What does "NICE" mean to you?

The word "Nice," has had more meanings than many other English words. Our modern use of "nice" to mean "pleasant" dates from the middle of the 18th century.

The word “nice” originates from the Latin word "nescius," which means "not knowing" or, more specifically, "ignorant." The French turned "nescius" into "nice," and used it to mean "stupid or simpleminded," and it was this sense that was first carried over into English.

By the fourteenth century "nice" had acquired yet another meaning, that of "wanton or lascivious." In a strange reversal in the fifteenth century, "nice" was used to mean "shy" or "refined," and by the sixteenth century the word had been narrowed down to mean "fastidious or tasteful."

Today we still use this sense in phrases such as "a nice touch" or "a nice distinction." By the middle of the 18th Century it had gained yet another meaning of pleasant and agreeable.

It has evolved to become a word with a high degree of ambiguity in meaning.

A fact best articulated in the following dialogue from Jane Austin’s Northanger Abbey.

“But now really, do not you think Udolpho the nicest book in the world?”

“The nicest—by which I suppose you mean the neatest. That must depend upon the binding.”

“Henry,” said Miss Tilney, “you are very impertinent. Miss Morland, he is treating you exactly as he does his sister. He is forever finding fault with me, for some incorrectness of language, and now he is taking the same liberty with you. The word 'nicest,' as you used it, did not suit him; and you had better change it as soon as you can, or we shall be overpowered with Johnson and Blair all the rest of the way.”

“I am sure,” cried Catherine, “I did not mean to say anything wrong; but it is a nice book, and why should not I call it so?”

“Very true,” said Henry, “and this is a very nice day, and we are taking a very nice walk, and you are two very nice young ladies. Oh! It is a very nice word indeed! It does for everything. Originally perhaps it was applied only to express neatness, propriety, delicacy, or refinement—people were nice in their dress, in their sentiments, or their choice. But now every commendation on every subject is comprised in that one word.”

To many people, "niceness" is a positive value to be strived for. A "nice" person is friendly, non-threatening, and not at all controversial. A "nice" meal involves digestible food, moderately pleasant surroundings, and conversation that does not offend.

A "nice" day is a day that’s enjoyable because it fits what can be considered agreeable to human comfort in terms of moderate temperature, abundant sunlight, and low humidity.

For others, "niceness", is despised because it carries connotations of a certain indifference to life's rich tapestry: an acceptance of blandness; possibly an unwillingness to commit.

For some being “nice”, is to be subservient, a person who makes themselves the exact fit to harmonize with the wishes and needs of others. A person who wishes at any expense not to offend.

What does "nice" mean to you?

Finally Justice Secretary Jack Straw has granted Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs "compassionate release" from his prison sentence.

Mr Straw said the decision was based on medical evidence that Biggs's condition had deteriorated and he was not expected to recover.

Biggs, who turns 80 this weekend, is severely ill in hospital with pneumonia and doctors have said there is "not much hope".

Last month Jack Straw rejected Biggs's application for parole on the grounds that the robber was "wholly unrepentant" about his crimes.

Biggs was rushed to the Norwich and Norfolk Hospital from his cell at Norwich prison on Tuesday and will remain on bed watch overnight.The three Prison Service staff watching him will be withdrawn tomorrow, once the licence for his release is finalised.

The decision means Biggs can celebrate his birthday on Saturday a free man. It will be 46 years to the day since the robbery.

Although, given his medical condition it is highly unlikely he will get to enjoy much of a celebration. After a series of strokes, he is bedridden, fed through a tube and barely able to communicate.

But for his devoted son Michael it must come as a slight relief that his father will not die in prison. Michael Biggs has reportedly said: "He is absolutely delighted and he hopes that his father will survive long enough to see his 80th birthday on Saturday.

"Mr Ronald Biggs has been informed today of my decision regarding his application for compassionate release on medical grounds," Straw said in a statement.

What do you think? Do you think Jack Straw should have acted sooner?

Corby family fears for Schapelle's sanity

Whether one think's Schapelle Corby is guilty or not, surely it's time for compassion. She has now spent over five years in an Indonesian jail.

Yes, there are many people rotting in jails around the world in appalling conditions, but if we can only help one at a time, is it not better than none?

The following is a report published by The Daily Telegraph in Australia.

