Gas Boiler Safety Check and Other Matters

Our gas boiler needs it's annual safety check. It actually ran out last February. We have the certificate that we had when it was installed. If you read my blog posts on a regular basis, then you will remember we had a new boiler installed in February 2016. We had to go through the Council to get our landlord's address and telephone number in order to get the thing replaced. We hadn't been notified of a telephone number change as we only had a number which wasn't functioning when we tried to call it. Unfortunately the landlord has no idea what his legal responsibilities are regarding the boiler being tested annually and have a safety certificate. I had considered having this done myself, by getting a registered gas engineer do the work, but I have been told by several people that it's the landlord's responsibility. I rang him well over a week ago to ask to have this work done. He didn't seem to know who I was, which was a bit of a worry, but he eventually realised that I was a tenant of his property.  When I had no response from him as to when this work would be carried out I had to ring him again yesterday evening. His response was that he had attempted to contact the engineer who had installed the boiler but couldn't get through and had left a voicemail message. I said that I would contact the Council regarding this matter and if he couldn't get hold of the engineer I would find someone myself. This seems to have done the trick, because he rang me at around 7.45 last night to say that he had spoken to the gas engineer and he would ring me direct to make an appointment to do the gas check for me. I await that phone call this morning. Mr Landlord seems to be under the impression that, because the boiler is relatively new (well, it will be two years since it was installed in February.) and seems unaware of the fact the thing needs a safety check, which appals me as he is the owner of the property and as such has a responsibility to us to have the thing checked for our safety.

I went out to do some shopping in Sainsbury's. Carol got a call from the gas engineer and he's coming to do the gas safety check on Friday morning. So at last that's sorted. Well, it will be completed once the certificate is handed over.

 Wednesday, 3.15 p.m.

As I write this, the gas engineers who installed the boiler have been and done the safety check and it's passed. They were able to come this afternoon instead of Friday. Our landlord will have received a reminder a month before it was due but must have ignored it. No problems so that is done for another year.

Carol does crochet. Since she's been at home, off work sick, she's made Alfie a lovely blanket done in crochet. She made her mum a scarf and I bought her a magazine which had a free kit with it to make a brown bear (called Brian.) As a result of all this she has no end of wool, hooks and other bits and pieces. She wanted a box or at least something to keep the things in and went on Amazon to find a really good kit. Ordered and paid for using debit card. It should have arrived the next day (as we have Amazon Prime we get post and packing paid for as well as fast-track delivery.) We then got an email to say the package wouldn't arrive until Today (Wednesday.) But this morning we had another email telling us that, unfortunately, it had got lost. How or why has it got lost? It got as far as Peterborough and that's as far as it could go. No doubt some employee of Amazon put it in the wrong place, bin, shelf or whatever. We still don't have any idea what happened to this order and as far as I know, neither does Amazon. A complete mystery. Will it ever be found? Could Sherlock Holmes solve the mystery? We have since had a refund, but you would expect it to appear at some time in the future. Watch this space for further revelations.

Latest Reading

I've been reading some of H.G. Wells's short stories. I had a period when I was a teenager when I read all the classic fantasy and science fiction stories, from 'Dracula', 'Frankenstein' to 'First Men On The Moon' to 'The Invisible Man' as well as H.G.Wells's 'The Time Machine.' I had the complete stories in one volume (since lost.) I have since re-read that particular story (in a volume I bought second-hand through Amazon) and I'm so surprised how modern it is, considering it was first published in 1895. It's amazingly ahead of it's time and must have inspired a whole host of science fiction literature and consequently films, television series ( I can't believe the producers of 'Doctor Who' didn't read it when they were developing the show in it's early days as there are aspects of the story which are similar or at least used in some of the early stories)   Not only is it a great science fiction story, but Wells is able to make political comments which I might never have been aware of  when I originally read it. It has a believability about it which is quite striking.

Sky Arts did a series called 'The Nightmare World of H.G.Wells,' which was a series of adaptations of a few of the short stories. They were 'The Moth,''The Purple Purleus,' 'The Late Mr Elvesham,' and 'The Devotee of Art.' In some ways they have a great deal in common with the stories written by Roald Dahl and used as the basis for the ITV Anglia television series 'Tales of The Unexpected.' All having a creepy and very sinister feel to them, keeping you on the edge of your seat and all having a sting in their tail. I have since read them all and enjoyed them immensely. Another I read recently 'The Strange Orchid' is also exceptionally chilling and I expect it inspired the film 'The Little Shop of Horrors,' both the original black-and-white and musical versions.

Channel Four has recently done a series based on the short stories of Ray Bradbury and called 'Electric Dreams.' I have only seen on episode, 'The Commuter' and starring Timothy Spall. I read some of Brdbury's stories, the 'Martian Chronicles,' when they were adapted for television a couple of decades ago. I'll now have to read the short stories as a result of the latest series.

I have begun writing a 'sort of' science fiction story, very much inspired by the H.G. Wells stories. Actually the opening has been an initial idea for some time, and it's only recently that I've made any sort of effort to commit it to paper. I have been attempting to take it further, a lot of ideas coming since visiting Milton Keynes Hospital lately. It's surprising how ideas are created. Just seems all those corridors and the fact that everything is white and clean. Sort of 'Doctor Who'-type corridors, the idea of being chased along them, or searching for monsters, the 'villain' and so on. Just have to tie the various threads together to create a story line. People in blue or green overalls, with aprons, strange trolleys being pushed about. Makes you wonder, what's going on? Why? What? Lifts to strange places, different time-zones, etc etc.

I have a passion for history and read many books on historic subjects, and I'm currently reading the first of a series of books covering the last 60 years of British history. I read one which I had for Christmas a few years ago called 'Days In The Sun' and written by Dominic Sandbrook. I was unaware at the time that it was the latest instalment of what will probably be a six-part series, and I'm going back to the beginning of the series with the first book which covers the period from The Suez Crisis in 1956 up until the Beatles in 1963 and called 'Never Had It So Good.' A really chunky volume of perhaps 800-1000 pages. The next volume is 'White Heat',  takes in the 1960's; the next is entitled 'State of Emergency,' covers the period 1970-1974, whilst the third volume  'Seasons In The Sun,' takes in the the years 1974-1979. I believe he's been responsible for a television series called 'The Eighties,' so one assumes there will eventually be a book to go with it. It would be great if he can complete the series with 'The Nineties,' and possibly 'The 2000's' and into the current decade. I have the complete collection. The first two were offered as a set  on Amazon and cost less than the full price of just one volume. A real bargain and they are both brand new copies. These books are really well written, the detail is impressive and it must have been a long process to do all the research these volumes, each at least 800 pages.

I read the two-part 'Making of Modern Britain' written by Andrew Marr. The first book begins in 1901 with the death of Queen Victoria and ends in 1945 with the end of World War 2. The second volume takes up in 1945 and continues on into the 2000's. Both are companion books to Marr's BBC1
 television series.

Freezing Sunday Morning

Sunday morning I had to scrape ice off the car windscreen. It is a good deal easier with the new Renault as it has a good heating system which melts off any ice fairly rapidly and also I found an ice scraper which came to light when I was tidying the house the other morning. It might have started of freezing, but as the morning progressed the sun came out and it was quite pleasant, but still a chill in the air. The sort of weather where you need a coat or jacket on of some sort.

I woke up in the middle of the night and heard the rain outside. It sounded as if someone had switched on the shower in the bathroom. It went on for some time. I was expecting there to be flooding in the road outside but there didn't seem to be any sign of flooding when I looked in the morning.

