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Massive plasma TVs and other things Daily Mail readers will assume are on Bibby Stockholm

THE Bibby Stockholm barge is a rudimentary box bobbing about off the Dorset coast. But that doesn’t stop Mail readers from imagining it contains these luxuries.

Massive plasma TVs

Based on no evidence at all, Mail readers will assume that jammy asylum seekers have landed on their feet and scored an en suite master bedroom furnished with 65” plasma TVs. All bought and paid for by innocent taxpayers, of course. Meanwhile they have to make do with an ancient cathode-ray tube set they could easily replace if they could be arsed.

Private healthcare

Bibby Stockholm barge is a floating benefits hotel in the eyes of a Mail reader. Which by their logic means the residents will be treated to the finest fast-tracked private healthcare the state can provide. If they had their way, the barge would be crawling with plague-infested rats and dump them off on Ascension Island. It’s only fair.

A free-to-use money dispenser

Speaking of benefits, Mail readers shudder to think how asylum seekers will have access to the free money dispenser that surely exists on the rudimentary prison vessel. They wouldn’t even spend that cash on something sensible like a second home or a holiday to Gibraltar. No, they’d fritter it away on trivial shit like food and clothing.

Fleets of personal sports cars

Each resident will be gifted their own personal Porsche, Ferrari or Aston Martin, which they can use to zoom between the various wings of their pleasure palace. At least that’s what Mail readers assume, given how they think everyone else without a job is cruising around in sports cars. Curiously enough they’re never tempted to hand in their notice and play the system themselves. Almost as if they know it doesn’t really work like that.

A tunnel into their spare bedroom

Nothing scares Mail readers more than the idea that the Bibby Stockholm barge contains a secret tunnel which leads directly to their spare bedroom with the collapsible sofa bed. Imagine if an asylum seeker used it and walked right in? They’d have to confront them and learn all about their harrowing human experience. The cognitive dissonance would be too much to bear.

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Jury service: What you expected and what it's actually like

YOU’VE watched enough courtroom dramas to know your stuff. Or have you? Here’s the expectation of jury service verses the reality:

The Summons

You’ve been waiting for this moment since your 18th birthday. Like a Hogwarts letter for adults, it’s time to do your duty as a citizen, and as someone who watches Judge Judy every time they skive off work.

But when your summons finally arrives, it’s a f**king inconvenient week. You’ll have to arrange childcare, and you have tickets to see Shrek The Musical. You’re only allowed to reschedule if you have a newborn baby or an operation booked, neither of which you can arrange within the 12-week period, so you make a vague claim about being really busy at work.

Preparation

The court didn’t accept your deferral, so now it’s time to prepare. Whack on Better Call Saul and you’ll be up to date with the latest developments in law and order in no time.

No. They’ve sent you a lengthy training video which warns about all the reasons a juror themselves might get sent to prison. Like talking about the trial, or the goings-on in the deliberation room. You start to panic that you’ll accidentally spill all the juicy jury gossip while pissed and end up on trial yourself.

The Waiting Room

When you enter the main waiting area, you imagine it will be full of busy barristers and hardbitten cops, like courts are on TV crime dramas. Perhaps a murderer will stage a daring escape? That would be exciting.

There are no barristers or police detectives in the waiting room. Just fifty of your fellow potential jurors who look as resentful to be there as you feel.

The Trial

You’ve been assigned a trial. Time to channel your inner Sherlock Holmes. Just like that time you did a fancy dress murder-mystery party and knew it was the butler!

Your case isn’t like the murder-mystery party. Either it’s a bit boring — like fraud — or it’s harrowing, and you’re forced to look at graphic images of the type you wouldn’t even see on Silent Witness. Get ready for two weeks of drudgery, or a lifetime of therapy.

The Deliberation

Your time to shine. Will you save an innocent man from jail, or will you rule with an iron fist and ensure the swift and remorseless delivery of justice?

Because you aren’t allowed to discuss it, nobody will ever know. Even if you were the coolest juror in the room. Even if you got really shirty and nearly had a fight with the annoying juror next to you. Just like Vegas, what happens here stays here.

The Verdict

You’ve planned this years ago. You’ll put yourself forward as the foreman. You’ll stand before the court, proud and eloquent, and confidently announce a verdict of…

It’s not you doing it. That annoying juror next to you wormed his way into the foreman position, and he doesn’t have an ounce of your pizazz. ‘Not guilty’ he mumbles. The defendant can’t even hear him, so their lawyer has to give a subtle thumbs up. Your jury service ends in as deflating a fashion as it began.

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