Corby family fears for Schapelle's sanity after so long in jail
By Joe Hildebrand From: The Daily Telegraph July 22, 2009 10:36PM

Corby moved as health worsens

DRUG smuggler Schapelle Corby is so traumatised by her time in jail that she has lost all touch with reality and sometimes even thinks she can walk out any time.

Her condition has so shocked her family that they are begging the Australian Government to send a psychiatrist to Bali to assess her and try to bring her back home for medical care.

Corby's uncle Shaun Hatton has approached broadcaster Alan Jones to put pressure on the Government, while sister Mercedes is understood to be making requests via the official channels.

Mr Hatton said that when he visited Corby last month in a Bali hospital she sat on the floor for an hour and a half, saying nothing and holding a child's toy.
"She goes in and out of lucidity - she's not lucid," he said.
"At one stage she sat on the floor with my daughter's stuffed frog that plays tunes and she was there holding it for 90 minutes without moving."

Mr Hatton said he visited Corby for four or five hours a day for the three days he was there and did not see a doctor the entire time.
She would slip into delusional states in which she would think she could just walk out of custody.
"She thinks she can hop up and go, she'd just start to get ready. She'd change her clothes and say 'let's go'," he said.
"And we'd have to say, 'No Schapelle, you can't'."

Mr Hatton, a Darwin real estate agent, said Corby still maintained her innocence and lived in hope that new evidence would emerge.
"Every day she thinks the nightmare's going to finish. Now she's not thinking lucidly at all," he said.
"She will not admit guilt because she's not guilty."

Mr Hatton said she was in desperate need of medical assessment and care from Australia.
"She's just got to be brought back," he said.

Mr Hatton said she shared a cell with nine others at Kerobokan jail, where she has been returned to serve out her 20-year sentence.

Please visit http://www.schapelle.net/ to see how you can help.

Shapelle Corby a huge case of injustice

On the 8th of October 2004, a 27 year-old Australian tourist, Schapelle Corby, was arrested at Bali Airport when 9 pounds (4.2 kg ) of marijuana was discovered in her luggage.

Corby is currently serving a 20-year sentence. She was convicted and sentenced in Bali on 27 May 2005 and is serving her sentence in Kerobokan Prison, Bali. On appeal, her conviction and sentence were confirmed with finality by the Indonesian Supreme Court. No further legal manoeuvres on her part are possible; she may petition for clemency from Indonesia's president, but in doing so, would have to admit guilt.

Schapelle has maintained from the time of her arrest that the drugs were planted in her boogie board bag and that she had no knowledge of them. Her trial and conviction were a major focus of attention for the Australian and Indonesia media. Her due release date, with remissions, is currently 12 April 2024.

Having spent time in jail myself, and having listened to numerous “I’m innocent stories” from other inmates. I was at first sceptical of her claim.

However, after reading her book, I believe her.

What do you think?

Whose the biggest robber, the Bankers, Gordan Brown or Ronnie Biggs?

Jack Straw’s “Cruel and Barbaric” justice.

A 79-year-old man languishes behind bars, where he has been for the past eight years. His health is shot, he has had three strokes, he cannot speak, needs feeding through a tube and cannot walk unaided. His crime committed 46 years ago in 1963, is no longer a threat to anyone. And last week, the Parole Board recommended his early release.

As Anne Widdecombe rightly said: "The public must be protected, but the public needs protection from a lot of people before they need protection from the person that Ronnie Biggs is now."

Justice Secretary, Jack Straw, has refused Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs parole for being unrepentant about his crime making it almost certain he will die in prison.

A statement released by Jack Straw said: “Mr Biggs chose to serve only one year of a 30-year sentence before he took the personal decision to commit another offence and escape from prison, avoiding capture by travelling abroad for 35 years while outrageously courting the media. Had he complied with his sentence, he would have been a free man many years ago.”

He continued: “Biggs chose not to obey the law and respect the punishments given to him – the legal system in this country deserves more respect than this. It was Mr Biggs’s own choice to offend and he now appears to want to avoid the consequences of his decision. I do not think this is acceptable.Mr Biggs is wholly unrepentant... and does not regret his offending.”

Biggs’s legal adviser, Giovanni Di Stefano, attacked the decision as “perverse”. He said: “All the other Great Train Robbers served a third of their sentences, why should Ronnie Biggs be any different? Ten years is enough. This shows a side of the British Government that is perverse - it is a cruel and unusual punishment.”

