Monthly Archives: November 2018

Homespun Philosophy, or Hopeless Drivel

I started off with the intention of writing about police inefficiency, motorway roadworks, the cupidity of insurance companies and the general unfairness of life. Then I realised that life doesn’t care. Nor do the police, the Highways Agency or the insurance industry.

Commercially speaking, monopolies are bad, and the police, for instance, have no incentive to improve. Unlike the power industry I cannot opt to have Justice provided by Nottinghamshire Constabulary if I don’t find West Yorkshire Police to my liking. Having said that, it’s rather like having a choice between eczema and psoriasis, though without the spelling problems.

Same goes for the Highways Agency, if you don’t like the way they set out their roadworks you can’t use someone else who sets it up better. That’s why they are able to get away with shoddy signing and everlasting roadworks.

As for insurance companies, they have their uses, as do leeches, faecal coliforms and corporate accountants. It probably isn’t fair to criticise them too much, though anyone who can increase your insurance premium by 15% for no apparant reason then add another £50 because of a speeding offence probably deserves some stick. When they follow up by asking “are you happy with that?” they virtually guarantee that they are not going to do well in comparison to other unpleasant life forms.

That’s all for now.

After a cold day in the shop and a cold evening at home sorting insurance documents I am now going out for a cold drive through badly laid out roadworks to deliver Number Two Son to work.

You are very lucky this is only a minor rant with low-level negativity and minor misery. It could have been a lot worse, particularly as, six days after going to the dentist, I also have a raging toothache.

Time, I think, to grip life by something tender and give it a good twist. That will teach it not to mess with me.

The stamps are a homage to a well-known blogger – can you guess which one?

A Quick Post

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I passed my blood anti-coagulant blood test, and as a reward I don’t need to go back until 11th December. If it all goes well my next test will be either 25th December or 1st January. I may have to rethink this.

On the other hand, I had a text from the surgery telling me that my doctor wants to see me for a face to face consultation and that I must ring to arrange it. This seems an odd way to offer congratulations so I’m expecting a lecture on my health. More precisely, I’m expecting a lecture on my cavalier attitude to my health.

We filled today, when not being texted, with a visit to Springfields in Lincolnshire, followed by a visit to my father, who trounced me at Snakes and Ladders before defeating me at several games of dominoes. He may not know what day it is, and he can’t remember my name, but he’s still got his competitive edge.

My sister complains that I have it too. She says it as if it’s a bad thing.

Now fades the glimm’ring landscape…

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I nearly caused a riot this morning.

Arriving at the hospital for my repeat blood test at 6.58 I went to the machine and pressed the button for my ticket. There were a few comments from people already waiting, though I didn’t really listen. When I turned round there was a whole crowd behind me jostling and muttering like a crowd of zombies.

It seems that the machine doesn’t switch on until 7am so they all sit there, mentally forming a queue until they can get a ticket.

All they needed to do was ask – as soon as I understood what was happening I handed my ticket over the the man who was “first” in the queue. Even after I did that they kept on muttering. It was very tempting, particularly in one case, to administer a swift tap of the forehead – being backed up against a wall can have that effect on a man.

I made a mistake. It’s easily corrected. There was no need for a lynch mob.

Due to this I now know what the man in the Bateman cartoon feels like.

It seems the hospital keeps the machine off until 7am to stop the problem of people queuing at 6am – an hour before the session opens.

I didn’t realise there were so many people desperate to have blood tests.

It didn’t really save a lot of time turning up at that time, as I ended up seventh in the queue, which is pretty much the result I get when I go down at 7.15, but at least I was able to get home, pick Julia (and a lot of surplus art supplies) up, and get them all down to Mencap in plenty of time to start work.

The NHS, as I pointed out when being summoned for this second test, seems to think we don’t have other things to do in our lives.

The blood tester, incidentally, denies not filling the tube properly, despite her suspiciously lengthy perusal of it yesterday. Her evidence – she always uses a syringe so has plenty of blood to fill a tube. I didn’t argue, but yesterday I had multiple tests and she used three tubes on the vacutainer, with not a syringe in sight.

After dropping Julia off I went to work to bore myself to death. It rained heavily on the flat roof and was dark when we left.

The photographs are from yesterday, tonight was too dull for a decent photograph.

Last Glimmering…

The Things People Say…

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I lost the remote control tonight. This was a nuisance because we’re already using the DVD remote to control the TV as I lost the TV remote some months ago. The area around my chair is a bit of a disaster area, I admit, being piled high with my various collections, stock, notebooks, books and a stockpile of turmeric.

The good news is that No 2 Son proved not to be entirely useless and managed to find the remote control under my chair. The original remote, not the DVD remote. We haven’t a clue where that one has gone. I really do need to get a grip on decluttering.

