You are currently browsing the monthly archive for March, 2009.
….but how do you do it?
I have a blood group that is really useful, and I’ve given blood for years. The blood people keep writing and telephoning to say “Please give us your blood -we’re short of it”. So I do my thing and log on to try to get an appointment.
And what do I find? “None available”, “None available”, “None available”
This is my biggest gripe about the service – they don’t make it easy to give. I am not about to give up hours of pay to sit and wait like a lemon in a long queue, so I want to make an appointment. But I can’t. I have just spent half an hour trying to find a place that isn’t miles from work which has a slot. I cannot believe they’re booked up until June.
So if anyone from the service reads this, I am a gnat’s cock away from giving up completely and thinking ‘to hell with the lot of you’
If you want people to give blood freely, then make it easy for them.
Today I had a day in Bristol, attending meetings. But the first one was in Clifton, and afterwards I wandered just up the hill to see the Clifton suspension bridge. I had never seen it in the flesh, as it were, but it was spectacular. There’s a 300 ft drop from the cliff overlooking the bridge, and a clear view of the thing.
It’s enormous, and a beautiful piece of engineering. And it’s been open since 1854. It’s a thing of beauty, and still carrying traffic across the gorge.
I just stood there for a few minutes admiring the thing. A few minutes peace and quiet in an otherwise hectic day.
If you travel by train, you get to see some strange sights.
A while ago, I had to catch a really early train, sometime before 7 in the morning. The train was relatively quiet, and a couple were having a conversation which could easily be heard in the carriage. I was just about to turn my iPod on when one of the couple said to the other
“What is the value of Planck’s constant, then?”
That would be strange enough but especially so that early in the morning.
Anyway, back to the story of O, one of the most gloriously filthy books you can buy. And this strange looking young girl was reading it the other evening, on the train. And she didn’t have the grace to put a plain brown wrapper on it either.
I thought it was interesting….
Well, Ireland won, but they didn’t make it easy for themselves. Ronan, what were you doing? We all have off days, but that was a doozy.
Anyway, a win is a win, and there are two more to go with a possible Grand Slam this year. That would be fantastic, and my only regret is that all the blokes at STC who used to take the piss out of me for supporting Ireland aren’t around for their come-uppance…..
