The clinic

If it had been an episode of 'Sesame Street' then it would have been brought to you with the words 'arse' and 'elbow' and the number '69'. Instead this was a visit to the local midwife who is advising us on the the arrival of our first child.

Midwife: "Yes, darling, just go up and book your anti-natal classes with the Clinic Clerk."
My wife: "Hello, the Midwife said I should book anti-natal classes with you."
Clinic clerk "No, sorry you can't book these unless you've filled in the form."
My wife: "What form?"
Clinic clerk "The form the Midwife gave you."
My wife: "The Midwife didn't give me any forms."
Clinic clerk: "There should have been a form in the welcome pack. In a plastic envelope."
My wife: "I never got a plastic envelope, just the standard pack full of magazines."
Clinic clerk: "... I'll try and find one."
My wife waits
Clinic clerk comes back: "I don't know what they've done with them."
Clinic clerk goes off and searches some more, returns with a not very well photocopied form.
Clinic clerk: "If you want to fill it in now we can get you booked in as local classes get very busy."
My wife fills in form and hands it over
My wife: "Can I also give you this to be stamped and posted?" (as told by midwfe, to save postage)
Clinic clerk: "Well i'll stamp it for you but you may as well post it yourself."
Form gets stamped and returned to my wife
My wife: "Can I also book in to see the Midwife at 24 weeks?"
Clinic clerk: "You need Tuesday 6th February, but she's not done her calendar yet so I can't book you in. You'll have to call back in a few weeks."
My wife goes to receptionist to book in with GP who also hasn't done his calendar...

My mind runs back to the 1970's when Dick Emery was in his prime and at the end of each of his TV shows he had his 'comedy of errors' which showed the out-takes from his sketches. Unfortunately with real life you don't get a second chance...

Half truths!

After much wailing and nashing of teeth, I've finally discovered what happens to liars when they die. They lie still.

See no evil, hear no evil...

Being a person who lives quite happily with partial hearing, I had never really considered what it would be like to be visually impaired or even blind, but an experience last week made me think.

A few of my colleagues and I went to the Blindekuh (Blind Cow) restaurant in Zurich - nothing groundbreaking about that you might think - other than all of the staff are visually impaired and you sit, eat and drink in total darkness. No lights, no mobile phones or iPod screens to light things up a bit......only the odd glow of the dials on peoples watches.

Its amazing how you adapt quite quickly and use your senses of hearing, touch and smell to survive. Highlights were holding the wine glass and bottle next to my ear to try to gauge how much I was pouring, and gamely pushing non existent food onto my fork with amusing regularity!

As I said...it makes you think!

Multi-tasking madness!

How off putting to sit next to a bloke on the train last week who spent the whole journey speaking loudly on the phone. Moreso was the fact that he used his other hand to both eat a takeaway curry and intermittently scratch his balls. Who says men aren't multi-tasking?

A flare for fashion

I'm not quite sure why the fat ugly woman on the station wears such odd trousers. They're difficult to describe other than they are black and flared. What I find unusual, being a dedicated follower of fashion, is that the flares go from side to side rather than from front to back (and I reckon are about 18 inches in width). This gives the overall appearance of someone lacking any sense of self-respect. I've seen tents with more style.