Hospitals

The builder boyfriend returned from a trip to London to inform me he was being done for speeding at 32mph, for crying out loud. He was flashed by a camera crawling uphill in a 30 zone going through the almost middle-of-nowhere in the Ashdown Forest, on his way to visit his sister in Sussex for the weekend. A few weeks after I completed a speed awareness course for doing an improbably incorrect 40mph on a dual carriageway during a trip to see my parents in Coventry, we were going round the same rigmarole with him. He showed me his letter from the Sussex Police on his return to Ireland. It

By changing the address on my driving licence, I was somehow signed up to something that began charging my credit card £39 a month and was going to carry on charging for ever. It was Barclaycard that spotted it and warned me it was a ‘scam’ in a text alert. Had I really agreed to a recurring payment to a company called British Drive? I had no idea what British Drive was, and at first suspected it was an insurance policy, or the firm that organised my recent speeding course. Eventually, I realised it could be something to do with going on to the DVLA website – or so I

The mole specialist was wearing a pink Chanel-looking suit and pink diamanté shoes. By mole specialist, I don’t mean someone turned up dressed in Chanel to deal with moles on our land. I mean I went to see a top London dermatologist about a mole I was worried about, and when I walked into her office she looked so fabulous all I wanted to do was talk to her about her Jackie O miniskirt and jacket, given a twist with the sparkly stilettos. Before I could do that, however, she complimented me on my long striped coat. ‘Villa Gallo,’ I said, sitting down in front of her desk on the

For many readers, my absence from these pages may have gone unnoticed. Those few who’ve detected my disappearance might have idly concocted theories: maybe Shriver crossed a line in her opposition to uncontrolled illegal immigration such that she finally got the sack. The explanation is more quotidian. Six years ago, I was diagnosed with the unwieldy sounding spondylolisthesis: a vertebra in my lower spine had moved out of alignment, squeezing the nerves to my right hip and leg. I’d been managing, but the situation was degenerative. By this summer, I could barely complete a 15-minute walk, and – the limit – I could not play tennis. Already in NYC, International

Rarely does a piece of journalism bring a tear to my normally cynical eye, but I did find this happening when I read Tom Woodman’s piece (‘You must be kidding’) in last week’s edition. He and his wife would not have children, he wrote, because climate collapse means that ‘I can’t give them a future’. What made me weepy was his combination of obvious decency and utter mistakenness. How tragic that what he called ‘the facts and figures’ — in reality, contentious projections — have persuaded this couple that no little Woodman must come into the world. ‘Tree,’ I felt like shouting, in reversal of the Green order of priorities,

How do I know that Britain’s Covid crisis is over? The fakers are back. The hypochondriacs, the psychosomatics, the pseudo-fitters, the attention-seekers and the lonely. They’ve started to return to the acute medical ward where I work. They’ve been gone so long I actually almost missed them. This collection of patients, who take up time and resources inversely proportional to the state of their physical health, simulate symptoms for gain (malingerers), simulate/induce their symptoms for the pleasure of the sick role (Munchausen’s syndrome) or genuinely experience symptoms such as pain, seizures or paralysis in atypical ways with no physically identifiable or treatable cause (now vaguely termed ‘functional disorders’). Members of

Imperial College’s React study was in the news again this morning. The latest instalment swabbed 167,642 people between 6 and 22 January and found that 2,282 of them tested positive. A weighted average suggested that 1.57 per cent of the population had the virus between those dates. The study concluded: ‘Prevalence remained high throughout, but with the suggestion of a decline at the end of the study period’. It led to reports this morning that the latest wave of the epidemic is declining only very slowly. The React study, however, seems to be increasingly out of line with government data on new infections, as picked up through the test and

Across Europe, hospitals have been filling up again with the second wave of coronavirus. France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands have all been hit, as has the Midwest of the United States. In England we’ve gone from fewer than 500 Covid-positive patients in hospital at the start of September to nearly 15,000 now. Each morning, we anxiously scrutinise the overnight figures. Thankfully, in the past week Covid inpatient numbers have begun to plateau — although they’ve still been rising in parts of the Midlands, London and Kent. So it’s an uneven picture. But unlike in March, community testing gives hospitals advance warning, so we’re able to adjust the provision

Nobody earns the right to respect just by having lived into old age, whenever that begins — it has happened by chance and by virtue of having dodged a few bullets. But everyone has the right to be treated with good manners and kindness by those with any power over them — even prisoners and toddlers having pyrotechnical tantrums. Mostly, politeness and consideration are forthcoming. It is always a shock if a bank clerk, dentist or traffic cop are brusque, perhaps because it is so rare. Still, I can stand rudeness more easily than I can tolerate being patronised, something older people encounter regularly. When Colonel Sir Tom Moore raised

Game on A few things which are still going on, in spite of coronavirus: — Football in Belarus, where the 2020 season recently began. Choice fixture over the weekend is Sunday’s clash between league-leaders FC Minsk and BATE. — Practice games in Sweden’s 5th and 6th divisions are going ahead as gatherings of fewer than 50 people are still allowed. Fifth division Skabersjo IF, who last week played sixth division Vastra Ingelstad, aren’t allowed their usual supporters, however – last season they had an average gate of 70. — Bets were still being taken last week for the Setka Cup, a table tennis competition in Moscow, and for Taipei’s Super

I made the mistake of saying I thought insects might help feed the world. They are high-protein, cheap to farm (they breed like rabbits and grow like Topsy), require little water and energy and probably wouldn’t mind being factory-farmed. Now my post is full of mealworm powder and cricket flour and invitations to champion bug farms. Being an adviser to the hospital food review has been surprisingly uplifting. The panel members are mostly NHS professionals who are champing at the bit to improve matters and have already led changes in their own hospitals, so know it can be done. In one hospital, lunch was as good as the best home