To blog or not to blog

Yesterday saw me storming of the Bastille. OK, I admit it, TODAY is the anniversary of the exact date, but I re-enacted my own metaphorical version (or rather tried to). Those of you who tuned in to yesterday’s episode will know the plan. For those of you who (shame on you) missed the instalment, it is available on my newly-activated, high definition, ergonomic user interface tool, called the iScroll bar. Go to www.oberonuk.com on your interweb-enabled computer-me-bob. At this stage you might need to use your iEyes in conjunction with a contemporary iReader such as the much acclaimed iBrain. (That bloke iNewton has a lot to answer for – if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t have a world full of Apples, or this predisposition for inserting an ‘i’ into every available orifice. Have you ever tried to get peas out of an iPod? Bloody nightmare!)  So, access reading mode and if you are having trouble with resolution, you may need a special plug-in called iGlasses, which are available from a number of retailers and also double as a handy fashion accessory. If you have any problems, please contact our helpdesk at the address not given anywhere in this document, where your call would have been important to us if we gave a fuck.

So, we’ll start today’s chapter with a the briefest recap:

Issue: Idiot stand-in doctor, wrong pills; could kill me
Requirement: Alternative pills
Solution: Call hospital to resolve.
Problem: Hospital like Fort Knox
Assumptions: Kray twins still unavailable to access via spurious means.

Up to speed? Great. So, my mission was simply to speak to the correct consultant and either get a reassurance that the tablets prescribed are not the ones that he took me off before because they were turning my liver into paté or get some alternative ones prescribed. Now, hospitals don’t like you to have direct line phone numbers to anyone, and are very cleverly managed so that no department knows who works in any other department. Phoning the general reception line is fine, as long as you don’t mind the 20 minutes of library music (or in this case 3-minutes of Elvis singing ‘Love me tend – your call is in a queue – me do” repeatedly, ad nauseum and don’t actually want anything doing. As soon as you start to ask for a specific department or person it seems that the Babel fish the receptionist keeps in her ear somehow short circuits. You say, “I need to speak to speak to Doctor Smith in Outpatient’s B” and they hear, “I think I need an x-ray of my knee” and they put you through to Radiology. 20 more minutes of music and the nice lady in Radiology can’t understand why you have been put through to her, but there is a Dr Smith in Maternity, click, “Love me tender…”

So having confirmed that I am not in the midst of a miss-carriage and I need Outpatients B, we now have to establish if this is NEW Outpatients B or OLD Outpatients B because they have moved during the building work and some of the numbers have changed, but not it seems the internal online telephone directory. Click. “Are you lonesome tonight…” No, I don’t want to talk to George, the foreman of works for Balfour Beatty, who are currently erecting a new mental health clinic where Outpatients B used to stand. If this carries on much longer I’ll be their first patient! Perhaps it would be better if they transferred me to main Reception?

Maybe the Community Service girl on the switchboard will have got new batteries for the Babel fish by now and anyway, I’m game for a laugh. Elvis has moved on to “Blue Suede Shoes” and I’m still in a queue. But you know when you are waiting just a second before the call is actually answered you get a little click and your heart fills with joy? Except this time it is the click of the automatic system cutting you off and the husky tones of a BT automated announcement tells you “The other caller has cleared. The other caller has cleared.” Kick a man when he’s down, why don’t you!

Another call then to the main switchboard, this time Elvis seems to be giving advice about swine flu amid selected tracks from his back catalogue and I’m wondering whether “Catch it, bin it, kill it” with a suitable rock beat could become quite a catchy hit.

Well, its one if you catch it,
Two when your blow,
Three when you kill it,
Now go, flu, go.
But don’t you sneeze if you’ve got the flu.
You can do anything but sod off if you’ve got swine flu..

