a judge of the facts

ive struggled to explain ppl the concept of jury duty. i thought everyone has a generic idea because of american films and tv, but maybe its just that i paid more attention (interest) to it. of course the US system is slightly different to UK also, but the concept is the same, and thats what ive had to explain. people are picked at random (from the electoral roll in the UK, ie. not just citizens) and you generally can't refuse. and you don't know how long it can go on, and obviously u wont know beforehand what kind of a case you'll be hearing.

my jury duty week was insightful as expected, if also frustrating, even if the internet had warned me of a lot of waiting periods etc. for the first 2+ days i sat there in this large waiting area, occasionally hearing announcements as differrent juries were being summoned and people called for a new one. i waited for my name to come up but no. i also filled forms for a 4 and 8 week trials explaining why i could not take part - it would cause me signifcant financial hardship. a few people were sent home to be "on call", i wish that had been me. i was able to work a bit in the morning at home and i did do something small with my laptop at the waiting area but its not possible to really do my job there. there are sofas though and a view to Thames, as Southwark Crown Court is located right between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, in front of HMS Belfast. so its not too uncomfortable. the building has airport type security and has 14 court rooms, so trials starting here and there. therefor kind of understandable that on mondays theres maybe 100 new people summoned and then distributed to different trials as they begin. but it got frustrating, i felt like i was wasting time. on wednesday i was finally called to form a jury of 12. our jury was a decent random sample of londoners, some brits, some white, some black, several immigrants - esp europe was well represented. the judge was a super nice black guy. the wigs amused me. there was a lot of formalities that costs time, but ok, i suppose its needed to a degree. i gave an oath to do my best ("I do solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm that I will faithfully try the defendant and give a true verdict according to the evidence"). we were given notepads and pens and heard witnesses and saw evidence. the judge repeated in several points that he is the judge of law but we are the "judges of the facts". interesting terminology. we got copies of the indictment which at the top said "King vs (accused)" and the prosecution was sometimes referred to as "the crown". the accused was charged for 1 count of  "Outraging public decency"(by masturbating) and 2 counts of indicent exposure. witness statements described 3 fairly similar events but i guess there are reasons why sometimes they charge under a different offense. 

when observing other juries in the waiting area i saw how in the longer ones especially they build camraderie, they joke and wonder "if Terry is going to be late again" and so forth. fascinating. over 3 days, not much of that happened for us, although i saw a few people spend more time together on breaks. we just started acknowledging each other. on friday morning we knew we will go straight into deliberation after the judge has summed up the main points, and i noticed a clear difference, people asking "how are you" etc, trying to connect. i guess it made sense. the deliberation itself was also very interesting. a jury needs to go through the details, evidence and discuss in order to be SURE. that was what we were told, if you are not "sure", then it's a no. well, this is kind of obvious. anyway i found it frustrating at times. in the afternoon we had a verdict and were thanked for our service and dismissed. so that concluded my jury duty. 

i went to Cem's friends to watch eurovision final. i did feel pressure to boycott but this tv was going to be open either case, and did not vote - so i feel like i did what i could. i dont usually have anyone interested to watch them with so i felt like this year is my chance to share the experience. im not actually a huge eurovision fan but dont mind joining the fun on the finale day. my favorites were the irish and croatian entry. our hosts were a croatian couple so i could really feel their disappointment with the results. its like Cha Cha Cha all over again.

they lived near canary wharf. picturesque location.

my father is coming for a visit soon. after that some friends will be visiting too so early summer is busy time for me hosting.

with especially Zoe (and there are others) i had this vague feeling that i couldnt really verbalise, this Guardian article is. and is able to go deeper and i found it insightful. in short it seems to be "Personalising stuff that doesn’t matter". thats typical of our time, but making it about health is a bit uncomfortable sometimes.