Take a Bite
Down to London today for annual appointment at Moorfields. All clear for another year. I have been attending here or the long-gone branch in High Holborn for 40+ years and the management of the out-patients' clinic is worse now than it was in 1964. Such is progress. Four hours waiting for a 20 minute appointment seems normal nowadays. It really makes me wonder when the word appointment changed its meaning. Four consultants cannot examine 40 patients at the same time but this message is not understood by those making the appointments
However, two good things emerged form the train journey. Firstly I used my BITE card for the first time with no problems. If you travel by train a proportion of your journey will be spent waiting at a station somewhere. There will usually be a variety of refreshment establishments and with the BITE card most of them offer 20% discount for no other reason than that you have a card! To obtain the card for FREE log on to www.bitecard.co.uk There really is no catch.
My second fortunate occurrence was that I managed to travel on several trains without leaving a laptop or a bright orange file marked Top Secret on any of them. Now I know why I failed the Civil Service entrance exams.
The Lost Property Manager of Transport for London recently divulged that amongst the 170,000 items turned in last year were a bag with two human skulls, a stuffed puffer fish, inflatable dolls, breast implants, a coffin, false teeth and limbs, a suitcase with £10,000 in cash, 32,268 books, 27,964 bags and 25,802 items of clothing. Obviously some people take the Civil Service training more seriously than I.
Margaret has just reminded me of another benefit accruing from my journey today - I was out of her way for a whole day.