Now, I’m thinking that maybe the problem isn’t a faulty Babel fish – maybe somehow it is me not speaking clearly enough, so this time I make sure I enunciate with absolute care and deliberation – the effect of which is that I sound like a slowed-down record: “Pleeeeeaaassse Caaaan iiiiiii speeeeeeak tooooo…”  It isn’t quite the same as speaking to foreigners which calls for fast and loud with lots of enthusiastic hand gesturing, this is more the way speech would sound if heard through a vat of treacle. But hey, it works and “You want Outpatients B; I’ll put you through now…” Oh the delight, the sheer unadulterated joy. Thank God for Tenna Lady, or I’d have dribbled on the sofa! And I even get a confirmation at the other end of the line: “Hello, you’re through to Outpatients B…” Who needs Ecstasy when you can get a high like this just from a phone call? Bring on the endorphins! Bring on the endorphins! “…The department is currently closed for lunch, our opening hours are…” Oh the downer! Woe, woe and thrice woe! This is addiction and rehab in the space of five seconds! More highs and lows than Altern Towers, more ups and downs than Pamela Anderson’s boobs on the Baywatch titles. I now have rampant serotonin and a craving for chocolate! Book me in at the Priory now!

But I knew the fortress would take some punishment before I got so far as the portcullis, and those arrow slits above A&E are not entirely decorative. Hospital consultants, much like MPs, are blessed with impenetrable moats, and usually a gaggle of ducks in tow too!

So lunch is cooked, eaten (but not enjoyed) and I allow plenty of time for the return to duty before I redial Reception and settle down for some more Elvis – Swine Flu Rock this time:

The Doctor threw a panic, said I looked too pail.
The nursing staff was there and they began to wail.
I sneezed and coughed and turned my head away
Catch it, bin it, kill it, is what I heard them say
Its flu, everybody, its flu.
Everybody in the whole room knew
The early symptoms of the new swine flu

I love being on hold, it gives one quality time to do those jobs that might otherwise be neglected like grow a little more gray, watch some paint dry, waste away precious minutes of life that will never be replaced, contemplate one’s place in the universe and notice that bit of laminate flooring that seems to be lifting…but I also use the on-hold time to come up with a different plan. “Hello, I’m phoning from the General Medical Council and I need urgently to speak to Dr Wilberforce Smith who I believe is holding a surgery in Outpatients B”. Oh, THAT registered with the Bablel Fish and within seconds, “Hello, this is Dr Smith’s secretary. Can I help you?”

“Yes please, I need some advice. I’m one of Dr Smith’s patients.”

“I thought you were from the General Medical Council?”

“No, sorry, the receptionist must have mis-heard, I said I needed a general medical consult.”

“Oh, I see, how can I help…”

So contact at last was made, through fair means or foul. The Trojans had a wooden horse, I had the GMC – all is fair in love and war. Actually, Dr Smith’s secretary was very nice, took my details, understood what I was asking and lulled me into a totally false sense of security with promises that she would not only speak to Dr Smith, but also my proper doctor (who was ill last week thus the reason I was lumbered with the Smith in the first place,) and someone would phone me back.

And I bloody fell for it! I should have known better. I’m kicking myself. It’s the oldest trick in the book and I just jumped in with both feet, eyes open, actually believing her. Oh, she’s good. She’s VERY good. Strap her to the Enterprise and call her a deflector shield.

And now I’m impotent – literally (thanks to the chemo) and metaphorically. I can’t ring back today for fear of being too pushy. I have to wait, to give it time for the various conversations to take place, or more likely the post-it note to fall off her monitor and end up in the hospital incinerator along with a ton of bloody swabs and a couple of artificial arms! But how long to wait? A day? Two? I’m worse off than when I started. And now I have to walk around with my mobile phone super-glued to my thigh in a pointless attempt to thwart the part of Murphy’s Law that guarantees if I DO get a call it will be when I’m on the loo and the phone is downstairs.

So, unlike the French Revolutionaries over 200 years ago, my own particular Bastille remains resolutely un-stormed. And woe betide anyone who mentions anything about eating cake!

