Passing Observations 245
May 29, 2024 by Doctor Vernon Coleman
1. The internet devalued everything (goods and services) by promoting the idea (and eternal expectation) of FREE.
2. Governments, controlled by the conspirators, have perfected the idea of creating problems, using the media and the professions to terrify us, and then swooping out of nowhere with a ready-made solution which inevitably erodes what is left of our freedom.
3. No one under the age of 30 should be allowed to vote, own a mobile phone or use the internet. No one who can be described as `woke’ should be allowed to vote, own a mobile phone or use the internet.
4. Are Google and its YouTube subsidiary now more evil, corrupt and damaging than Goldman Sachs? This is the question of the age. The only certainty is that Google (and therefore YouTube) has mastered the science of hypocrisy to an extent that even Bono and the British Royal Family must find impressive.
5. I believe that Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the internet) has done more harm to mankind than anyone I can think of.
6. There is talk that Putin might nuke London. If he were to do that he would destroy the House of Commons, the House of Lords, 10 Downing Street, the BBC, Buckingham Palace and the Daily Mail.
7. The CIA has proved, time and time again, that it is very good at overthrowing governments and taking control of entire countries. Why shouldn’t they do it to the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand the whole of the EU?
8. The authorities don’t seem to be arresting shop lifters in the UK. And they don’t seem to be arresting shop lifters in the USA. Whenever something strange happens globally you can be sure it is part of the conspiracy. Just ask yourself `Why?’ Similarly, in most areas of the so-called civilised world it is now impossible to obtain a doctor or a policeman at night or at weekends.
9. `A prudent officer empties his bowels and fills his belly whenever he has the opportunity.’ Duke of Wellington
10. I’m delighted to report, exclusively, that leap frog is being introduced into the next Olympics in Paris. `We needed an event in which we could win a medal,’ said a French person.
11. Congratulations to the BBC for having the honesty to admit that it appoints staff specialising in misinformation and disinformation. Maybe the Government will follow the BBC’s example and appoint a Minister of Deceit.
12. Remember: If you’re not paranoid, you aren’t paying attention.
13. Hospital car parks are now so over-crowded that patients drive round and round for an hour or more looking for a space. This causes massive stress and results in appointments being missed. The problem is that most car parks are filled early in the morning by staff members – who often park free of charge. This all has to change. Staff should be banned from parking in hospital car parks. They should park off-site and travel in to work in special buses. Patients should be allowed to park free and people visiting patients should pay a fee. Hospital administrators need to remember that the most important people in hospitals are the patients.
14. `History is a lie, generally agreed upon.’ – Napoleon Bonaparte
15. A friend saw a shop assistant struggling with a wrist problem. He bought a wrist support at another store and gave it to the assistant as a small gift. On his next visit, the assistant (who was delighted with his unexpected gift) told my friend that he had bought a knee support for a colleague with a dodgy knee. Both of them said that their lives had been changed in more than one way. Our Government may not care about us and the professions have abandoned us, but if we stand together we can survive and even thrive.
16. When I ran my publishing company, I overheard two female members of staff discussing homosexuality. `What do you think of it?’ they asked a third member of staff. `It doesn’t bother me,’ he replied, `as long as they don’t ram it down my throat.’ He couldn’t understand why they laughed.
17. When I was a GP I met a good many truly interesting people with unusual jobs or hobbies. So, for example, I had a patient who was a professional ecdysiast who worked with six doves which she kept in a pigeon loft in her back garden and which she trained herself. I never saw her or them working but she worked in golf clubs, cricket clubs, working men’s clubs and large pubs and provided the entertainment at stag nights, parties and for all I know bar mitzvahs. One evening, when she was working in a pub in Dorchester, the resident cat escaped from the kitchens. The result was that the doves fluttered away from their posts and the ecdysiast was left exposed. To the sound of much booing and many shouts of disapproval a policeman in the audience arrested her for indecency and dragged her off to the local police station. The resultant appearance in the local magistrate’s court resulted in a massive amount of publicity in the national press and the ecdysiast found that herself busier than she had ever been. The £5 fine was, she told one reporter was the best investment she had ever made. One enterprising photographer persuaded her to meet and be photographed with the policeman who had arrested her. To start with the constable was embarrassed but she was not and after the photographs had been taken, in the lounge bar where the incident had occurred, they retired to a nearby bistro for a quiet meal together. Six weeks later they were married and the pair of them told me this story when I attended her first confinement just under a year later. The couple, still as happy as ever, recently celebrated their golden wedding anniversary and were pictured with their children and six grandchildren. One of their three granddaughters is following in the family tradition and has become a celebrated ecdysiast, though she works on a social media channel on the internet and her act does not, apparently, involve any livestock.
18. Please visit our Bookshop. Dozens of currently available books by Vernon Coleman can be found in the Bookshop on www.vernoncoleman.com
19. A friend was going to have his cataracts done. `If you have better eyesight I’m going to have a face lift,’ his wife said. They agreed to do neither. She remains blurred and beautiful.
20. `I am for preserving the ancient, primitive distinction between right and wrong’. – Ambrose Bierce (author and idealist wrapped in cynic’s clothing)
Why Are We Waiting?
Dr Vernon Coleman
Health care these days is all about waiting.
Why do hospital staff always assume that no one’s time is as important as theirs? There is waiting to see the receptionist, waiting to see the nurse, waiting to see the doctor and waiting for results. Why does it take weeks or even months to receive test results? I don’t know of any other country in the world where waiting is an integral part of medicine. In Britain, patients must wait to be seen, they must wait for tests to be done and then wait for the results of the tests and they must wait for treatment. The waiting is accepted by everyone (patients, doctors and nurses) because it is usual. But it is only usual in Britain. Patients in other countries are accustomed to getting their test results given to them within hours at most. And outside Britain, patients who have symptoms are investigated promptly and treated promptly. I can never forget that it is the waiting which has caused Britain to have the worst cancer survival rates in Europe.
No one working in health care seems to realise that all the waiting (for test results, X-ray results, appointments, etc.) produces stress which is bad for the immune system. And it interferes with sleep which is also bad for the immune system. Jean Paul Sartre showed (in The Wall) just how devastating it can be if you mix worry and waiting. Eventually all men go mad. Even patients waiting for emergency treatment in A&E departments must sometimes wait to be seen – and die while waiting. This compares poorly with, for example, Switzerland, where everyone is seen within 15 minutes at the most.
A young teenage girl we know has to wait 10-14 days for the results of a biopsy of a breast lump. That’s 10-14 days of terror while she waits to find out if she has cancer.
When I was a house surgeon in hospital, we used to perform biopsies on patients with breast lumps and then, while the patient was still on the operating table, send the sample off to the histology department to be examined. (The patient would have signed two consent forms. One for a biopsy and one for more major surgery if necessary.) We would stand around gloved and masked and the patient would remain anaesthetised. The results came back from the lab in 20 minutes.
No patient should have to wait more than a day for a biopsy result unless the hospital is run by sadists or incompetent bureaucrats, or a mixture of both.
NOTE
Please visit our Bookshop. Dozens of available books by Vernon Coleman can be found in the Bookshop on www.vernoncoleman.com Current bestsellers include `How to Stop Your Doctor Killing You’ and `Bodypower’. You can also buy all 15 books in The Young Country Doctor series about the village of Bilbury and all four novels about Mrs Caldicot.
There is talk that Putin might nuke London. If he were to do that he would destroy the House of Commons, the House of Lords, 10 Downing Street, the BBC, Buckingham Palace and the Daily Mail.
Nuking London would be like nuking DC. Nobody would miss it, and it would end up freeing the masses from inept leadership.