Motor Show

Some shots from todays motor show.

You know there are more to come...

 

 

NHS Again

In spite of all my careful planning I still had to rush up the road to the local wee hospital for the blood test.  Rushing, moving fater than slow, is not my thing.  However I made it with one minute to spare.

No Stasi here, instead a notice board proclaimed 'BLOOD TEST'  'Take a seat and you will be called!'

However, there was one man sitting at a desk, a nurse waiting beside him, and me.

The board ordered me to use the sanitiser and as I did so he demanded the form.  I struggled to produce this and the nurse took me into a cubicle and placed me on a well set up seat.

Puffing like a steam train pulling 40 coal wagons heading into Cowdenbeath I sat awaiting the needle.

After clenching my fist at the very nice capable nurse she produced sufficient blood to send to the lab.  I now await the result next week sometime.  All this for statins.

Another successful NHS story.  Once past the Stasi all goes well.

Now, somewhere in Essex, a young woman, and path labs are stuffed full of women who apparently find that sort of work interesting.  So many women in path labs as there was back in the 70's.  

The head of our path lab was a doctor based at the main hospital in Queens Square, she often spent much time sitting in the front hall with us awaiting her staff doing whatever she has asked for.

The 'Doctor on call' sign on her car was a bit of a lie really but nevertheless very useful for her.  No feminists then whining about top jobs, just women doing the job.  That doctor used to drive a small blue renault I think it was.  The matron, when she came fro Queen Square, arrived in her 1926 Sunbeam!  Here, while warning the wards she was about, I would admire the car for a moment with nher, allowing the wards to hide things, before she stormed off upstairs to ensure all went well.  The deputy matron, who had been a young nurse on a hospital ship at Dunkirk, and one of those was sunk, not hers, lived in a flat round the corner.  Her phone was connected to the switchboard and when she had a holiday another senior retired nurse would take her place.  The assistant matron never went away, both sat in the flat drinking sherry.  One night the call came from the flat.  

"Can you tell me the time?" 

"It is just after 12," I replied.

"Twelve noon or twelve midnight?" came the question.

"Midnight," said I.

"Thank you," and the line went dead.

Thanks were then offered that these two never did any real nursing any more...

 

Soup

I have just made soup.  As I walked away, leaving the pot steaming gently for a while, I browsed the catastrophe in the kitchen.  Where did all that lot come from?  How can such a small space contain so much mess?  The above cartoon, found on facebook today, came to mind.  'Cheney' sums up the mess left after an hour or two of me attempting something in a kitchen.  Lentils, tins of various beans, sauces and whatever else was lying around all get thrown in unceremoniously, and behind them lies a wake of empty, soiled tins, dishes, cutlery, empty unrecyclable plastic packets, and drops of various coloured stuff lying everywhere.  Where does it come from?  I was so sure I was being careful.  

Anyway, the mess is brewing behind me slowly, the actual soup mess I mean, the rest of the mess has been cleared away, and now I wish to lie down for an hour!  I met a young lad who belongs to the local Air Training Corps.  He wishes to join the army and become a cook, he must be mad!  That's all I can say.  It is bad enough cooking here, imagine what it is like out in the field, any field?  Tsk!

I suspect my soup will taste like all the others I have concocted, something similar to the mud so beloved of the 'our boys' in Flanders fields. 

NHS Stasi

 

Today I had another meeting with the Stasi!

They had left a message to make a date with the doctor who wished to see me.  So, reluctantly I called at just after 8 am this morning.  Soon, after a long detailed explanation of who I called, how to deal with Covid, and one or two other points I was told to hold and given the music.  Early in the morning I do not wish to hear the overture to a rousing opera, something gentle and soothing, especially as I was then told I was 24th in the queue! 
I held.

The message was repeated

I held.

All this time I realised I was paying for this and minutes were passing at the most expensive time of the day.   

I held.

A message about something else (I forget what) came and went.

The music continued.

I held.

Having heard the music, the intro message three times, the forgotten, urgent, message three times and began to dislike the opera even though I could not remember who the composer was and then I was told I was in 2nd place.

I held.

Music again.

Then the phone rang!

I held.

Eventually a woman come on and after explaining slowly what I wanted, I held while she searched her screen, I discovered the doctor would phone me, most likely because she did not want me bringing virii into the surgery.

I then awaiting her call.

An hour or so later she called, referred to last weeks notes, managed to avoid calling me a fat lump but decided I may need statins.  What?  Only old fat people take these!

As the young lady had spent seven years training I decided to accept her wishes.  This then meant collecting a form from the Stasi, how dangerous, and heading off to the hospital to have blood taken.

Naturally this cannot be done at the surgery unless it is urgent, I am not urgent.  

So this afternoon, hoping they would be in a happy mood I actually entered the building and  met the girls face to face, except for the mask and the perpex screen they hide behind.  

I explained, she looked bewildered, I explained in English, she muttered, her friends looked around or at their screens.  Soon a bot off paper was proferred to me, instructions given to call and make a date, and get out!

Back home I called.

"The Blood Taking department is closed."   