I went out to the car the other morning and discovered a laminated notice had appeared near our wheely bin. It was headed 'Woughton Community Council' and stated that it's an offence to put your rubbish out too early and if you are caught, it can be classed as fly-tipping and you'll incur a fine. Oh come on, this is just another way to wring more cash out of people. So, please tell me this, how are we supposed to deal with plastic bin bags of rubbish, when you might not be at home in the morning that the Council dustmen come to collect it and you need to put it out the previous evening? Are you therefore going to become a criminal and given a fine for being efficient and effective with your time? It seems you can't do right by doing the right thing. Just bureaucracy gone mad. There is also another problem with putting your rubbish out in bin bags (black for general refuse and pink for stuff to be recycled.) and that's the problem caused by cats, birds and possibly other wildlife, which can get into the bags and take the remains of chicken bones out and peck around in it. On one occasion I saw a couple of crows who had got into our black bin bags when I'd put the rubbish out one Wednesday morning and stolen the remains of our Sunday chicken and were fighting over the bones in he street. Also, if the bags are torn open (quite easy because they are so flimsy, particularly the pink bags provided by the Council.) and litter is released from the bags and strewn all over the grass at the front of the house and the road. The Council workers seem reluctant to pick it up. Why on earth don't the Council provide us with two wheely bins (currently you can only use the green wheely bin for garden refuse and are supposed to move it to the road-side on refuse-collecting day for the workmen to deal with.) It would be better to have a second larger bin provided so you put all your bin bags, black and pink, which would prevent birds and other wildlife getting into the bags and also mean you could put your rubbish out earlier and therefore not get fined for so-called fly tipping. We're supposed to put our bags of rubbish out on a Wednesday, before 7 a.m. The thing is, some weeks they come early, almost dead on 7.30, but then on other weeks they don't turn up until 2 p.m. or even later. You can't win. So, does the fact that your rubbish is left out for hours and hours on a Wednesday still get classed as 'Fly-tipping?' Just a stupid technicality to class it as that if it's BEFORE 7 a.m. on a Wednesday. Then, why do the pink bags have to be so flimsy? They tear easily and come on a roll. At first you'd be excused if you thought the roll was just a single piece of plastic sheet, but in actual fact it's two layers and you have to separate these layers, a difficult enough job, and then you have to tear off each individual bag. Then, if you're not careful, you can puncture this bag with whatever you place within it, just a sharp piece of plastic or cardboard. The Council delivers a roll of pink recycling bags once a year, but if you run out before the end of the year, you have to go to the Council offices to receive get another roll. The black bags are no longer provided by the Council, so you are expected to buy your own. If it saves the Council money, then I have no problem with this, so I buy them when I'm in Sainsbury's or any other supermarket.

People going totally mad around Milton Keynes on Sunday. For some unaccountable reason Chaffron Way was closed off near the roundabout on Grafton Street, so I had to reroute and cross over towards  Child's Way, when  I was on my way to Shenley Christian Fellowship for the 9.15 service.  Traffic built up along most of the grid roads on the return journey afterwards as  I had to get something for our evening meal, so I decided to go to Morrison's near the railway station. The place piled high with 'bargains' for Black Week (or whatever it's called. Started out as just Friday, but it seems to have leaked into the following week.) Anyway, piles of toys, games, bottles of wine, Bailey's and other items. Shoppers pushing trolleys loaded up with groceries and stuff they thought they needed but probably don't. Took little time to pick up a chicken, vegetables, milk and other essentials and headed towards the checkout. It wasn't too long before I was through this and pushing the trolley back to the car. An idiot walking along with his mobile glued to his hand, not really looking what he was doing, certainly not engaged with the world around him. Got to the car and a child climbing up inside the trolley his mother was pushing. An accident waiting to happen, but I managed to negotiate this and people backing out of their parking spaces and loaded my things into the back of the car. People not really engaging with the world around them, and seemingly more intent on grabbing the latest bargain rather than being in an accident with either another car or people walking about.

Why On Earth?

Why on earth do so many television gameshows have to have such garish sets? 'Tenable', one of the back-to-back gameshows on ITV in the afternoon, has the most garish set design, mostly green. The green is a sort of pea-soup, even mushy pea-colour or artificial pea-colour. It's not just the bright colours used, but a lot of horrible moving lights and then that awful plunky sound (not correct in any way to describe it as 'music') every time something happens? Perhaps the set designers have a sort of design-style handbook for television gameshows, which says that the colour has to be bright and over-the-top and the sound design have horrible plunky-plunk music on the soundtrack. Can't ITV be more imaginative in it's scheduling, make and produce something different instead of gameshows? Actually, all channels in the afternoon. BBC1 has Pointless at 5.15 (the slot that used to have 'The Weakest Link' hosted by Anne Robinson.) and which now has 'The Chase' on ITV. 'Impossible' on BBC and perhaps one of the oddest of the lost, 'Tipping Point' based loosely on the old 'Shove Penny' game machine from fanfares and seaside piers.  You get sort of hypnotised by that machine, the different levels moving backwards and forwards. But lets be honest, it's not exactly gripping television. The questions are generally so easy any primary-school child could answer them. I reckon the producers are using psychology to get people hooked on these shows, rather like Pavlov's Dogs, when a bell rang, they get a dog to do a certain trick, make it drool when there was any food about. A certain sound, or light, would make you want to buy a product or do something else. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with gameshows. But when they become the main source of scheduling it does show a complete lack of imagination.

The BBC has had great success with drama in the early afternoon slot with things like 'Father Brown' and 'Moving On' which are very good considering they're made on minuscule budgets. I think 'Father Brown' has had around six series now (not sure of the exact number.) and it's built up a loyal following. It has humour at the heart of it, and the central characters are convincing. Also, the setting, a Cotswold village, also makes it worth watching. As with other television dramas, such as 'Doc Martin' and 'Morse' the setting almost becomes like another character and seems to define the show. In some ways it's difficult to separate the setting from the show. These shows wouldn't be the same if they were set elsewhere.

As for adverts on television. The current 'Mr Kipling' adverts drive me mad, the one where the daughter reveals that she has a tattoo to her father, and she only has to wave a plate of Mr Kipling cakes at him and he changes his mind.  Before he was totally against her having one, but suddenly- pow! He caves in. Ridiculous! He's an easy touch it would appear, swayed by pink and shiny confectionary. Does that mean if a robber comes into his house and threatens to steal the family silver, if they waved a plate of cakes at him, they could get away with the crime? How far could this go? I'm sure I could find plenty of other similar scenarios. Are people that easily swayed by a plateful of fancy cakes? If so, it's rather sad. The cakes look a good deal bigger than they are in real life. I've tried them, no better than any other brand. They do taste good but they are a real disappointment. You open the packet and are then disappointed by the fact that two bites and they're gone. Just small and pathetic. A bit of a con in my opinion. The way they shoot the ad they look much bigger, clever camera angles and close-ups and lighting make them appear larger than    they really are. Think of all the money they make out of this product and then add on the over-all cost of making these advertisements. A lot of adverts for food use a variety of tricks to make the food look appetising, using dry ice to create the appearance of steam, gelatine to give a shiny surface, clever lighting and other effects.

I've mentioned sofa adverts on these posts before now, but why do they think everyone is desperate to have a sofa for Christmas?  Companies such as D.F.S. and S.C.S. are two such sofa companies which comes to mind (by the way, what do D.F.S and S.C.S.. stand for?) It's the old advertising thing of getting people to buy something that they might not actually want or need, creating a sort of desperate need to have that something, and if it's in time for Christmas you can show the sofa off to friends and family. if you keep showing those ads for long enough, even if at first you didn't really feel you wanted the product, you'll sit and look around your living room (even more clever tactics, this, when you think the viewer will be sitting on a sofa or armchair which is probably past it's best, needs replacing or at least refurbishing. Shoving brand new, sparkling, fresh sofas on an ad on television, makes your tatty old cut-moquette three-piece suite look a little moth eaten, to say the least. So, you are compelled to order one and end up further in debt. But why on earth for Christmas? It doesn't actually have to be just Christmas, as it could be in the run-up to Easter, Mothering Sunday, or any holiday period where you're likely to have visitors. And when they see the lovely new sofa they feel they want one and have to go away and order their own. It's playing on the jealousy thing. If someone sees something and want it they have to go out and buy whatever it is.

Sunny But Chilly Black Friday

It's Black Friday. It maybe Friday, but it's definitely not black, and as far I can see it's been running for well over a week and probably into next week. We did buy a new HD television from Argos to replace the Toshiba one which I recorded on here which broke down a couple of weeks ago, but we didn't intend to buy it anymore than it being on offer and not really as part of the 'Black' promotion.

Yesterday afternoon I went with Carol for her first appointment at the Macmillan Unit within Milton Keynes Hospital with Dr Saka, who is in charge of the chemotherapy which Carol will have over the next few months.

From the Hospital we drove to Argos near the railway station to purchase the television. A good deal bigger screen size than the old Toshiba set (hardly old, unfortunately, at a little over four years of age.) Took it home and we spent the evening setting it up and got it going successfully.

A relatively sunny but chilly November morning as I drove into Milton Keynes Shopping Centre. I had to go to Marks and Spencer to exchange some pyjama bottoms which Carol's mum had bought when she came up with her dad for a visit on Wednesday.  I had to go to the Exchange and Return department on the second floor and without any fuss I was given a gift card with the full amount and I then went to the floor below to find the replacement item. I was helped by an extremely helpful member of staff who managed to find the particular item in the store. I have to say the lady was extremely helpful, so I told her she'd made the return/exchange easier. There's plenty of people who will complain about service, but it's always a good thing to say when service is excellent, especially when staff go the extra mile like she did. It might be Black Friday, but you wouldn't know it in the shopping centre. There weren't a particularly large number of shoppers scrambling of items. A bit of a damp squib as far as I can tell, but no doubt people are buying on line instead of in store.

After all the visits to various N.H.S. departments over the last few months, I have now got a cold. I haven't had a cold in quite a long time, but I expect if you sit in waiting rooms you're very likely to catch something off someone who's sniffling and sneezing, not that I remember anyone doing such a thing. It's not heavy. Just annoying. I hope it will be gone in a few day's time.

