When at work, there is one thing that annoys me above all the other petty little annoyances that are an inevitable part of employment. When we get e-mails to our group address, or letters to our general department, every time I open one that begins, “Dear Sirs”, I get irritated. It’s like an entire gender has been eliminated from the workplace. I become especially annoyed when such correspondence comes from women.

This morning was spent at the thoracic medicine clinic. I spent a lot of time being poked and prodded and x-rayed and having blood removed, all to try and assess my allergies definitively.

Despite its many problems, I have great love for the NHS. I really appreciate the enormous amount of free health care I have had over the years and even when seeing the disturbing amount of money taken from my pay cheque through tax each month, if it was to maintain the NHS, I’d be willing to give up more.

However, I have to admit, it’s hard not to wonder whether I can afford to go private after being in the hospital for three hours primarily comprised of doing nothing. Such as:

Sitting in a room with thirty other people, while wearing a backless hospital gown, for forty-five minutes, just in order to get my lungs x-rayed.

Or hanging around the lung function department for twenty minutes, just so I could book a future appointment.

And going to get a blood test and discovering I was number 101 in the queue… and they had so far reached 66.

On the bright side, despite only being about 60 pages in when I got to the hospital, I had plenty of time to finish, “How I Live Now” by Meg Rossoff. Despite finding the initial voice a little annoying to start off with, for the many on my f-list who read Young Adult, definitely worth a look if you haven’t already. Although every time someone says it’s the best children’s book for adults since “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time”, I think how that’s not really much of an accolade given the time frame: “Curious Incident” was published May 2003, “How I Live Now”, August 2004. I was about to go off on a rant about the state of publishing today and how they never look for the new and original but I haven’t done a shred of work for the past half hour and after a morning of hospital tests, I really ought to get some more done before I go home – you’re saved.

Memory like a... what was that word again? - Tuesday, Apr. 18, 2006
That has got to suck - Thursday, Mar. 09, 2006
Does anyone else's wrists hurt after a blood test, or is that just me? - Wednesday, Mar. 01, 2006
Funky Dory Limited? - Monday, Feb. 27, 2006
Wish Me Luck - Thursday, Nov. 24, 2005