Bah, Humbug!

I walked into the unit and wondered why we don’t have a Christmas tree. Around this time last year, we already had enough blinking lights to trigger grand mal fitting to a photosensitive epileptic, and with alcohol hand rubs placed strategically in every nook and cranny, I thought it’s rather rich the hospital is still standing and hasn’t burned to the ground yet. I really hope it’s not the thought police at work here. I heard the Royal Mail is stamping out true meaning of Christmas by issuing stamps without any trace of the Bible story and instead featured little harmless cartoons that will not offend other faiths. I only hope those cartoons are not Danish. The same is true with greeting cards:

“One 'offensive' card risked provoking Christians by suggesting the shepherds only saw the angel appear on the hillside because they were hallucinating after smoking drugs. And another card ignores Christmas altogether - wishing the recipient a "Happy December". Other designs include a pan of Brussels sprouts, a shoe, a woman pointing a gun at 'chavs', a moonlit bridge and, bizarrely, a line of meerkats.” What you get for reading sucky papers like the Daily Mail . LOL!

#10 Reasons why this year’s Christmas is really sucky.

1. Our health care assistant who I learnt today has worked in our unit for more than eight years handed in her notice of resignation last month, so maybe she can’t really be bothered to put up the tree. She did it every year, and was really good in keeping our patients and the unit clean. With the current crisis in the NHS, she may never be replaced. Who’s gonna wash the teacups?

2. They also say the tale of three wise men paying homage to baby Jesus may not be really three at all. The Gospel apparently refers to them as merely wise men: no mention of actual number whatsoever. But I don’t give a toss, really. I’m more concerned that three more wards closed this month. That means we’ll be stuck with wardable patients in our unit. More tea-drinking, weetabix-eating patients as opposed to patients on Galileo, Lidco, Bis, Prisma and all other binary code speaking gadgets that you could ever find in Critical Care. What a shame. I quite like my toys. Even more so at Christmas.

3. The NHS froze the hiring of new staff due to budgetary constraints. It is quite ironic though, to find that the Trust is advertising a post for a high salaried monkey * Smoking Advisor. Salary that’s large enough to pay two more nurses in ICU. I say: “leave them smokers alone!” If they can’t read those death threats / warning in bold alphabets in cigarette packets, maybe what they need are free eyeglasses for Christmas. Shoo them off to Boots or Specsavers.

4. I learnt that the abbreviation Xmas is not really irreligious. The letter X is actually a Greek abbreviation for Christ. And obviously, Christ is not a swear word.

5. I’ve seen in the Biography Channel that Santa actually used to wear a blue or green tunic until Coca Cola matched it to their trademark colour. And Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer was just invented for a US firm’s Christmas promotion in 1938. It’s quite traumatic to learn that they have been lying to you since you were a kid. They are a bunch of utter crooks and liars.

6. Jesus was probably born in a cave and not a wooden stable, say the Biblical scholars. It’s not posh enough to be born in a wooden stable and to learn that he was born in a cave is pushing.

7. I’ve read somewhere that before turkey, the traditional Christmas meal in England was a pig’s head and mustard. More like what we have in the Philippines. Bring back the good ol’ days!

8. The only greens we have in the Christmas Party do are what I would call junk food: chips and crisps. I didn’t realize that some people’s concept of veggies is limited to potatoes and corn. Although apparently, many parts of the Christmas tree can actually be eaten, with the needles being a good source of Vitamin C. That is, if you’re really peckish.

9. Also, in the Czech Republic they enjoy dinners of fish, soup, eggs and carp. The number of people at the table must be even, or the one without a partner will die next year. Good way to control population, I think. This might be useful to people at immigration. Although, maybe I should heed the NHS Blog Doctor's advice: We must behave ourselves. Medical Bloggers in Britain are suspiciously disappearing into thin air. Scary. What has happened to free speech? The most recent one is also my friend: HospitalPhoenix - a very witty and strongly opinionated doctor. I for a while enjoyed being in the Top 4 of his Blog Links like a “myspace whore”.

10. In Greece, Italy, Spain and Germany, workers get a Christmas bonus of one month’s salary by law. The NHS on the other hand is taking the Dickensian Scrooge’s stance of being a tight fisted miserable old fart.

* There are more monkeys like this one in Doc Crippen’s Blog.

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Thank You's:

To all those who greeted me on my Birthday.

To NHS Blog Doctor for another mention in Part 3 of Britmeds 2006

And to Airway Control for including me in Change of Shift Vol. 1, No. 13

Check out!!!

See you all Next Year!

The Big Tasty

Oh, wow. I was about to publish the second instalment of my previous post this evening when I peeked at my stats-counter: blimey.

What’s this bloody traffic all about?

You fancy hunting down every arse or perve trawling the web for bits of smut or any kind of titillating information - you stick a tracker device on your web page. It shows statistics of every visitor that reads your blog including visitor paths, visit length, country, city, state, ISP, recent book bought, shopping habits, etc.

It gives you a mental picture of how sad this people are and it’s quite interesting to see the trend change: whoa, this miserable git who bought Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita and likes Parliament of Whores at Amazon’s is trying his luck today, especially if you tag your post with words like: death, evil, melancholy, and even the silly word – sperm.

Well, since Monday evening my counter is reeling from hits by all sorts of really nice and decent medical people. Huh? So I traced back the paths and found out that the ever so respectable Dr. Crippen: yeah, the world famous GOD (just a bit) NHS BLOG DR JOHN CRIPPEN has included this blog alongside the august line up of other British bloggers in his First Edition of ‘The Britmeds 2006’.

It’s going to be a weekly round-up of medical blogs where every sentient puppet on God’s stage is given a wider audience.

Or something like that. You may call him a chauvinist he says, but this round-up will have a strictly toff accent. No more Mc Donald’s or French bloody fries… This is the Big Tasty. Although he admits this is not going to replace well-established colonial institutions such as Grand Rounds and Change of Shift. Well…

What are you waiting, lads! Let’s go blogging. As HE said so himself:

“Who could disagree with a sad Pinoy nurse…”

Bloody well done! Doc Crippen. And Happy Anniversary. Oh, he is such a lovely Doctor. Very socially aware and sensitive. “He watches and weeps as the Health Service, slowly, but inexorably, is destroyed.” His own words. I feel the same sadness, really. I wouldn’t mind sitting down with him for a Pint and fat chips in my garden one afternoon underneath a downcast grey English sky.