Incidentally, this blog is now earning me cash! You will no doubt notice that there are advertisments carried by this blog, so if you feel so inclined,  and you were to click on the occasional advert that catches your eye, it means I earn a certain amount. So, thanks in advance.

This is a good deal shorter than my usual posts. Nothing much else to say at the moment, but no doubt there will be as the weekend advances.

Another Unpleasant N.H.S. Experience

On Monday Carol had to have a blood test done. She was told this when she was on Ward 20. There was no particular time she had to go to the Maple Centre at Milton Keynes Hospital. On arrival we went to the reception desk, to be told that the Blood Unit wasn't open on a Monday. Just made us feel annoyed to learn this, but once the lady on the desk looked at her computer she told us that Carol was going to be in the Ambulatory Emergency Care Unit (A.E.C.U), which is through a door and along the corridor. So, we followed the signs and landed up at another reception desk. Carol was on the system and we had to wait in the waiting room. Another of those bland rooms with bland decoration with the standard N.H.S. fittings: sink, rubbish bin (with 'silent closing.' I can't in all honesty what's so 'Silent' about a bin closing. Just don't use your hands to push the lid down when you've put your rubbish in. It's supposed to close itself automatically, but not many of them do, so the lid will stay half-closed.) a water-cooler, a few uncomfortable plastic chairs (although there were a couple of better padded chairs, again, standard N.H.S. furniture) and it appeared that the room wasn't originally intended as a waiting room as there was the trunking you find in N.H.S. wards everywhere, with a row of power points and places to plug in oxygen and other things. We sat and waited. People coming and going. Some in wheelchairs. People trying hard not to make eye-contact with others, low voices. Nothing to keep you occupied. The television on the wall not working, and a pile of really ancient and very tatty magazines. After about 20minutes Carol was called away by a nurse. I was left to twiddle my fingers. One man quite intent on talking, fortunately. 

After around half an hour Carol returned. She said that the results of the blood test would be known after an hour. We could either wait where we were or go home and wait to get a telephone call from the department. We chose to go home. Fortunately the car was parked over the road from the Maple Centre. We drove home, only a short distance, fortunately. We had some housework to do, for example changing our bedding. Changing a duvet cover is not exactly my favourite occupation, but it needed doing. Had coffee and then, after an hour or so the phone rang. The doctors wanted to see Carol, and could we come back to the Maple Centre? Yes, we could, even though it meant paying to park yet again. On arrival back at the Maple Centre we saw the doctors, to be told that the blood test had shown up a slight problem. It might mean Carol having to be readmitted to Ward 20. She had got somewhat dehydrated. The alternative was to return home and drink plenty, which is what we decided to do. We would need to return the following day (Tuesday) for Carol to have another blood test to check that her kidney were working properly. So we went home.

The next day we returned yet again to the Maple Centre.  We waited in the waiting room. More poor souls with pained expressions, waiting for whatever procedures to be done on them. This time the television was on, so we could at least watch that to elevate the boredom. The blood test was done fairly quickly and because Carol was experiencing so much pain she went into the Ambulatory Emergency Care Unit and allowed to lay on one of their beds, or rather, one of those trolleys they have in A and E, but with parts that could be raised or lowered. So at least we didn't have to wait in that miserable waiting room.  We were told that it would be an hour before the results of the new blood test were available. So we waited. Apparently, the doctors who would give the information were not permanently assigned to the department. They could be doing ward rounds, in A and E, or even in theatre doing surgery, so we wouldn't get an immediate response. A crazy way to use doctors. Why not assign doctors permanently to this department? Was it a shortage of cash? It's quite obvious to me now, having spent so much time in Milton Keynes Hospital, that they are short of funding, particularly for staff. When I was with Carol on Ward 20, I was able to help her with her personal care, no doubt a job that would have been done by a Health Auxilliary or whatever the staff title would be, probably Assistant. So why would have done this work for her? Helping her move about with the drip stand on wheels, which it would be difficult to manage on her own.

A good six hours after we arrived in the Maple Centre the doctors appeared. We were at the point where we had decided if we didn't get a response soon we would go home and wait for them to telephone us and possibly come back to the Unit to see the doctors in the morning. But it turned out that the blood test hadn't shown up that there was a problem with Carol's kidneys, so it was fine for her to go home. Thank goodness! All that time sitting in that place, with no clear idea when we would get a result. After all that, we could have received the news via a telephone call. So fortunately Carol didn't have to endure another night on Ward 20.

I really begin to wonder whether they missed some of Carol's medication on the ward, as she was supposed to be on antibiotics, because Carol got that call when I was at church on Sunday and then had to fetch the prescription from Ward 20 and then had to go and get it made up in Boot's at Kingston and she was supposed to be on a drip to dehydrate her but this was left off. What on earth were they doing? A lack of proper care? Probably all this not doing her kidneys much good, although, with all the medication she's currently on, it wouldn't surprise me if it didn't upset her kidneys. There's o point on being on antibiotics if the course isn't completed. It can make things worse, but as I'm not a healthcare professional, how would I know?

Appearing On Stage

I was never employed to be an actor when I worked in theatre. I was first a Student A.S.M. (Assistant Stage Manager), and then a fully-fledged A.S.M., and then moved up to become D.S.M. (Deputy Stage Manager). There were times when a production required a few more bodies on stage, not necessarily speaking parts (a bit like 'Walk-On's in television or Supporting Artistes.) usually to fill up the stage, to flesh out things in a similar way. I think the second play I worked on was a production of Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale" and myself and other members of stage management were expected to don costumes and become 'Gentlemen' and 'Ladies' of the court as well as 'Rustics' in the country scenes, meaning we had to wear tights. No, don't laugh. O.K. if you must. Classically, actors are always talked of as becoming 'Spear-Carriers,' generally in the background of Shakespeare productions, usually the first appearance they make on stage. As such you have to stand very till so as not to up-stage the actors who are acting 'down-stage.' You have to make sure you don't distract in any way. Towards the end of my time at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham they also did a farce called "They Don't Grow On Trees," which was about a family seeking to employ a nanny for their children, and one actress (Vivienne Ross in this case) playing a range of weird and wonderful characters throughout the course of the play. One of these women was supposed to have escaped from some sort of institution, I don't know, a mental unit or something, and she was chased by men in white suits (myself and another member of stage management.) We were supposed to rush in and attempt to catch this woman, and I think I even had a couple of lines (a rarity.) and we were supposed to chase this woman through a window. Unfortunately, the audience laughed so much during this scene that my lines were completely drowned out! Perhaps if I'd had more experience of timing I might have got a laugh myself, but never mind.

Generally in stage management when I was working in theatre, there were various levels of stage management. I was employed as what was termed a Technical A.S.M., meaning my job was doing things like the book (described in detail in earlier posts.), looking after props, sourcing them and setting them and generally making sure they were set correctly, operating sound (recorded or 'spot' sound effects, such as off-stage things like door slams or breaking glass.) Some members of stage management were termed 'Acting A.S.M's' meaning they were expected to do some stage management duties, but were often cast in minor roles, such as maids, gents, in small speaking parts, as a sort of first step into acting, possibly those who had left stage school and were breaking into the profession.

Later in the season at the Everyman Theatre they did a production of 'Romeo and Juliet' and myself and another member of stage management were used during the opening scene where we were involved in a stave fight, supposedly part of the feud between the Montegues and the Capulets (I don't honestly think it was very convincing) but yet another instance where we had to fill out the stage to make the scene more convincing than it might otherwise have been.

In an earlier post I talk about my time at Colchester Rep. I was involved in a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" which was a very budget-conscious production and consequently some characters, for example, the fairies, weren't cast as humans, but were created using torches which made 'spots' of light which stage management had to operate from the side of the stage. The voices were done by some of the cast speaking off-stage into microphones and the voices conveyed on stage via loudspeakers. I know, I wasn't  actually acting or performing but I was still part of the play. Two of us were in the 'Pyramus and Thisbe' 'play-within-a-play' at the end, as courtiers and guests. Definitely making an appearance, even though we didn't have lines.

I'm forgetting that I also appeared on stage during the performance of "Voyage Round My Father"  at Greenwich Theatre I when had to push on stage a large judge's chair. Although, saying that, as stage management, you were often seen pushing either chairs on stage, setting props, changing bits of scenery, or whatever. In this case I can categorically say I have been on stage when Royalty has be in the audience, and in this case it was Princess Margaret and Lord Snowden who were in the audience for one special performance. Stage management weren't supposed to be 'seen' as such, so we were often dressed in black. You went on, placed whatever item it was, a piece of furniture or a prop, and then disappear quickly. Also, during performances of the music hall which was staged at Greenwich when I had to set a stool by the piano for the incomparable Max Wall, and on one occasion I came on from the opposite side to which he was expecting and got a round of applause and some laughter! Also, during the pantomime at Greenwich, myself and another A.S.M. had to open and close the large doors which made up the set, and had to join in with the opening number. No use just standing stock still with your mouth shut. Also, performing a sequence which was done in U.V. light, when Dick Whittington and his cat get cast adrift on a raft at sea and we had to operate the model raft with puppet cat and Dick Whittington in it.