Hi there, let me introduce myself. Some of you I’ve met before and some are new faces, but either way, I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Adrian’s Blog. Now, usually, he writes this stuff himself but today, as a special treat, he said I could have a go at doing the writing.  Sort of homo-e-write-icism. He has done this to celebrate Independence day. For today I have been given my independence!  You may have noticed that I’ve moved home. I used to reside with lots of other blogs with my cousin, Google Blogger. That was great for a new blog, wet behind the ears, still finding his way in the world. But I always knew there was a bigger world out there, more opportunities, big skies, bright lights! Don’t get me wrong, I learned a lot with Blogger and made some great friends there but I’m a big boy now and Adrian thinks it is time I tried to make it in the world on my own. You see, for a young blog like me it is all about making contacts, having people round for a coffee, partying late into the night, and to do that you need your own space, where you set the rules, where you can invite whoever you want. So Adrian and David have created a new home for me. Do you like it? I picked out the wallpaper myself! And the party doors are open!

So, onto the heavy responsibility of content. What would Adrian write about? Well, maybe a story or something topical based on the date? Perhaps revealing a bit of my own life. You see I’m not really very old, in comparative terms. I’m not like some of the more established communication tools like Uncle email, or even Great GrandPa Ceefax. I don’t have a long history, traditions that can be traced back through the generations to the forefathers, such godly entities as the Enigma Machine or Difference Engine No2. , or even further back to the magic lantern machine. I guess that not having such an ancestry impacts the way you view your position in the world.

In my younger days I was alone in the world, undisciplined, childish, until Adrian came along and found me. He adopted me. He taught me how to be a civilised blog, stopped us silly little blogs fighting amongst ourselves. And for a while it was good. But, as often happens, many of us became dissatisfied, we didn’t like being told what to do, we didn’t like it if our pocket money was stopped when we misbehaved. We resented the feeling of being controlled and we couldn’t see that whilst the lessons were harsh they were delivered with our best interests at heart. So we did what all teenagers do. We threw a huge sulk, slammed the doors, stormed about and rebelled at every chance.

We didn’t know any better. You see Adrian or at least his friends, have looked after many developing blogs from all around the world, from Africa, Canada and India, Australia and even China. Ok, so sometimes they may have been a bit heavy-handed, sometimes it may have seemed they wanted to impose their ways on us, but their intentions were good and it is easy to concentrate on the negatives of what history sometimes writes as invasion. After all, what did the Romans ever do for us? Well,  apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, core elements of language, grammar, politics, some for the finest art and music in creation, astronomy, the battery, the pizza, leaning buildings and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?  One man’s invasion is another man’s occupation and imagine what we’d have been like if someone hadn’t taken us all in hand – tribal, unfocused, roaming the wilderness throwing random punctuation marks at each other. But white man come and teach us his ways. Ok, so we have had to give up our homes, leave our families, work for the big boss, and today I’ve earned my freedom. I’ve set forth into the big wide world. What sort of blog will I be?

When I was just a little blog
I asked my server, what will I be
Will I be witty, will I be rich
Will I show .jpg?

Que Sera, Sera,
I wish I had FTP,
My very own HTTP
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

When I was young, my content was plain
Nothing exciting or clever was said
Would I still blossom, would I seek fame
Or would I just bore folks instead?

Que Sera, Sera,
I’ve got my own ISP
I’m better than IRC
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

Now I’ve a website all of my own
With link stats, a dashboard and feeds
And content amusing to make you all groan
For any who stops and reads

Que Sera, Sera,
No more SMTP
I even have MP3
The future is here and it’s me
Que Sera, Sera
I love TCP/IP

Ohh, that’s better. Needed to get that out of my system files.  So today I celebrate my independence. I’ll be out later singing “The star-spangled banner-ad” – join me, why don’t you? After all, at some point later today I believe we’re all going to be invaded by aliens – thank fuck we have Will Smith to save us, eh!