Underground Camera Technology Showing Trapped Coalminers. You’re not yourself today, I noticed the improvement immediately.


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9. Chuck Berry For every action the wife has an equal and opposite criticism.


6.


Murphy was in court for robbery. The judge declared “ I find you not guilty of robbing the Bank of Ireland.” “Oh dat’s great.” says Murphy, “ Does that mean I can keep the money?”


GRUMPY GIT In recent months I have had the pleasure (indeed I do use the word advisedly) of visiting the Urgent Day Care Centre at our erstwhile splendid Royal Blackburn Hospital on three different occasions. There is an immediate anomaly. Here we have a visually impressive new hospital. A fitting testimony to the commitment to capital expenditure of the previous government. But here was I ensconced in an unsightly pre-fabricated shell. Perhaps an equally telling testament to a government who never learned the lesson that throwing money at something and ignoring the detail was fraught with danger. Upon arrival you check in at a tiny window where the receptionist cannot hear you. Consequently you have to broadcast your affliction to the overcrowded waiting room. The one time you really did not want the outside world to know your party trick involving table tennis balls. Having briefed the grim and gaumless of your ailments and your most personal details you take a seat if you are sufficiently lucky to find one unoccupied. It’s then that the fun begins. When you buy a house you research it endlessly. The schools, the roads, the amenities, and most importantly the neighbours. If the latter don’t measure up to your high standards, you seek a more upmarket bijou residence. Here you have no such luxury. Here is a goldfish bowl, a snapshot of rotten modern Britain where Holby City meets Shameless meets The Royle Family. The first category of patient is the great unwashed. People with the residue of three months meals smeared over the front of their designer leisurewear previously stolen from a trailer in a loading bay in Kirkby. Their tracksuit pants are tucked into their dirty socks, a pragmatic solution to retaining food spillages. They have poor dental health and to badly misquote a song, have the breath of a thousand flies. They meet a bar of soap less frequently than I have six numbers on the lottery. Then there are those who clearly have no control over their tongues. Irrespective of the fact there are numerous children waiting patiently, they swear and curse with gay abandon. One clinically obese woman with legs the size of an oak trunk sits in a wheelchair which barely sustains her weight. She tells her attentive daughter to “Watch my ******* ankles you *****” as the waif tussles with the mother like a toddler wrestling a hippopotamus. Then there are those who wish to broadcast their ailments. One man whose finger hangs limply from his hand needs no explanation. One woman in early stages of labour weeps at the threat of a miscarriage whilst her ignorant husband snaps at her to pull herself together. A little girl has slipped on mashed potato in the school canteen. And bizarrely a man with a dislocated elbow is distraught that this caused him to miss reaching Level Three on some implausible computer game. Then from the shadows strolls a local council worker. He announces he has been the victim of a road traffic accident and has suffered severe trauma to his upper back and pelvic areas. His agony is clear in his tale. Less so in his sprightly demeanour as he decamps outside and puffs gloriously on a celebratory cigarette. Where there’s blame there’s a claim and this man is taking the other motorist to the cleaners. And better still he will take six weeks of paid holiday from council taxpayers at the height of summer. A veritable paragon of service to the local community. This place is busy. Too busy. And too many seem to be there as a direct result of excessive food or drink consumption. It takes three hours to see a doctor if the triage nurse deems that essential. My son recently attended unconscious. By the time he had come round, and seen the contents of the waiting room, he was willing to become a Trappist monk rather than be holed up there any longer. Yet, deep inside this desperate microcosm there lurks something wonderful. The medical and ancillary staff faced daily with this blight upon Britain remain cheerful and totally professional. They greet each patient with a smile, and carefully establish the extent of their afflictions. Sympathy and advice are given without restraint. Old and young alike are soothed and comforted. Whether the patient is admitted or leaves with the merest of sticking plasters, they know they have been well-treated. In my opinion the National Health Service is a prehistoric monolith that cannot survive in its current structure. It is over manned, not at the sharp end, but in its unlimited bureaucracy. Its nurses and doctors are the salt of the earth but they need help from a government willing to make radical choices to preserve the spirit of the post-war service offering free treatment at the point of delivery. Meanwhile it is said that a society gets the public services it deserves. If my experiences are to go by, I await the hasty return of leeches to feed on the leeches.


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