Biggs was part of a gang of 15 which robbed the Glasgow to London mail train at Ledburn, Buckinghamshire, in August 1963. They stole a record £2.6m and one man was, unfortunately, coshed on the back of the head during the robbery.

Biggs received a 30-year sentence but after 15 months he escaped from Wandsworth prison in south-west London by climbing a 30ft wall and fleeing.

He was on the run for more than 30 years, living in Spain, Australia and Brazil, before returning to the UK voluntarily in 2001 in search of medical treatment. He was taken to Belmarsh prison before being moved to a specialist medical unit at Norwich prison

Scotland Yard's failure to capture Biggs had been extensively, and gleefully, reported in the press around the world. The public loved it as the dectective, known as, "Slipper of the Yard" failed to get his man.

Did the newspapers and other media who profited so hugely from Biggs escapades ever give any of it to the one (unplanned for) injured man in the robbery?

According to Mr Straw: "Biggs chose not to obey the law and respect the punishments given to him – the legal system in this country deserves more respect than this."

Maybe it does, if one could respect it. But the vindictive treatment of a frail old man whose greatest offence, whatever else Mr Straw says, was to cock a snook at the British police for several decades hardly reflects agreeably on our legal system.

Jack Straw advices our judges not to jail violent criminals yet he insists a frail old man, who 46 years ago robbed a train and is now just months from death, must rot in jail.

Today Britain, has the reputation of been the most violent country in Europe - and even more violent than South Africa.

Releasing this sick old man would, I think, have been both a humane gesture and a relief for prison over-crowding. Two good deeds in one risk-free gesture.

My heartfelt sympathy goes out to Michael, Ronnie Bigg’s son, who has unselfishly supported his father. I once had the pleasure of meeting Michael in Palma, and was struck, not only by his good looks, but by his meek manner and courteous behaviour.

Michael, is another victim of Jack Straw’s “cruel and barbaric” justice.

What is your opinion?

Identity Card U turn or Government stealth?

British citizens will never be forced to carry ID cards, the Government announced today.

A trial scheme that was to force some airport staff at Manchester and the City of London to carry the controversial cards has been scrapped. Airport workers never wanted to be guinea pigs for this deeply unpopular scheme.

The home secretary Mr Johnson said: 'I want the introduction of identity cards for all British citizens to be voluntary and I have therefore decided that identity cards issued to airside workers, planned initially at Manchester and London City airports later this year, should also be voluntary.'

Previously, ministers said ID cards could become compulsory once 80 per cent of the population was covered.

The government said: 'Holding an identity card should be a personal choice for British citizens - just as it is now to obtain a passport.'

The announcement means that foreign nationals in the UK will be the only group of people who will be forced to carry the cards.

The rollout of the ID card scheme will now be accelerated on a purely voluntary basis for UK citizens at £30 per card, starting in Greater Manchester by the end of the year.

A pilot scheme covering Greater Manchester will be extended to the whole of the North West of England from early next year, Mr Johnson said.

Everyone who wants a card, or a biometric passport, will have their details stored on the national identity register.

Civil liberties groups said this amounted to a compulsory scheme.

Isabella Sankey, director of policy for Liberty, said: 'The Home Secretary needs to be clear as to whether entry on to the National Identity Register will continue to be automatic when applying for a passport.

'If so, the identity scheme will be compulsory in practice. However you spin it, big ears, four legs and a long trunk still make an elephant.’

The ID card has been proposed as a way of countering terrorism, identity theft and misuse of public services and also as a way of proving the carrier's age and identity generally.

Cards are linked to the National Identity Register, a centralised database intended to hold information such as fingerprints, facial and iris scans, past and present addresses.

Crucially, the databanks would be indexed to other Government records, allowing them to be cross-referenced.

The register has been pilloried by civil liberties campaigners as an Orwellian tool of state power that would be easily open to abuse.

Next year young people opening bank accounts are to be encouraged to obtain ID cards and over the following two years anyone getting a passport will get one - but can opt out.

On the surface, it seems as though the government has done a u-turn but I find a few issues with this:

1. The governmant has made no denials that it will sell access to the database.

2. It will be difficult to obtain some services without a card (ie banks have welcomed the ID card idea and will be the first to buy the service). Many organisations will make it impossible to obtain products/services without a card.

3. The government will claim that "we haven't forced you to have an ID card" and lay the blame on organisations rather than on the part of stealth by them.
Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have said they would scrap the scheme if they came into power. But what will happen to the database?

What do you think?