling of all to the fresh-faced ingenues at the Grauniad. He's been around since 1998.
posted by gdav at 1:37 PM on February 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
See also CAR Hills, whose bumpy history is described here, or Erwin James, who as a presumed murderer is the most thrilling of all to the fresh-faced ingenues at the Grauniad. He's been around since 1998.
posted by gdav at 1:37 PM on February 4, 2008 [1 favorite]
Hate to say it, but Erwin James is barely thrilling any more, what with being all reformed and law-abiding. Give me crack-smoking, bivouac-living, degenerate P.Wayne any day. Everytime he writes an article I rush to find out if he's back in prison yet.
posted by criticalbill at 4:21 PM on February 4, 2008
posted by criticalbill at 4:21 PM on February 4, 2008
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I wish I had a foreskin under which (if I so chose) I could smuggle heroin.
But without anyone checking with me on my opinion on the matter, I was circumcised!
posted by humannaire at 7:38 PM on February 3, 2008