A Few More Little Annoyances and Irritations

Why do manufacturers have to change products? Why is it that your favourite brands, particularly food-items, sweets, chocolates, biscuits and other products, which you've probably had since childhood, have to be re-packaged, fiddled with, as you have probably been used to them in a certain way for so long? I mean, Rowntrees fruit gums, a favourite of mine, and enjoyed since I was quite young. They had a sort of set of 'bumps' on one side, sort of raised pimples (I can think of no better way to describe them, but quite unique to these sweets.) When Nestle's took over Rowntrees-Macintosh, they attempted to change these sweets, by taking away these 'ridges' or 'bumps' on these fruit gums.Probably been like that for over 100 years or so. Just a way to cut down on production costs, simplifying the making of them in some way (but in reality just changing them without any warning to their loyal customers) The new version of the fruit gum were just plain flat discs of gum and nothing else. I don't think they left them like this for too long, because eventually they changed them back to what they had always been. 

They changed the packaging of Smarties, from lovely little tubes with plastic stoppers, which were classic in design. Then they had to change them to being hexagonal instead of tubular (not round) and just plain horrible, without any sort of stopper (made of card, actually quite a clever design from folding the card without having to have a metal or plastic stopper.) But nevertheless, fiddled with by Nestle's. I never liked the idea of this once-great British company being taken over by a foreign company. Nestle took over quite a lot of companies, such as the company which makes Shredded Wheat as well as Lyon's ice-cream. Just made it into a large conglomerate, sadly. 

We always had a family-sized tin of Quality Street at Christmas when I was a child. There's something familiar about the sweets you get in the selection. I don't think they've changed them for decades. But I had a box given to me (when Carol was in hospital) and munched my way steadily through the box. There was something not quite right with them, something was different. Why had Nestle thought it necessary to fiddle with such a classic brand? The tasteis as I remember for most of the selection, but I'm sure they're a good deal smaller in size and those with chocolate on them, the layer of chocolate is far thinner. Just a ploy by Nestle to make the sweets smaller and less chocolatey but you still pay more or less the same price as before. Shocking. Pity Rowntrees Macintosh can't be bought back into British ownership and return their products to what they were before Nestle bought the business.

Cadbury's went the same way, a once-proud British company, taken over by Kraft, an American conglomerate, best known for making Kraft cheese, a disgusting tasting mush as well as Bird's coffee. Also, Bird's Mild coffee. Can't think of the actual name of the product. Yuk. If you're going to have a cup of coffee, at least have a cup that tastes of coffee, not bland and tasteless like this brand. If you go through Banbury you pass the kraft factory, which smells of this horrible artificial coffee, which is enough to put you off coffee for life. Just a pity that Cadbury's is now just part of yet another conglomerate. I think when it comes down to brass tacks, the Cadbury shareholders were more interested in the amount they'd make from the shares when they got taken over and couldn't have cared less what happened to the business. A shame, really, but when money is involved, that seems to have priority over what the buying public wants or likes. Infact, I don't believe the public has any say in such matters, except when the company leaves classic brands alone and doesn't have to change them. I can't think of anything that Cadbury's new owners did to change any of their classic products (such as Dairy Milk, Crunchie, or any other chocolate coated brands, including Flake, Double Decker etc etc.) Probably less actual chocolate in them, not that you'd notice.

Another brand that has been altered. Not made by either Nestle or Cadbury's or even Kraft. It's Wagon Wheels, a favourite from when I was at school. But I had one when we bought some a while ago and they seem so much smaller. Thinner, too, with less chocolate. I suppose manufacturers are attempting to be less wasteful of materials, more environmentally-friendly, making products more efficiently, but it's a bit of a cheat to make them smaller and expect you to pay the same. Originally these chocolate-coated biscuits were quite big (or is it they seemed so when I was a child, and now I'm an adult they only seems smaller because I've got bigger? Just an illusion ? Probably not. They just seem smaller.

'Mission Impossible' Squirrel and Blood Tests

A far more relaxed Monday morning. Carol is now at home, so none of that walking along that interminable hospital corridor on my way to Ward 20.

I was sitting on my own with Alfie on my lap, giving him some attention early this morning. He's been quite confused over the nearly three weeks with Carol in hospital. He usually sleeps on our bed, but with Carol sometimes finding it far more comfortable on the sofa downstairs, the poor little dog has had divided loyalties, spending half the night upstairs but then trotting off downstairs sometime in the wee small hours. But even more confused with her not being here at all. He's been following me around the house when I've been here on my own, almost being like a shadow, even when I got to the toilet or have a bath. The other day he was looking really depressed, laying on our bed, in the place where Carol would have been, and downstairs on the sofa, laying in the corner of the sofa where she would have been. It's been quite sad really.

Anyway, returning to what I had intended to write on here. As I looked out of the window towards the garden (which isn't a fair description if it as it's just grass and more grass with a few trees over-hanging the fence and a tatty shed covered in bamboo screening because it looked so awful. You can get into it as the door is hanging off and it's full of some previous tenant's ancient and mouldy mattress which you could see through the cobwebby windows, enough to put anyone off, so totally useless for us as a place to store anything, such as a bicycle.) As I sat in the lounge I saw a squirrel on the top of the shed. It was twitching it's tale, which I believe means a threat. I think it was aware that Alfie was nearby. Perhaps it could see us through the window. Alfie wasn't aware of it and was looking the wrong way. Then the squirrel ran along the left-hand fence, down the fence and onto the grass and then up the central pole of the bird feeding station. Quite amazing that it could climb this metal pole. It than began to climb onto the cross-pieces and eat from the nut-feeder. At one point it hung upside down from the top-most branches, a bit like someone out of a movie like 'Mission Impossible.' Even then Alfie didn't notice what was going on. It was certainly quite entertaining. Then it climbed back down the central pole and shot across the grass, up onto the fence and away into the trees behind the fence. I could see it leaping about in the branches of the tree. It came back a couple of times and then flew across the back fence and off.

When Carol was discharge from Ward 20 last Friday she was told that she would need to have a blood test and that she would need to go to the Maple Centre at the hospital to have one done. I still can't see why they couldn't do it on the ward, as the phlebotomist was always coming to her room to take blood. Not exactly a job for me because needles and blood for me don't go together. Well, of course, they do in order to take blood from a patient, by my propensity to pass out when I give blood.

We drove back to the hospital, fortunately living only a short distance, it's not far. We parked in the ground-level carpark and I managed to park virtually opposite The Maple Centre, so it wasn't far to walk. On arriving at the reception desk, we asked the receptionist about having to come in for a blood test to be told that the blood centre wasn't open on a Monday. So you can imagine our annoyance at being told to come in when we left Ward 20, but were soon told we had to go to another part of the centre, the Emergency something-or-other department. We waited in the obligatory waiting room, with other people. I have to talk everyone I meet, wherever possible, and I spoke to this lady who was there with her daughter. Pity I had to open my mouth, as she had to tell me absolutely every detail of her daughter's illness. Some rare disorder, part of which was being managed by the hospital we'd been to on Friday, The John Radcliffe. Some people seem to make a full-time career of their illnesses and relish telling anyone who will listen the ins and outs of their illness, the therapies they have to use, even their medications, operations, all the details that, frankly, you don't want to hear. I couldn't get a word in sideways, and it was just as well they left for their appointment, otherwise I think I would have gone slightly doo-lalley.

Then Carol was called in to have her blood test. She was gone about ten minutes and when she came back she said that the results would be known in about an hour. We could stay in he unit to then get the results but we decided to go home, as it's only a short car journey away. So we decided to go home and await a telephone call with the results. We had to go through the ticket-machine routine once more. One machine wasn't working, and the other one had a queue of people using it. Fortunately we didn't have to wait long and managed to get home quickly.

We did some house work, changing the bedding (duvet-changing is my least enjoyable task. Putting a duvet cover on is difficult enough, but a king size one is perhaps even more difficult, and we couldn't find all the matching sheets and pillow cases, but we eventually found them and the job was done.

Almost on cue the phone rang. My mobile. But, on running downstairs and almost breaking my neck in the process and finding my mobile in the lonuge I wasn't too pleased to find out it wasn't the hospital, but someone attempting to sell electricity and gas or something. I have to say I gave the man on the other end of the line a piece of my mind, wasting our time and effort.

But then the call did come from the hospital. They wanted us to go back as the doctors wanted to see Carol and have a word with her.

We drove back, I dropped Carol outside the Maple Centre and a parked the car and then I walked back into the unit. There were several more people in the waiting room, but one man, who was there earlier, was still waiting. I have to say I was somewhat sad for him, having to wait patiently to be seen.

