"So when do you want to book in? The last two weeks in August?" a prison officer quipped to journalists being led out of a UDA block of the Maze prison.
He had obviously read too many press reports comparing the top- security jail to a holiday camp. It was such reports which led the governor, Mr Martin Mogg, to open the prison to journalists yesterday "to set the record straight".
On both loyalist and republican blocks, prisoners stressed that recent reports suggesting they were running the jail were not true. "If we had control, I wouldn't be sitting here today. I'd be fulfilling my duty to escape," said the IRA leader in the jail, Padraic Wilson.
In the wings of H Block 7, UDA/UFF prisoners, many of them heavily tattooed, watched amused as journalists arrived to interview their leaders. in One inmate, wearing only shorts, stood ironing in the corridor outside a wash-room.
Cups of tea and chocolate biscuits were offered. A cell converted into a mini-gym was proudly shown off. Some prisoners have TVs in their cells, which they bought themselves. Pop music blared up the corridor and inside one cell a Santa Claus drawing "for Daddy" was hanging on a wall. Along the wing, murals, showing armed and masked men, honoured UDA battalions.
Since 24-hour free association was introduced in recent years, prison officers have no reason to leave the central administration area to walk down the wings. Cell doors are open and prisoners, dressed in casual or sports clothing, get on with whatever daily routine they have chosen.
Four UDA leaders met journalists. Michael Stone, infamous for an attack on an IRA funeral in Milltown Cemetery and serving six life sentences, sat alongside "Officer Commanding" Sam McCrory, Bobby Philpott and Glenn Cunningham. These four are expected to be joined by Johnny Adair, serving a sentence for directing terrorism, when they meet the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, today.
The four were relaxed and friendly. Philpott, wearing shorts and trainers, he had popped in on his way from the gym. Loyalist prisoners had "a good working relationship" with the authorities and fully supported searches carried out since the killing of LVF leader Billy Wright.
Recent reports of drink and drugs being available and inmates having sex on visits were "rubbish", according to a smiling Michael Stone. Stone said security had increased over the past three years. "What do people want - to have us chained to the beds and flogged?"
In H Block 8, occupied by IRA prisoners, the atmosphere was more businesslike. "Officer Commanding" Padraic Wilson, and three other IRA leaders brought from other blocks of the jail, conducted the meeting like a Sinn Fein press conference.
There was little chance of off-the-cuff remarks. The prisoners fully supported the Sinn Fein leaders and the IRA; the Ulster Unionists were obstructing the peace process. They would be happy to meet Dr Mowlam and even Mr David Trimble.
On the walls of a classroom, a copy of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech hung alongside a poster of Che Guevara. Political books, including a biography of the Rev Ian Paisley and an account of the hunger strikes, filled the bookshelves. The blackboard was covered in explanations of Irish grammar - in one wing of H 8, only Irish is spoken.
Again, the ironing board, the snooker table and the gym was were in use and prisoners in sports gear sat watching the lunchtime news. Explaining that he was only half-way through a life sentence, a south Armagh man said: "Others have done it before us."