Just been reading a book called "stop the ride" by Dave Courtney. It's an autobiography of a "villain" as he puts it.

I've heard it before, but in the book he calls prison time "bird" - anyone know where this term comes from?

Cheers
Nick

At a guess, it's to do with "jail bird", a prisoner, like a bird that's kept in a cage.

DJ

It's from the cockney rhyming slang:

bird lime = time

So doing "bird" is doing time. It's a very common phrase for prison, surprised you've not heard of it before.

[edit] can't spell 'rhyming'

[Edited on 5/10/05 by MikeRJ]

have you heard these phrases

"doing a stretch" , "in stir"and "doing porridge" but if you live in posh parts
"partaking in muesli",


isn't there a fairly big Klink in winchester ?.

apparantly winchesters full of Klinkers

On a different subject, I saw a billboard yesterday that said...

"Prison brothels have their pros and cons"

Which made me chuckle

Chris

Have heard the term before, but never really thought about where it originated.

Yes, there is a good size prison in Winchester. Never had the need to know any more than that though