However, that really wasn’t what I was going to write about. I was going to write about my Monday morning McDonalds experience.

After giving blood and other fluid, I still had time to kill as I didn’t want to get to work too early.

There’s really only one thing to do at that point – hit McDonalds.

I had the porridge with nothing. No jam, no syrup, no sugar. It took a bit of stirring, as it’s microwaved and was a bit crusty, but it is full of slow-release energy so has to be good for me.

As I stirred and ate I listened to the conversations around me. I’ve been cutting down on fast food recently, and when I have succumbed there have been no interesting conversations to listen to.

Today there were two.

The man behind me had had a tricky situation on Sunday night when he’d been on the sofa with his girlfriend. She had, it seems, been making inappropriate attempts on his virtue.

“…and I’d been waiting all week to watch that film.”

To my right there was another conversation going on, this time by phone.

She had clearly been going out with the person on the other end of the line for enough time for it to be steady, but she wasn’t quite comfortable.

“Why are you so mean to me?” she kept asking.

I’d be tempted to suggest that it’s because she’s whiney, needy and annoying. As she continued, she said: “It’s all new to me, being part of an emotional unit.”

Emotional unit? I presume that’s what we used to call “a couple”.

There was more too, but it seems a bit unsporting to report too much of an overheard conversation.

It’s just after 1 am now. I’m going to make sandwiches then go to bed ready for my blood test. This isn’t quite how I imagined my life developing.

Still, at least the other half of our emotional unit didn’t interfere with my TV viewing…

Doctor, Doctor…

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Yes, I know I’m spoiling you after three posts yesterday and one today already, but I had to share this snippet with you.

(Incidentally, I’ve swapped back to the classic editor for this post as I wanted to add four links, to “three”, “posts”, “yesterday”, “today” and “snippet”. The first four are linking back to previous posts, but I can’t see an easy way to do this in the new editor.)

It amazes me that a doctor has been practising without qualifications for 22 years, but in a way I’m not surprised as she was a psychiatrist and I’ve always been suspicious of them as a profession. It’s got to be the easiest type of doctor to impersonate as it’s all snake oil, smoke, mirrors and theories. I’ve never heard of a fake brain surgeon, for instance. (Apologies if any of my readers are psychiatrists and feel I’m belittling your hard-won professional qualification – but they would have discovered a bogus heart surgeon a lot quicker).

Having said that – there have been fake surgeons – read this if you want to learn more.

It’s a very interesting area, though as someone points out in a related article there are properly qualified doctors who are a dangerous liability, so it’s not just the imposters you have to worry about.

There have also been some properly qualified criminal doctors, as the case of local boy Harold Shipman shows.

Fortunately, most doctors are qualified, competent and affable. (I thought I’d mention that in case any of mine are reading this. There are, after all, thousands of good doctors for every bad one that ends up in the papers, and, apart from that, you don’t want to mess with anyone who can order a prostate exam for you.)

Finally…

Funny doctor memes

In which I nearly use a Bad Word

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I really don’t know where to start today. Rose at 6.30 (unwillingly). To hospital by 7.16 (I had a slow creaky start to the morning) and found myself 9th in the queue.

I didn’t have to wait too long and only read four pages of my “waiting book” before being called. It’s taking a long time to read because I keep it in the back of the car and only read it while I’m waiting for something.

It was a three tube day. The needle went in fine and the blood flowed like… whatever blood flows like. She looked at the first tube a little too long for my liking but I was soon done. I then nipped to the toilet and filled my tube for the urine sample. Returning to the car park, I was allowed out free of charge (I’m beginning to think the timer may be broken) and took the sample to the surgery.

Could it all have been so easy? Seemingly so…

Only one thing of note happened in the shop today. A lady came in to sell some coins and asked for a seat. When given one, she asked if we had a lower one. Fortunately we did have a lower one. She was, it seems, suffering from frailty and old age.

In conversation afterwards my ungallant co-worker referred to her as a “little old lady”. I protested, not through gallantry, but because, in the conversation, she had told us she was born in 1958.

Hot on the heels of the elderly retired gent we’d seen last week (born 1960), I’m beginning to feel quite youthful. Some people seem to look and act old despite still being quite young.

I, on the other hand, having been born in 1958, still feel I’m quite young. Julia sort of agrees, though she did use the word “immature”, which isn’t quite the same as “young”.

Later in the day I had a phone call – the blood test had not been satisfactory and I have to have a fresh test tomorrow.

It’s not a health problem, I’ve had this before. If they don’t fill the tube properly the laboratory refuses the sample. And if the blood tester looks at the sample for too long after testing it usually means they aren’t convinced they’ve filled the tube.

That means another early start and another half hour wait.

I can’t help feeling cheated – I did everything they asked and I’m being punished for it.

I was so annoyed I came close to using a Bad Word.