It was excessively hot. It's the old thing again, which I couldn't but help but notice on Ward 20. The heating was turned up far too high. It might be November, by why run the heating at full blast? In the ward we had to have a fan on full-time and the window open, to reduce the heat. But in the Maple Unit I was beginning to get really hot and beginning to wilt like a lettuce. More like the temperature you've expect in a hot-house, ideal for growing tomatoes or the more exotic fruit such as pineapples or oranges. Surely the N.H.S. can ill afford such profligacy and it might solve a lot of their financial problems if they cut the temperature in such places.



After some considerable length of time Carol was called in to see the doctors. Not just one, but several, together with a nurse. One was sitting working on a computer and I wasn't entirely sure whether she was part of the consultation. One was doing all the talking (a doctor) whilst another was standing at a sort of metal stand writing notes on yellow paper. It would appear, from the blood test, that Carol's kidneys weren't functioning properly. No surprise considering all the medication she has to take. They wanted her to come back into the hospital, but we weren't happy about this, considering she'd only been discharged on Friday. For me, the thought of having to keep coming in, walking all that way to the ward, would have been too much, but they said it would be O.K. for her to go home so long as she drank plenty and she came back tomorrow (Tuesday) for another blood test so they could keep an eye on her kidney function. So that is what we agreed.

Thankfully we could go home and on the way we went to the Coop in Netherfield, just over the road from the hospital, to buy some few items for lunch and our evening meal.

So, Carol has to drink plenty of fluids for the next 24 hours. Then we have to return to the Maple Centre tomorrow morning and they're going to do yet another blood test to find out if her kidney function has improved. I just hope so as I don't want her back in hospital. I know they have to get on top of all these things before the chemotherapy begins, but that place is a nightmare.

Forgotten Medication

When Carol was discharged from Ward 20 on Friday, she was given a carrier bag full of all the medication she needed to manage her condition. A nurse had sat on her bed and went through a list she had of everything. But Carol has been in more pain since being at home. We were hoping that, having had the operation to unblock her bowel and having been in hospital for very nearly three weeks (together with several days when she went in and was on Ward 19.) the pain would be more under control. But it seems that two lots of medication, antibiotics, were left off this list. Most likely because of this being left out, the pain has not been reduced. Just annoyed that someone didn't deal with this to then avoid more pain, distress and for me, a lot off annoyance, and as it turned out, inconvenience. I realise that the nurses (and other healthcare professionals) were over-worked and put under a great deal of pressure on Ward 20, but to forget or 'mislay' some of Carol's medication does show a certain lapse of, I don't know, concentration on someone's behalf, or at least, not being up to scratch in some respects, which has left myself and Carol feeling a bit let down.

 I went to church on Sunday, but when I got home, I hadn't changed my clothes or taken my shoes off before Carol told me that I'd have to go out again. Someone had telephoned from Ward 20 to say that Carol needed these two extra medications and that they had a prescription made out for these two medications. I had to go in and pick them up immediately and have them made up. You can imagine that I wasn't exactly over-pleased as I was about to sit down and spend the rest of Sunday afternoon relaxing. So I had to get back in the car and drive to the hospital, park in the multi-storey carpark and then walk all the way to Ward 20 (something that is incredibly exhausting as it quite a way.) I soon got to the ward and the nurses knew exactly what I was there for and then I had to decide which pharmacy would be open in order to make up the prescription. I decided to drive to the shopping centre at Kingston as there is a Boot's chemist as well as a pharmacy with the Tesco Extra which is also there. If one wasn't open, or couldn't provide the medications on the prescription, surely the other would have them. Fortunately I didn't have to pay anything to park. I had taken a ticket from the machine when I drove into the multi-storey carpark, and when before I drove out I put the ticket in one of the ticket machines and it showed 'no payment' which was at least a relief as I was expecting to pay something, but I imagine because I hadn't been there for much more than 20 minutes, it hadn't registered a payment. I then drove out of the hospital campus and decided to drive towards Kingston. I have to say I went considerably faster than was probably wise, but, as I was keen to get the prescription made up for Carol, I wasn't that bothered. Just a good thing there are no speed cameras or no police around at the time. 

I got to the Kingston Centre and found it was very busy. No doubt people doing their Christmas shopping. Hardly able to move. I went into Boots (fortunately open, together with the pharmacy) and handed over the prescription. I was told that they had both medications and that it would take 10 minutes to complete. So I went away to kill the time, having a browse in Next, and then into another shop further along the parade of shops. Home Sense, which is full of an incredible range of furnishing items.

I returned to Boots to find they'd completed the prescription. I had to walk across the carpark to return to the car. It always seems to me, whenever I've been to the Kingston Centre, that it's not designed to make your life easy as there's no path across this carpark. For some ridiculous reason they had to put barriers in your way, fences and hedges which mean you can't get a clear path to get from one side to the other. They obviously intend for you to walk right round and this takes far too long. Well, I eventually got back to the car and then, having driven out, I then had to spend around 15 minutes standing still in the car because of a very long queue of vehicles also leaving and back to Chaffron Way. Other drivers getting very annoyed, but, lets be perfectly honest, they only had themselves to blame. What were they expecting, in the build-up to the festive holiday, with other people doing Christmas shopping. Sunday has become very much like any other day of the week, since they relaxed the opening hours of shops and other businesses. I eventually got over the roundabout at Tongwell Street (one of the busiest roads in Milton Keynes) put my foot down and shot across as I made my way home. Thank goodness I'd completed my mission and was able to get back with the medications which I'd gone to get for Carol.

Carol Discharged From Hospital

Yesterday (Friday), Carol was finally discharged from Milton Keynes Hospital. We had known that there was not much point in her remaining on Ward 20 any longer, because they had managed to control the pain she has been experiencing; she had recovered sufficiently from the operation to remove the blockage in her bowel; she had managed to master the stoma which she now has since the operation and she was generally feeling stronger to make the transition from hospital to home. She had  a doctors' visit during the morning (as part of the usual round the doctors make of all the patients in their care.) but, unfortunately, they arrive earlier than normal so I was unable to be there with Carol. (This is usually around 8.30 a.m.) Unfortunately Thursday's journey to and from Oxford didn't exactly help Carol's health problems. As I've described in fairly fine detail of that day, with the uncomfortable conditions experienced by both of us on that minibus (and, no doubt, the other patients who were transported.) Carol seems to have suffered considerably.

A range of different health-professionals visited Carol in the side-room, such as the stoma nurse, various doctors as well as the lady in charge of the ward (not sure what her title is, but probably equivalent to a matron in days gone by.) and checking throughout the day to make sure that her discharge was going to go ahead without excessive pain and discomfort. I recall when I was last in hospital, having had an angina attack which wouldn't stop, how long it took before I was discharged. Something like five hours, because it needed a doctor to sign off the paperwork required. In Carol's case they not only had to get a doctor to sign the paperwork, but she had a very extensive collection of medication to be prescribed and then bought from the hospital pharmacy. it was very difficult to just wait in the room, Carol trying to find a position on the bed to be comfortable or moving to sitting on the edge of the bed or on the armchair in the room. Also, whenever she got comfortable, virtually asleep, there would be a great deal of noise elsewhere on the ward, patients being moved around in beds, and the constant sound of alarms going off and people talking loudly. The worst of all, the constant sound of mobile phone ring-tones.

We knew it was likely to be around 4 p.m. before Carol and I could actually leave the ward. I took a couple of carrier bags full of belongings to the car in the multi-storey carpark, in an attempt to make life easier when the actual time came. A long walk through the corridors back to the front entrance and out to the carpark. Then, when all was done, a nurse came to go through the final bit of paperwork as well as going through the bag full of medication (all I can say it's just as well we don't have to pay for any of these medications. The bill would be quite large, a real strain on our finances.) Just when it was time to leave, the nurse in charge had rung for a porter to come with a wheelchair for Carol, but after several attempts to get through on the telephone, the porters department didn't respond. After several more attempts a porter arrived on the ward and Carol was ensconced in the wheelchair and some of the many bags of belongings were hung on very convenient hooks on the wheelchair and I carried a couple more and we began to leave the ward finally.

We think now that the porters might have been busy elsewhere because we had heard through various media that there had been an air crash near Waddesdon Manor (one of the many National Trust properties we visit, and is a few miles from Aylesbury.) and they might have been involved with those that were injured. As it now appears, two people died unfortunately, but no more people were injured and required hospitalisation. No doubt if they did, they'd have gone to Stoke Mandeville Hospital near Aylesbury. But anyway, we arrived at the hospital entrance and the porter left us, because, basically the final few yards to the carpark wouldn't be suitable for a wheelchair, and if Carol was pushed the surface of the path was too rough and would have made the pain she was in worse. So I helped her that short distance to the car as well as caring the bags of belongings.

