Paddy’s day
We’re getting ripped off over here. An email just went round reminding us that, as it’s St Patrick’s Day, the Irish office is closed until tomorrow.
Jammy ********. Why don’t we get the day off for St George’s Day? I mean, it’s not like the Irish need a designated day to get pissed and have a good time. We, on the other hand, do seem to need the encouragement.
Mind you, I think they’re a little half-hearted this year. Come on – it’s a Thursday. They may as well make tomorrow a holiday as well – I can see enough people ringing in with “migraines” as it is.
Da Vinci Code
The Catholic Church, eh? What a bunch of idiots. Over the last week they’ve broken their “official silence” over Dan Browns novel and decided to have a whinge about it.
Now, I have a few issues here. Number one is that I’ve bought the book, but not read it yet so they’re spoiling it for me.
Number 2 is that the peddlar’s of the World’s Most Popular Work Of Fiction are whinging about someone else’s Work of Fiction contradicting theirs. Hello? Important word in there? FICTION. If you’re looking for Da Vinca Code in a bookshop, where do you look (aside from the bargain bin by now)? Yup – fiction.
Not documentary. Not political history. Not popular science. Not religion.
******* FICTION.
The same section where the Bible should be kept.
Did I ever hear Isaac Asimov complaining about the fact that not every book with robots in followed his 3 Laws of Robotics? Or Bram Stoker having a go when people took liberties with the vampire and Dracula myths?
The one thing the church don’t seem to have realised that all their doing is raising interest in the novel. OK, so devout Catholics might shun it or whatever, but anyone else who’s avoided the book may decide to check out what all the fuss is about… *kerching* for Mr Brown.
Mind you, at least they’ve not launched a fatwah on him. Given the choice between the Catholics and the Muslims, I know which I’d rather have a grudge against me. Unless I was a Rangers supporter.
Bloody NHS
Backstory first. I used to be with a doctor/clinic I really liked. Good staff, good opening hours and so on. I moved house about 4½ year ago. I rang up shortly after to make an appointment and inform them that I’d moved. Just like the Post Office, they said that as I was now on the wrong side of a main road, I was out of their catchment area and I had to look elsewhere.
Bugger.
Well, there’s a clinic at the end of my street – literally. It’s about 50 yards away. I rang them up but they were “full”. This despite the fact that me moving in must have meant that someone else moved out… (three someone else’s in fact). They directed me to a surgery in Thornton, a short drive away. Who said they couldn’t take me as I was in the wrong postcode. By the time I ended up with a surgery with a vacancy, it was three times the distance away as the one who refused, and also in a shitty neigbourhood where I’d not have left my car.
One call to the Leeds Health Board later to register a complaint and – lo – the one at the end of my street had a sudden vacancy.
Anyway, time has moved on and once more I want to pop in to see the doc. Nothing serious, just a check-up and that as I’ve not had one in ages and I fancy getting an idea of how I stand healthwise. So I ring the surgery to make an appointment.
Without boring you with the back-and-forth, it turns out that the surgery only has a doctor present 2 or 3 days out of 5. I cannot book an appointment, no matter how far in advance – it’s purely “ring on the day”. And I don’t even ring them, I’ve got to ring their sister surgery for reasons which weren’t exactly forthcoming.
No wonder we’re turning into a nation of overweight, unfit, sick individuals. Between the UK work ethic (“expected” overtime, long hours) and the inability of a health service to let you plan in an appointment in advance there’s no alternative than the just let illnesses and bad habits run on. The last time I needed a doctor, I went to casualty and felt bloody bad about it as I didn’t feel it was really an emergency. Sadly, it was my only recourse.
If it’s possible to book a dental or optical appointment weeks in advance, why not so with a medical one?
No funny punchline, folks. It’s just too bloody annoying.
Mmmmmmm…. Swarfega…
How come when I burp, it’s all bubbly?
Habit-forming
I’ve just found out I’ve passed my project module (yay me, etc). This means that it’s pretty much a given then this year is my final year and I’ll be able to finally rest at the end of it and get my degree.
Explain, then, why I just spent about 40 minutes on the Open University‘s website picking at more courses.
Will someone please sit me down and explain to me in very simple words and phrases that I need to take a break? Thank you.
