The local BBC news is outside the prison, and officers are striking outside. It's chaos beyond the door and we're subjected to Christmas ads playing every 12 minutes on TV, on almost every channel.

Only 48 hours ago, mobile phone footage was uploaded to the net and social media of 230 inmates in HMP Bedford running riot and out of control. Day by day the broken prison system is making the headlines.

How do you respond or react to someone when they are seemingly happy and you feel lousy? It takes on a whole new meaning in here, manifesting in anger, violence or malicious acts to derail your happiness.

As I settled and focused, there was a young inmate slumped on the floor with a bed sheet noose tied around his neck. He was alive, but he was desperate.

By seven o'clock this morning the BBC was reporting a man knifed and dead in Pentonville, two seriously injured and two arrested. By the time I'd put the phone down on T, a guy had been slashed in the showers on the fives. A normal day in HMP. ...