We arrived back home at around 5.15. Carol went into the house first, to surprise Alfie, whom I had left in the kitchen when I'd left the house earlier in the day. To say he was excited to see Carol again, for the first time in nearly three weeks. Barking, running around the house, jumping up and wanting to lick her face and generally showing a lot of affection. What a lovely return home for Carol!

Road-Trip To Oxford Possibly The Worst-Ever

Carol had to go to the Churchill Hospital in Oxford this morning for what's called a P.E.T. scan. I had to be at Milton Keynes Hospital really early. Infact I was there at 7.45. We were to be taken by transport, not an ambulance but a minibus. The driver arrived in Carol's room with a wheelchair at about 7.50, a good deal earlier than expected. I had imagined we would have the minibus all to ourselves, but I must have been deluded, considering this was N.H.S. transport. Carol was taken in the wheelchair down to the exit on the floor below and we were loaded into the vehicle (loaded is perhaps the best way to describe it. It was somewhat like being treated like a load of baggage and not a human.) Carol had a special air cushion to sit on and was strapped in with a seatbelt and I sat facing backwards, not a position I am keen on as it's an odd experience, travelling along and getting a view of the road behind, not facing forward. I'm not all that good at being driven and can get travel sick, but it wasn't too bad this time. We left Milton Keynes via Standing Way and had to pick up a lady from her home somewhere in Emerson Valley, and fairly near Morrison's at Westcroft. From there we drove out towards Buckingham to pick up an elderly lady. But the driver didn't hang about, driving at a great speed. Unfortunately the vehicle had virtually no suspension, and we bounced about all over the place, flung about inside that vehicle and Carol didn't feel in the least bit comfortable as a result. I was just as uncomfortable, being flung about in such a wild fashion. I realise we had to get to Oxford on time for the various people on board to attend their appointments, but there was certainly no need to be treated in such a callous manner.

We arrived at the first hospital, John Radcliffee, to find that the place where ambulances and other hospital transport arrived was taken over by vehicles which had no right to be there, such as taxi cabs. The area just blocked up with traffic. It seems that cab drivers imagine they can do as they please and ignore notices which clearly state that the area is for dropping off and collecting only and not a sort of private taxi rank. Anyway, it took some while before the driver could find out where the elderly lady had to be delivered. He'd unloaded her from the vehicle in her wheelchair, using the lift on the tail of the vehicle, pushed her into the entrance of the hospital to discover he was in the wrong place, so had to wheel her back out and reload her into the vehicle. Yes, it does sound as if she was a bag of potatoes, the way she was bundled about. Poor woman, it must have been very uncomfortable for her, but she didn't complain. Probably because she had no choice. So we were rushed around the hospital site (at such speed it felt the vehicle was likely to loose bits on the way) and ended up at a different part of the hospital complex and the poor lady was again unloaded and wheeled into yet another department.

The other lady, whom we had collected first on our journey out of Milton Keynes, was then taken to the John Radcliffe hospital which was a short drive from the first hospital. I don't know which department it was, but she was an MS patient. Carol was then taken to the Churchill Hospital (I think I'm beginning to get somewhat confused by all this and can't remember clearly what happened, even though it was barely 24 hours ago, but all this was done so fast, it's become something of a blur, as you can imagine.) At the Churchill it took the driver quite a long time to find the right entrance and the right department. To be honest with you, I don't think he had the faintest idea where anything was or where he was going. But Carol was taken out of the vehicle in a wheelchair and pushed into the hospital, a fairly long walk, with me attempting to keep up. The driver went at such a speed it took me quite an effort to keep them in sight as they eventually disappeared into the main hospital entrance and along a lot of corridors (hospitals have far too many for my liking) and we ended up in the scanning department.

Carol was registered. A lengthy questionnaire and then we had to sit and wait in a rater soulless waiting room. I'm sorry, but a little more effort could me made to make these places a bit more interesting. A pile of ancient and tattered magazines and a television on showing daytime programmes. (Incidentally, returning to this from an earlier post. How come they have televisions on in these areas of hospitals which are free to view, whilst the one's over the beds you have to pay for? Doesn't make sense to me.)

The scan was going to take two hours, so I had a choice; to wait where I was and read a magazine and watch television, or to wander off and find something to eat and drink. There is a range of options in the entrance, similar to what there is at Milton Keynes hospital, except I saw a W.H. Smith and even an M & S at one of the other entrances (I'm lost now. I'm not sure which hospital is which, we were flung about so rapidly.) But in the end I decided to remain in the waiting room as I have a propensity for getting lost and if I'd gone off in search of food and drink I'd most likely not have found my way back. I read a few of the magazines (I should have taken a book to read with me, but that's my fault.) and 'Bargain Hunt' came on at it's usual time-stop of 12.15, which is what we'd watch if we were at home. I also chatted to some of the other people waiting with me, which also helped to pass the time. Carol went off with a nurse (I presume she was a nurse.) as they had to prepare her for the P.E.T. scan (I'll have to do a Google to find out more, particularly what the initials stand for.) It stands for Positron Emmission Tomography, although knowing that isn't much help to me.

They injected her with what, apparently, was a radioactive dye, which goes into the bloodstream and is what shows up on the scan. As I don't understand the technology, I can't describe any of it on here, and I wasn't allowed anywhere near the machine that was used. A nurse came back after a while to say that Carol would be back out after two hours, so the wait began. By about 1.40 she came back, sitting in a wheelchair. Apparently she had to wait for an hour-and-a-half before the scan could begin, because the dye needed time to circulate in her blood stream.  She wasn't supposed to sit in the main waiting area or use the toilet. Presumably because of the radioactive dye in her bloodstream. Why? Was she going to contaminate any other people sitting in the waiting area? What about me? Didn't it matter that I was going to be in close contact with her? The radioactivity was supposed to wear off after a couple of hours (not exactly sure how long and I was never told.) So, she was going to be sitting in the minibus with other people returning to Milton Keynes, so didn't they matter? Also, what about the driver? None of this makes sense. Anyway, we were taken (by another driver. I don't know what happened to the first one.) back to the minibus and reloaded. We picked up two more people (one of whom, a lady, was already installed in one of the seats on the minibus, looking totally perturbed and not exactly happy.) Then we were whisked off to collect another person, a man, and were on our way. We stopped at one point as the driver thought he had somewhere else to go to collect someone else, but then we just left Oxford (at around 2 o'clock.) and headed back to Milton Keynes, but not using the exact same route we had used on the wait out earlier in the morning. We got back to Milton Keynes at around 3.15. The driver wanted to follow the computerised list he had been given, and the lady who was on the bus, who lived in Tinker's Bridge (and area virtually next door to the hospital.) thought she was going to be dropped off first, but because Carol was in a great deal of pain by  now, due mostly to the rough ride in the vehicle, the driver decided to divert and drop her off before the other lady, who was complaining of being cold and making other noises. She hadn't bought a coat with her, which was a bit stupid in my opinion, due to the fact that it's mid-November and the weather is very likely to be cold at this time of year. Anyway, Carol was unloaded (yes, again, made to feel like a parcel or bag of King Edward's.) and we went into the hospital and back up to the ward. Poor Carol was hungry, she hadn't had a bite to eat, wasn't so much as offered a cup of tea in Oxford after the scan, and there was nothing so much as a coffee machine in the department we were in. She asked a nurse if she could have toast and marmalade to eat, which didn't appear. Then, to add insult to injury, she had to remain in the side-room, and had to use a commode when she needed the toilet. All down to the fact that she was radioactive and wasn't allowed to use the communal toilets in the ward. Still, didn't it matter that I was with her? Or the driver? Or the other passengers on the minibus? Will someone explain all this to me, as it is such a mystery.

