is there anybody still out there?

Due to a bizarre misadventure I have spent most of the last month or so in the care of the NHS, an experience I have found to be one of the great levellers in life (hence no chance to vent spleen via the blog).

Spending any significant amount of time on a hospital ward certainly puts you in touch with sectors of society you would not otherwise meet, or at least if you did you would generally shoot first and ask questions of them later.

Befoere I go on to pour scorn and bile over vermin in my usual manner I would like to make a special mention on the subject of nurses and other NHS staff. Despite the massive amount of bad press in the media egaridng these fine poele, without fail, each and every member of NHS staff I dealt with from cleaners to consultants were professional, polite and friendly, in marked contrast to some of the appallingly idiotic patients who treated them as, at best, as servants and at worst as adversaries.

In the beds opposite and around me there were variously:

a) A very, very stupid man who had been admitted after being bitten by his own attack dog so hard it had broken his arm, apparently not for the first time. He refused to inform the police as they would have put the beast down. Why someone wants an attack dog that randomly attacks it’s own owner I have no idea.

b) A filthy looking young man who was genuinely upset and surprised that you were not allowed to smoke on the wards. He cheered himself up with the small bottle of meths he had smuggled in.

c) An old and very unkempt man who although appearing quite harmless, would often wake up in the middle of the night and shout random things to nurses, such as “You can’t keep a fucking dog in here!” or “put it on the sideboard, I’ll cook it in the morning” at the top of his voice,

d) 2 chavs who had stolen a motorcycle and driven it into a telephone pole whilst travelling at 120 mph. remarkably both survived. I suspect karma must not have had its eye on the ball that day.

e) A witless man from Wakefield who felt compelled to spend several hours each day calling over nursing staff then describing in great detail his bowel movements; “Eh, nurse. I just spent 2 hours trying to push one out. Very dry it was. Thought I’d got it out, then it got sucked back in…” etc.

Thankfully I was able to become part of a suitably middle class enclave of people as disbelieving of the sheer fuckwittedness of many patients as I was.

An example of the above would be (bearing in mind we were on what was to all intents and purposes a surgical ward) inviting in about 10 of your unwashed shit thick mates, all dressed in their filthy clothes and eating dodgy takeaways. I can’t help but think that infections such as MRSA are less the hospital’s fault and far more the visitors. It was made even more fun when they all started arguing with their girlfriends when the nurses threw them out…. Oh yes, and then some of them turning up late and getting angry because you weren’t allowed in outside the clearly posted visiting hours…

My solution to this kind of problem, as ever would be along the lines of “If you don’t contribute, you can have a plaster then fuck off and die in the gutter”.

Luckily I was able to recuperate at home, and was able to familiarise myself once again with the wonders of Jeremy Kyle (who appears to be approaching meltdown).

For those who haven’t yet had the pleasure of watching (and shame on you) a normal episode will normally follow this format:

Some gap toothed rodent of a man has been slinging it up a couple of fat birds. He’s married to one of them, the other is his cousin. They are both complaining about it for reasons that they are not able to fully articulate. Jeremy shouts at them and tells them to act like adults and get jobs.

Next, a woman who looks like Rod Stewart comes on who has had 17 kids-she’s not sure which man is father to which child and so has got a couple of “possibles” on the stage and would like a DNA test so she can decide which one of them to start shouting at for not giving her any money. Some times it’s none of the “possibles” and she has to start thinking about who else it could be, and how she could get money out of them. Jeremy shouts at them and tells them to act like parents and get jobs.

A couple of pond dwellers with neck tattoos come on to complain that one/both/either of them is an alcoholic and bellow about how it is “tearing us apart, Jeremy” (actually stopping drinking, or even the fact they with or without drink their lives would still be pointless hasn’t occurred to them). Jeremy shouts at them and tells them to stop drinking and get jobs.

A pram faced eighteen year old slattern with her hair in a scrunchie comes on to complain that her mother abandoned her as a child and “put her in care, innit?” They then bring on her mother, who looks like Giant Haystacks with a cunt, who then attempts to justfy herself, whilst munching on a Greggs pasty. Jeremy shouts at them and tells them to reconcile with Each other and get jobs.

Everything I have written above is actually real life for some people… God help them…