A Brush With The Long Arm Of The Law

Friday, 8th August

By the time I left work today I wanted to punch someone. The afternoon had flowed as smoothly as congealed treacle, with unco-operative patients, uninformed nurses (as opposed to uniformed nurses, but quite a lot of them annoyed me too), and daft clinical requests. I tried a little levity with one patient, who was having all her EEG leads removed from her hair, just as I turned up. ‘I’m glad you got rid of those extensions,’ I said, ‘they’re rubbish.’ Not even an eye roll by way of response. I could have punched her, but apparently the GMC frowns on this, deeming it unprofessional.

Parking the car outside our house, I realized that quite a lot of people were in a similar mood, although I have to admit, the baseball bats were an imaginative touch. There was a fair spat of chav on chav violence going on. What would the police term for this be, Operation Croydon Facelift? What about the elderly, OAP on OAP violence – Operation Steradent? Geddit?

But I digress.

I watched the whole thing, so I was a witness, how CSI.

The cops came round later to take a statement, so I had to give them a tour of our trophy lavvy. Four rozzers and me, squished into our downstairs loo, and it’s no Tardis. They oohed over the signed Thierry Henry and England shirts, and aahed over the Beckham boot. Within five minutes of their departure, the Battersea Bugle had roared into life. The story went something like this – Troy and Sarah had their door kicked in by the Flying Squad, then Interpol turned up. And here’s me being a model citizen. For once.


Saturday, 9th August

Had to go into work first thing this morning. Boo! At least everyone was nice, and no pugilistic tendencies emerged. I went back home for lunch, corned beef hash, then went to get my hair cut. Why does it always rain when I go to the hairdressers? Hari came over to say hello, and congratulations. I have been having my hair done there for 23 years, and it’s like family. ‘Have I got a new hair colour for you?’ He said, and sent one of the runners to get a colour look book. ‘There!’ He said proudly. I looked, dutifully, as the photo, as he examined my expression. ‘I can tell you’re not impressed.’ He said. Everybody wanted to look at the wedding photos, and admire Chelm’s handiwork on the big day. Today, she cut it and tucked it up into a chignon, with a quiff. A lot of hairdresser’s will tell you, if you are trying to grow your hair, to have it trimmed every six weeks, to encourage the growth. ‘Don’t come back for six months!’ She shouted after me, as I left, which can’t have gone down very well with Hari.

I went back out onto the Fulham Road, which looked much like the Marie Celeste today. Not that it was boat-shaped when I last looked, which was this afternoon, so that is reliable and up-to-date information. No, it is distinctly road shaped, and indeed with several high-end shop-shaped thingies along either side. And it was… empty. More to the point, so were the high-end shop shaped thingies. I headed to Butler & Wilson. I have decided to update my wardrobe by buying a few in-your-face brooches. Everyone will be so taken with these sparkling monstrosities, that they won’t notice I’m wearing last year’s jackets.

Genius!