N.H.S. Hospital Ward Experiences

Being in a hospital ward is something of an eye-opener. I realise it's not supposed to be like a hotel, but it could be a little more comfortable. For visitors and not just the patients. The chair in the side room where Carol is at present is made of plastic, no doubt because the surface of it is easier to clean and so help prevent infection. But sit on one of these for any length of time and you'll discover how uncomfortable they can be, besides the fact you keep sliding off the seat because it's so slippery. A table which is on castors for ease of movement around the room and designed to be raised or lowered as desired, and intended to be used across the bed so the patient can eat from it, write and keep things  is another piece of furniture in the room. This over-bed table is annoying because the moment you need to move it, it won't move particularly easily, and because the room is so small it seems to take up a great deal of space.  This table can be raised or lowered. Another standard item in the room is a water jug, complete with lid (which is so annoying because it only rests on the top of the jug and isn't hinged, which sense would say was a better design feature.   Whenever you need to pour water from this jug, the lid won't lift off properly. A good example of a bad product design. No doubt they have separate lids for ease of washing, but not much else.) The whole room isn't furnished to allow much of a patients' personal belongings to be stored. There's a weird bedside cabinet which has some odd doors in it, and just about enough space inside to store a pair of shoes and some of the clothes a patient might have arrived on the ward in. It has a sort of lockable metal safe which I presume is for valuable items, but it's placed in such a way as to take up space which could be used better and doesn't allow for much to be placed on the unit, which would have been an ideal bedside unit. Another complete  design fail. Carol has to have a drip and theres a stand which is on a sort of five-castor base. It's a metal-constructed stand with a telescope central section with a sort of 'T'-shaped cross-piece with hooks on and the clear plastic bags of saline solution or medication are hung. There are clear plastic tubes running off this stand and into an electronic device with a digital read-out which is a pump which feeds the liquid into Carol's body via a series of cannulas in her arms. This pump is easily disturbed and when it is, it sets off a high-pitched alarm which can be more than a little bit annoying. Whenever Carol needs to use the toilet or have a wash in the nearby wet room (conveniently only a short distance from her room) she has to take the stand with her with all the tubes attached, which can take a bit of manoeuvring out of the room. It's quite a difficult job to avoid the bits of furniture, the end of the bed and the bedside table. More like a game of Tetris or one of those old fashioned games which had plastic shapes which had to be moved around a small frame to create an image of some sort, for example, a flag or famous scene of some sort.

In another corner of the room there is another standard N.H.S. item. It's a bin which has what is called 'silent closing.' You use your foot to open the lid, but you mustn't use your hand to close it (there's a notice stuck to the lid telling you his, in no uncertain terms, to use your hands. What happens if you do, if your caught doing such a terrible thing? Do you get your wrists slapped or something?) It's obviously to prevent you having to touch it, to reduce the spread of germs, but it's just so unnecessary to have this sort of notice plastered all over things like bins. The bed Carol has is another, presumably, standard item. It's on wheels, so it can be pushed around the ward as well as off to different departments around the hospital, such as taking patients to the operating theatres. It has sections which can be moved up and down by means of motors within the construction of the bed, the head, central section and foot-end, and the entire bed can be raised and lowered, which makes it easier for the patient to get in and out of bed and to make the staff's life easier.

Then, why does the place have to be so warm? I realise that there are those who might need to be kept warm, particularly if they're unwell or elderly. But in the small side-ward that Carol is on it's just like a furnace, so Carol has the window open. Then, the windows can only be opened no more than a couple of inches. No doubt to prevent anyone attempting suicide by jumping out or there being an accident and someone falling out. Taking health and safety to crazy levels. I've mentioned the food that patients have to eat. Of a very low quality. Soup that is in no way like any soup I've ever had anywhere and just generally inedible. It's not the staffs fault, it's because they're on such a tight budget.

There are miles of corridors at Milton Keynes Hospital. I realise that you have to have corridors, to link the various departments together, but the whole layout of the place is a real mess. It's only on two floors (although I think there are a few buildings on more than two floors.) If someone had designed the place in just a couple of multi-storey blocks, there would have been no need for so many corridors. Not only that, but surely it would have been a far better use of the land it's built on. No end of little courtyards in between the various buildings, some of which have been made into really pleasant gardens, but to be honest, this is just a waste of space.

Another thing you have to contend with in a hospital ward, and not only can I attest to this with the current situation but whenever I've had to spend time in one. is the amount of noise. Now, would you not expect a hospital ward to be quiet? Probably like a library, where you are expected to be quiet, so people aren't disturbed, to aid concentration? So, in a ward, the patients can get over whatever they are there for, to recuperate from an operation or whatever? But, no, the ward I was in, and the one Carol has been in, was extremely noisy. There are people talking at full volume, usually visitors, nurses and other professionals, being noisy, pushing beds around, maintenance men hammering, sawing or whatever, and then all those alarms going off constantly. Carol had a machine next to her bed, a pump-thing, which was constantly making noises, a high-pitched alarm. What on earth is the point of an alarm, if no one takes any notice of it? A bit like car alarms which have a habit of going off in the street, sometimes outside our house. But no one seems to care, nobody responds to them. So what on earth is the point of them if nobody responds in any way?

A Few More of Life's Irritations

Come on, you say, how on earth can there be any MORE irritations? What's wrong with you man? Get a grip. But it's true, I can find a few more annoyances and irritations, and more that drive me stark-staring nuts.

What is it with the layout of carparks? Why do the idiots who decide how you drive around them have to make it so illogical. I'll give you an instance. I am driving to Milton Keynes Hospital every day to visit Carol on Ward 20. I park in the multi-storey carpark I could use the ground level one, but it's a long walk around the hospital site to the new entrance. (I'll come back to the irritation of having to walk around to where the new entrance is when it used to be dead opposite the carpark, but I'll skip it for now.) Driving in to the carpark they have got two barriers, where you have to stop to take a ticket out of the machine. So, if there are two cars side by side at the barrier and one driver gets their ticket from their machine first, it's like the start of a Grand Prix as you put your foot down on the accelerator so you can get a parking place before the other cars gets there first. But it's really the layout of the carpark which causes the annoyances with me. You have to drive round and then find some areas, for no good reason known to man, that are out of bounds. You have to make a complete circuit of the carpark in order to drive out when you leave, and at the exit have to be extremely dextrous with your driving in order to avoid hitting any of the barriers and low bits of concrete edging, a really crazy way to design an exit. No doubt some bureaucrat in an office in Whitehall, doodling on the back of an envelope, with absolutely no idea of the frustration and havoc caused by his ignorant carpark design. 

I had to park in the carpark again at the weekend. I can get free parking as Carol is a cancer patient, by going into Macmillan's unit, which is on the floor below Ward 20, and get my parking ticket stamped which allows me to exit the carpark without further payment. But on Sunday, when I left (unfortunately you have to pay, even as the relation of a cancer patient, because Macmillan isn't open over the weekend.) But on leaving, even though I'd payed at the machine, where you have to put your ticket in the machine and it shows on the digital screen how much you have to pay, which was £4.50, by the time I got in the car and drove out of the multi-storey carpark, for whatever reason, the barrier was raised, which meant I could leave without putting the ticket into the slot in the machine which raises the barrier (if after all this you are still with me, as it's far to complicated to describe. Sorry if I lost you throughout all that.) So, you can imagine how annoyed I was about the fact that I had spent £4.50 on parking and then being able to be released from the carpark with the barrier raised (I'm not sure why this is. Perhaps the system was out of order. Which was all very well and good, but if that was the case, why was there no notice on the ticket machine to say you didn't have to pay? I bet there were a lot of other people using the carpark who were as annoyed as I was regarding this matter. 

Anyway, the following day I decided, once I'd parked in the multi storey carpark, to take my ticket to the little office which is within the carpark and demand a refund of my £4.50. When I asked the man who was in the office, he politely refused to refund me. WHY I wanted to know, curtly, but I must add, politely (as I try to be polite, even when I'm annoyed, which can be very difficult at times, particularly when faced with such bare-faced jobsworthishness (now THERE'S a new word!) But he was. He could easily have said 'I'm so sorry, sir. Here's your refund. I'm sorry you've been inconvenienced!' But no! Perhaps he'd got out of the wrong side of his bed, or some such disagreeable matter to make him so uncharitable to me. But in all this, you will agree that it was yet another of life's irritations. I think, if Victor Meldrew had been involved in this incident, that grumpy git character played by Richard Wilson in the BBC sitcom 'One Foot In The Grave,' he would be bound to utter his famous catchphrase 'I don't believe it!!!'

Later.

Continuing on from what I've written regarding the parking at Milton Keynes hospital, and my experiences with the ticket I paid for on Sunday and the fact that once I'd payed the £4.50 to be able to get the barrier to raise to let me out and then finding it raised, the same thing happened today. I walked past a queue of people as I went into the carpark, as they were paying their money to also become released. As I walked into the carpark I saw that the barriers were raised. I did attempt to tell people they were wasting there hard-earned cash by putting it into the wretched machine, regardless of the fact that the barriers were raised. Will someone tell me why nobody had the sense to put a notice on this machine to the effect that this was unnecessary? This whole thing is a scandal and a good way to make money.