“The same section where the Bible should be kept.”
love this… 😉
Da Vinca Code: Great timing eh? Just when DVC is about to hit 52 weeks at number one, when just about everyone in the world has read it if they want (Mrs P is the only one who hasn’t that I know) and the Vatican breaks its silence. Great publicity, or what?
I’m going to write a conspiracy theory novel — the Pope is in leafue with Dan Brown.
Bloody NHS: The trick is to ring your primary care trust. They have to give you a GP. As for booking appointments, forget it. The target of all GPs seeing folk within 24 hours means that the ‘phone on the day’ ruse is an easy way round it — you can’t get through, so no appointment and no blemish on the figures.
As you’re in Leeds, your best bet will be the new commuter walk-in centre coming to a mainline station near you soon. Just turn up, no appointment, nurses there all day and a GP six hours a day.
And the file extension? Seems I’m a .exe. Not sure if that means I’m a virus.
Dan Brown is an awful hack writer that got lucky. How I managed to get through Da Vinci Code without chucking it in the bin is beyond me. I ended up giving it away.
I had real problems getting a doctor when I lived Northampton – too many people, not enough doctors. I think you were just lucky they found you a space in the local one – all they have to do is find you one in the general postcode area.
Here I have had no problems, and my doctors do both appointments and ‘turn up on the day at 8 am and the doc will see you all in turn’.
Jealous?
And you know you need a break, but some people are just born perpetual students…… Maybe I should introduce you to LELI….
I’m ****** if there is a god. Mind you, hell looks like a giggle. At least I should be able to get a job there somewhere. Maybe in admin.
If only the Da Vinci Code was in the bargain bins. *Sigh* I work in a shop that sells books. People either love it and want everyone to read/believe it or hate it and are convinced reading it will send you to hell. It’s been going on for over a year, and shows no signs of slowing down.
And they won’t leave the shop without trying to pin down my opinion on it. Neither side wants to hear that it’s “made up”.
*Hears one opening the door. Ducks for cover behind the counter, whimpering softly*
Joe – I’ve checked the cost of postgrad courses. And the phrase “no ******* way” springs to mind. A Certificate In Information Systems requires 60 points at postgrad. The only path is 4 x 15-point courses… at £800+ *each*.
A post-grad Diploma requires all of those plus about another £2000. And a Masters another £4000+
I appreciate many other courses are cheaper, but I don’t have (nor will I ever get) a degree in them to start me off!
Just a “beware” notice. Just after I’d successfully completed my degree with the Open University, I got a call from a very nice lady in Milton Keynes. She said that due to my results (I only got a 2:1), I had been placed onto a list to be “approached” to undertake a postgraduate degree. Now, although I’m sure this was just a marketing ploy, it did give me a bit of an all over glow. Luckily, I’d just found out I was pregnant, so had the perfect excuse NOT to take her up on her kind offer. I’m dreading that she might ring back this year, when my excuse of “I want to lie on the couch and surf the Web” may not be quite as strong!
Read all the Dan Brown books. Can sum up plot lines as follows:
Someone dies trying to protect a secret and leaves some sort of code or puzzle
A random academic with a speciality in something odd is called upon to solve the problem (as opposed to the police, FBI etc)
Random academic enlists the help of a beautiful but mysterious assistant
Cue lots of clue-solving just like Sherlock Holmes and creating links between events/ideas that seem completely random but are part of some global conspiracy
Solve puzzle but with a startling plot twist so that the bad guy ends up being someone in charge
Cue music….
Meh. I like Patricia Cornwell and Tess Gerritson – formulaic but full of gruesome murders and handy pathology hints and tips
SP – I ain’t in Leeds. I’m in Bradford. I wonder what would happen if I just turned up at the clinic one day when I knew a doctor was there and demanded to see one? ****, I’d even pay a deposit in case of a “no show” as proof that I’d not skip the appointment. They’re always whinging about people wasting their time by not turning up for appointments. In the meantime I could be slowly developing a cyst, melanoma, tumour or feck knows what else simply because I can’t get a 5 minute appointment where it could be spotted.
*******.
OK, folks. Letter of complaint time. I just need to dig out the address of the senior health authority for my area.
Yes Iain I’m still reading your blog and I think I’ve been telling you that you need a break for some time…