Leaving the World to Darkness…

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I’m watching Joan Hickson playing Miss Marple in the 4.50 from Paddington. I prefer the Joan Hickson ones to the newer ones with Geraldine McEwen, partly due to the supporting cast. Amanda Holden, for instance, is not very convincing as the housekeeper in the newer version.

As I read that paragraph I realise that I may have spent too much time watching TV. I have certainly spent too much time watching Agatha Christie repeats.

It’s Julia’s fault. She puts them on then drifts out of the room, leaving me with the social dilemma of enduring endless repeats or turning them over and enduring reproachful glances.

That’s the trouble with winter Sunday nights, not much to do. It’s only just over a year (if we last that long) before Julia will stop working on Sundays and we might be able to do something more interesting than slumping in front of the TV.

After serving the stew, I have nothing else to do but watch dull TV and think about get rich quick schemes. I’ve tried the lottery but it hasn’t worked, and I don’t have the energy to look for a second job, so it’s either write a blockbuster or turn to a life of crime.

I think we all know that I’m not in good enough shape to be a cat burglar or bank robber and don’t have the technical skills for cybercrime. As I can’t write anything longer than three lines the blockbuster is unlikely too.

The only bright spot in my future is that a nice widow has written to me. It seems that she wants to give me $10 million from the estate of her late husband, and if I send her my bank details I could have the money by Tuesday.

As one door closes another door opens…

The Curfew Tolls

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I thought I’d have a look at Gray’s Elegy for a title today, though many people have beaten me to it. Originally I was going to use The Dying of the Light from Dylan Thomas, but it seemed over-dramatic just for a post bemoaning the shortness of winter days.

I know that Hardy took Far from the Madding Crowd from Gray and always presumed Kubrick took Paths of Glory from himtoo. Checking with Wikipedia I now know this to be true, though it came via a novel, and two other works – a painting and a memoir, had already used it.

They used to call cigarette cards the poor man’s encyclopaedia. I suppose that this is now a fair description of Wikipedia, though the poor man in question needs a link to the internet.

Anyway, was just going to say that the lie-in worked and I am feeling refreshed but by the time I had planned the menus and switched on the computer the light is already fading and the planned photographic expedition may be postponed. Instead I will show a few shots from this morning, entitled 6.45 am in a cold car park.

The camera did quite well in low light.

I took a picture of a lost glove to add to the bleakness of the piece. Later, I may use the picture again. There was a lost hat too, which I thought about picking up. A good wash and it would have been right as rain, suitable for charity even if I didn’t need it. However, these good intentions faded in the cold.

6.45 in a cold car park – Castle Donington

I prefer summer.

Tomorrow I have a blood test. A blood test before it is light seems such a depressing thing.

Lazy Sunday

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After dropping Julia off this morning I was in plenty of time to pick up Number One Son and we are home before 8.00. There’s no washing to do so I’m going back to bed after writing this. I will rise around 10.00, have elevenses and plan the menus before shopping.

I say “plan the menus”, but I really mean is “make a list of the food we will be eating”. Or even “select a day for vegetable curry” because that’s the day before we have Spicy Vegetable Soup.

There doesn’t seem to be a spell checker with the new editor, or a word counter.

Cancel that last comment, I found the word count. It’s not gone, it’s just inconveniently hidden.

During my stay in the car park I noted that the birds all seemed to come to life just after 7.00 and that the 4×4 vehicles of Highways England keep their engines running while one of the crew members goes for coffee. I really don’t like it when people keep their engines running like that.

I was planning a sophisticated essay on poetic forms or world peace (I was undecided) but it hasn’t happened, as you can see.

Maybe I will manage it after a little more sleep.

Doughnuts and Dad’s Army

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It’s been a positive end to the day, in a number of ways. My finger, for instance, has continued to improve and the pain has gone. It’s still stiff but that’s just the penalty you pay for growing old.

We had a couple of customers in who I have known for years, and it was good to catch up, even though I have seen them both in the last week. Let’s be honest, I was just chatting rather than working.

On the other side of the day, I’ve still done enough of the boring stuff to ensure that I’m seeing coin sets when I close my eyes.

We sold four of them overnight, so it’s paying off.

The rest of the day, I fear, would be very boring if described in detail. We packed parcels, sold coins, bought nothing and ate doughnuts (provided by one of the customers). I don’t mind a boring day if it includes doughnuts.

Finally, as I sit and write, I note that the new editor, whilst having no automatic word count, does allow me to access all my photos. The cynic in me suggests that the previous trouble may well have been linked to the preparations for the “improvements”.

And so, as the day draws to an end, with a couple of interesting rugby results and a classic black and white episode of Dad’s Army, it’s time to reflect on the way that an unpromising start can often lead to better things.

In this case it leads to some archive photos.

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Life after the Care Farm