How Hard Can It Be_ - Jeremy Clarkson [63]
Publicans must fight this ‘nanny knows best’ interference. Yes, there is alcoholism and, yes, its effects on people are catastrophic. I know this only too well, sadly. But why should the many be made to cut down on one of life’s greatest pleasures because of the few? Speaking of which …
My final suggestion for the pub trade is this. If you suspect that one of your customers may be boring, ask him, using a blowtorch if necessary, to be quiet.
Sunday 25 January 2009
Come quick, Nurse – the NHS is going frightfully green
Last Saturday started off very normally. I had a hangover and was staggering around the house in loose robes, trying to find some restorative tomato juice. My wife, meanwhile, was picking one child up from a sleepover and taking another to some form of cello-based horse-riding activity. And then my son came in from the garden, where he’d been playing football with his mates, to say he had a headache.
‘Pah,’ I said huffily. ‘You don’t know the meaning of the word. They’re hosting the Glaswegian round of the world pile-driver competition on my forehead as we speak, son, so go back outside and stop complaining.’ The thing is, though, he really did look dreadful. He was hot too. And what’s more, he said he couldn’t stand the crack of light coming through the blind I’d drawn to stave off the hammering in my own head. And then he was explosively sick.
I put him to bed, wobbled down the stairs again and began to read the newspapers, where my eye alighted on a story about meningitis. Cases are up a whopping 25 per cent this year and it mostly affects young boys – especially those who, like my son, have recently had flu. Helpfully, the journalist had included a number of symptoms every parent should know about and I read them with a growing sense of unease. One stood out. The sufferer often has a stiff neck. Hurriedly, I sought out the boy and asked if he could put his chin on his chest. ‘Ow,’ he said pitifully. ‘My neck hurts.’ Being a modern sort of person, I went on the NHS Direct internet site, keyed in the symptoms and was told, in the blink of an electron, to dial 999 immediately.
I didn’t. Fearful of being labelled one of those people who call the emergency services because they have broken a nail, I rang the doctor’s surgery and was directed to a helpline number where, after a few minutes, a man came on the line, listened to the boy’s problems and said: ‘Call for an ambulance straight away.’ I still didn’t. An ambulance would have to come 20 miles to my house and then go 20 miles to the nearest hospital. That’s an hour at best and with meningitis you often don’t have that long. So despite the hangover and the possibility I was in no legal state to drive, I bundled him in the car and, twenty minutes later, we were skidding to a halt at A&E.
Four hours later, after he’d been poked, prodded and hit on the knees with hammers by what felt like everyone in all of Oxfordshire, and I’d read all the My First Alphabet books in the waiting room and built a rather good Lego jet fighter, we were given the good news. It had been a migraine.
So, now that I’ve experienced the NHS first hand, I’m well placed to make some helpful suggestions on how the service might be improved. And you know what? I’m a bit stumped. Yes, it would have been nice if some of the books in the waiting room had been more adult in nature; and in the same vein, I do think that some of the prettier nurses could have been wearing stockings. But that’s about it.
If I were running the NHS, frankly, I’d give everyone a hearty slap on the back, fire a few managers and tell everyone to carry on. Sadly, though, I’m not in charge. Some lunatics have that job and their suggestions for the future of healthcare are extremely alarming.
First of all, they are going to reduce the amount of meat and dairy products on offer on their menus.