"However, you can book online at Mumble mumble, mumble."

I had to phone back to ensure I got the address right.

This however worked!

After faffing around I got registered, booked in for Friday at 3:10 pm, and the bloodsucker will remove an armfull and have the lab investigate what this reveals.  

In many ways the system is very good.  But the faffing around, the 15 minutes at expensive phone time, and the bother for someone who has no idea what he is doing is stressful.  Especially as I have done nothing since yon time.

However, I am grateful that this is a good surgery, that the NHS is still alive, and that they are around the corner and not miles away.  Things could be a lot worse.

Mind you, depending on the results I may have to go through all this again!

Boring, Cloudy Bank Holiday Monday

Being the August Bank Holiday it is inevitable that the weather would be dreich.  Cloud covers the land, warm cloud but dreich nontheless, and so I remain inside in the dim light.  Nothing exciting has been laid on for kids or else.  The results of Covid I suppose, all are afraid to organise anything.  Those that have gathered at music festivals and the like appear to be happily catching Covid!  Could this be because they have not bothered, nor had the chance to get a jab?  I wonder.  It is the younger folks, as well as the now well advertised anti-maskers who are dying from this virus.  Why do people not listen?

 

 

It is amazing what people will believe without factual confirmation.  Some happily believe in aliens and UFOs from distant planets, even though astronomers, both professional and amatuer say no such thing has been discovered.  Others accept social media statements that the vaccine is harmful or an attempt by Bill Gates to control you.  I read somewhere that a third of the US population thought they had been lifted up into a spacecraft by light ray and, er, investigated by aliens.  A third sounds a great number, but there must be quite a few who believe this in the US, some in the UK also I bet.  People will believe what they wish to believe whether it is true or not.  This covers religions, historic patriotic events, usually propaganda rather than fact, aliens, beliefs about incoming foreigners, and stories about that woman down the road, the one with the funny headwear.  Once a belief gets into someone facts may be difficult to insert, just ask a Brexiteer.  

In fact I had similar arguments at the weekend with Celtic fans.  After the match Rangers fans, all in black, marched through the streets singing 'The famine is over, why don't you go home.'  Having a dig at Celtic fans and their Irish origin.  When I pointed out correctly that sectarian behaviour arises from both Celtic and Rangers fans I met a barrage of disbelief - all from Celtic fans.  It is woven into them that the fault is all 'over there.'  They are not sectarian, and anyway it is anti-Irish racism, not sectarianism.  As if that made a difference.  'Racism' is the new, trendy, word, it was never used in the past, only sectarianism, and it certainly comes from both sides.  The 'famine song' by the way has one small problem with it, the 'protestant' ethos espoused by the rangers fans comes from the early Rangers fans who came from Northern Ireland.  These men came, with their 'Orange Order' parades from Belfast, so if that lot ought to go 'back home,' I suggest the choir we saw on the streets could go 'back home,' also.

Nothing of course will be done.

 

A book: 'Break Up,' the story of the fall out between Nicola Sturgeon and Alex Salmond, is about to be published.  Alex is not pleased.  He knows this is just another step in Nicola's desperate attempt to remove the threat he offers to her position.  She fears him as he is the only man who can truly bring independence.  Alex has reported the 'Times' for printing elections of the book, these detail information banned from publication by a Scots judge.  He will be bringing action soon, well, probably in two or three years, you know how slow the courts are these days, and then we may find out more of the infighting within the SNP.  

Interestingly the writer is one David Clegg, once editor of the 'Daily Record,' and known to be well in with the Scottish government.  It is thought he has obtained information from a source, known to some, within the SNP government and included this, and this in spite of legal rulings.

Nicola is desperate to lose the threat of Alex, he is however, still a far better, more devious, politician than she.  We may see an end to her cabal before long.

Football and Begg

 

It has been a tough day.  Beginning at noon I watched the awful poor Rangers v Celtic match.  While the SKY commentators build up these games I know not but as usual there was little football played.  Instead we had an hour and a half of huffing and puffing going nowhere.  One goal out of nothing leaving Rangers victors.  Now as we speak around 150 domestic incidents occur in the west of Scotland, the usual result when someone wins this game.    

Following this I managed to watch some of the English mediocrity that costs dazzling amounts of cash. What I saw of Burnley and Leeds made me worried for the future dementia of the Burnley players, not including the one or two who may already have this.  My niece, the best looking and most intelligent one, married a man from Burnley, which may disprove my claims about her.  With their son being born any day now I am doing my best to wean the boy from his dad and onto the Heart of Midlothian.  I have this worked out already.  By the time he is 16 he will be in Edinburgh playing for the Scotland under 17s because of his granddad, loving the life and awaiting a transfer to Real Madrid or Juventas.

I will be his agent...

I certainly will not allow him to play for Burnley, he will have a brain after all, and he will not join Wolves or Manchester United either, not after that dismal effort they put out tonight.  Dearie me the Pars game yesterday was more exciting, more football and better than anything this lot offered up today.  Big money does not produce big talent worth watching.

Not much time for anything else, though I did manage to listen to this in the morning....