Another week surviving modern Britain.

I had an appointment at the hospital on Friday. A routine eye check-up that I fortunately passed with flying colours (And they were vivid!). While I was there I had a prescription to pick up so I nipped down to the hospital pharmacy to get it. What followed was a brief conversation:

Me: "Hello, I'd like to pick this up please".
Pharmacist: "Well you can't - you need to go to a retail pharmacy for it"
Me: "Of course I can't get medication here - this is a hospital".

I understand that there have to be rules and regulations but I was under the impression that there was one health service in the UK, namely, the NHS. Apparently not.

The friendly and inviting QE2 hospital, Welwyn Garden City.

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I spent the weekend at The Comedy Cafe. I've discussed the venue (And its owner) before here. This time round I drove to the gig all three nights and succeeded in getting the same parking space each time. Not unusual, I suppose, but on the last night I was prevented from getting out of it by an ambulance that had arrived a little up the street to deal with something or other. When it had gone, a throng remained, largely of people who looked like this

I know - really.

As I drove through the ignorant fools at approximately one mile an hour because they didn't seem to regard my car as a threat to them, a particularly unpleasant chav appeared and started banging on my window. I rolled it down enough to hear him. The following conversation followed:

Chav: "Oi! Are you a taxi?"
Me: "No"
Chav: "Why not?"

I wound my window back up and he kicked my car in disgust as I moved off.

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Today I went to Stevenage on purpose. I wanted to buy a loud shirt for my impending holiday/deathride/sleepless week/debauched lunacy trip to Spain and, being the last of the big spenders, I took a trip to Matalan. Said shirt procured, I began walking to the tills. A woman pushed past me with an armful of clothes in her rush to get served. Nonplussed, I began the following conversation

Me: "Excuse me, I only have one item, could I maybe go in front of you?"
Woman: "No, I'm in a rush"
Me: "I see".

It took her a full ten minutes to get served. When I eventually reached the only register that was open the assistant asked me if I would like to keep the hanger. I replied to the negative. She took the shirt off the hanger, screwed it up and threw it into the bag. I didn't even bother to question her actions, paid her the money and left. I regularly despair of humankind but am currently resigned to believing what a friend of mine told me over twenty years ago when an idiot cut us up on the southbound M1. As I screamed in horror at our near-death experience he remained completely calm, turned to me and said

"What you've got to understand is, Paul - 95% of the population are c**ts".