HD Television Breakdown

Why don't electronics manufacturers make the things they make and sell more robust and reliable? We've had several electronic items breakdown, the most recent our Toshiba HD television. We bought it no more than four years ago, but it began to show signs of not working properly, first with the picture disappearing, but the sound remaining, this happening a couple of times, but eventually the picture would not come back on. It now stands on the desk on our bedroom, and downstairs we have replaced it with the small television we had upstairs and connected to a Sky Mini box, which meant we could watch all that Sky had to offer when we were in bed. This little set is fine for things like t news or the occasional programme we want to see in bed, but the quality isn't up to much, the picture isn't brilliant and the sound is awful. But I suppose that's what you get for your money. I think it was under £100 from Sainsbury's.  The Toshiba was around 35 inches, not the largest model, but it was a reasonable television set, meaning not only that we could connect it to our Sky Q box, but it had enough connectivity to allow us to also have an Amazon Fire stick connected, meaning a lot more variety of what we could watch, a great deal of it free (we have Amazon Prime, meaning we pay £79 a year and get free postage and packing when we buy from Amazon as well as a subscription to Amazon television programmes and films.)All these electronic items are connected via wifi through our Sky router. This unfortunately failed last week but it wasn't actually the router that went wrong, but the socket in the wall which has now been repaired by Openreach who actually own and run the internet network. The set had a built-in DVD player which was great because it meant we didn't have to have a separate player taking up further space as well as all the cables that would have entailed. This set are from Argos, who have a good selection of televisions to choose from

We had a microwave, a Cookworks model. Probably not the top-of-the-range model. It was also a grill, although we never used this facility. It hadn't lasted very well, rusting extremely quickly, the inside particularly. It has hardly been used, as we don't rely on microwaved food, usually cooking with our conventional oven. So recently I had to dispose of the microwave and took it to the tidy-tip in Bleak Hall. I believe in having stuff recycled where possible, so I expect it to be broken up and some if not all of it will be reused in some way or other. This also came from Argos.

The same thing happened to an electronic oven a couple of months ago. It was a Beko and we bought it via Amazon. But it failed because the oven gave up. It wouldn't heat up enough to cook a meal. The hob began to rust badly, so it was necessary for it to be replaced. We bought it via Very, which means we will pay it using our credit account. It was delivered and installed at a cost of I think about £35. They also took the old oven away after it was installed. The new one is a Hotpoint. It also has a ceramic hob. These seem far easier to keep clean and are reasonably reliable. But you still have to keep them wiped as soon as there is a spill or at least use the correct cleaner to keep them working properly.

Do manufacturers make the products they sell deliberately to break down? Do they have to be made of materials that wear out faster than in the past? If they don't (and I can't imagine they'd admit such a thing) it certainly seems that they do. It seems that things have a sort of built-in obsolescence which means that they don't last so that you are more or less impelled to go out and replace them. And as a result, have to spend out more money.  Some things, such as VHS cassette recorders, are now redundant and replaced by things like Sky's digital recorders which don't need tape or discs to record (or Freeview's various set-top boxes which have the facility to record programmes or Virgin's equivalent recorder.) In some ways these machines do mean you don't have all those clunky cassettes lying about the place and all the subsequent bother of having to fast-forward to find any particular scene on a tape as well as the wear-and-tear of these tapes, stretching and generally the annoyance of having tape in a plastic box. The same could be said of audio cassettes, which, in my opinion, were more trouble than they were worth. And don't forget 8-Track cassettes which were also dreadful and it's just as well they got junked.

One redundant system which hasn't survived and that's MiniDisc. I bought myself a micro sound system in around 2000 and it had a MiniDisc player in it. Very good quality machine made by Denon. It is a good system and takes up very little space near the television. But the MiniDisc system never seemed to catch on, presumably a replacement for cassettes. You can record on them, they're compact, (one will sit in the palm of your hand easily) is robust and the sound quality is about the same as a CD. But for some reason they never caught on, no doubt because they couldn't compete with MP3, downloadable from iTunes (and many other sites.) and uploaded onto iPods and other similar players, probably onto mobile phones. No moving parts and a machine will store thousands of tracks. A player is light and small, fits in your pocket and plays through neat little earphones. It's unfortunate that such a brilliant piece of kit as MiniDisc should become redundant, but that is the situation. I don't think the discs are sold anywhere, unless there are large stocks of them in a warehouse somewhere, but I don't suppose they are still manufactured.

These products come with guarantees and warranties (what is the difference between them?) When you buy these relatively expensive items you get the option to buy extended guarantees. I don't know whether they are worth having, because you can pay out a considerable amount of money each month for breakdown cover and it's probably more expensive in the long term (probably several years) and would be cheaper to just buy a new item, such as a television.

More About Working as a Television Walk-On- Part 2

It looks as if I can get quite a lot more to say about my experiences of working as a television walk-on. I'm trying not to make each post too long, as I realise it can be quite difficult reading large blocks of text on a computer screen, which is why I'm breaking it up in to more manageable chunks over several posts.

I did quite a few more bits and pieces on 'Campion.' I think the BBC were attempting to find a replacement for 'Miss Marple,' which probably had run it's course, although it seemed very popular with the television-viewing public. Marjorie Allingham, the author of the 'Campion' novels, would rank alongside Agatha Christie as one of the writers who produced work during what is known as the 'Golden' period of crime fiction during the inter-war years.  I think this ran for two or three series. Each adaptation was done as two one-hour episodes and it was a co-production with the American network, P.B.S., which is their vaguely equivalent of the BBC. I'm not exactly sure how it's funded, but certainly not like the BBC, with a television licence. 

One morning I got a call from Jaclyn, the agency I did most of my walk-on work with. They needed someone to take over from someone who had been booked for a day's work and couldn't now do it, on "Campion' and would I like to do the job? I immediately said 'yes' and I had to be at the location as soon as I could get there. It was in a village with a name I cannot forget, as it's so unusual. It was called Foxearth, which is between Bury St Edmonds and Ipswich and I had to drive away from Bedford towards Cambridge and drive along the A14 and then off near Bury. Another instance when it would have been handy to have a satnav, but, again, long before they were on the market.

I arrived at the location and was put into a policeman's costume. The scene involved Campion and Lugg (Peter Davidson and Brian Glover) in Campion's car, a fantastically restored period car, an open-top, a beautiful red colour. The scene involved a flock of sheep, who were being herded along a narrow road and they were holding up Campion's car, and I'm the local policeman, riding my bicycle. Well, you can imagine how difficult it was to get the sheep to do as they're told. The term 'never work with children and animals' comes to mind. Those sheep, although being herded by, presumably, a professional shepherd, would NOT obey what commands they were given. It meant the scene had to be re-shot several times. It was then that another problem arose. The vintage car which was used as Campion's vehicle didn't appreciate having to be left for long just idling with the motor running. It stalled, and refused to restart. It took several attempts to start it, which held up shooting even further. Just another example how filming television programmes can take so long and also, add to the expense to the whole thing.

They did some photography whilst I was on that location. I learned that some of these photographs would later be used for the covers of the tie-in Penguin books which went with the 'Campion' series. So when I eventually saw them on sale in our local W.H. Smith I could say that 'I was there' when the photographs were shot. Just something else to get a bit excited about because you don't often get the chance to be in at the actual shoot of these things.

There were a couple of night shoots I recollect for 'Campion.' In other episodes I was the henchman of one of the villains (I believe played by Ian Cuthbertson, a big Scottish actor renowned for playing 'heavies.') It seems amazing that I could be a policeman in one episode and a waiter in another and then be a henchman in yet another. I just hope viewers didn't look too closely otherwise it would have seemed odd to have a policeman tied up with such villainy!

One scene required me, as a henchman, to wear an eye-patch and sport a rather nasty scar across one of my cheeks. This was achieved by the make-up department applying some sort of rubber solution to my skin from a bottle rather like a nail-varnish bottle with a small brush. They put on one layer, in a line across my skin, and let it dry, each layer that was later applied over the first and subsequent layers dried out and made the skin stretch (or shrink, don't remember which) so that by the time they'd finished, I had a quite convincing scar. On location which was in a wood somewhere in darkest Suffolk, myself and one other walk-on, were supposed to be tracking Campion through the trees. Not very convincing, when I watch the scene on the DVD of this particular episode, but never mind. We are standing next to a fence, or was it a shed or something, in the depths of this wood, and we're keeping an eye on Campion in the distance through the trees. I have been given a match to pick my teeth with. Although they'd wanted me to smoke a cigarette and as the scene develops, throw the stub of the cigarette onto the ground. They'd also set up a track across the ground, for the camera to travel along, as the scene unfolded. At a certain point in the action, we were supposed to walk away from the fence, shed or whatever, and then stop, at a point which had been drawn on the ground for us, as a sort of cue. But, when we started the scene and it continued, when I was supposed to stop at the mark, I couldn't see this confounded mark, because of the eye-patch I was wearing! So much for eye-patch and match acting! Oh, the life of an actor-come television walk-on can be so difficult, but oh so much fun, and you get paid for it!

Having looked back at an earlier post on here, it seems I have mentioned a good deal of the stuff that is on this post on there. I do apologise to those who might have read that and then this and thought to themselves 'he's repeating a lot of material.' I've written it and posted it on here and I'm not going to delete these two posts as they've taken a long time to compose and I don't want them altered in any way.

More About Working as a Television Walk-On- Part 1

I seem to have missed out some more about working as a 'Suporting Artiste.' 'Extra' is something of a derogatory expression. I don't think I've ever been an 'extra' but if the term is used it's usually in the film industry. Usually if you're an extra, it's in really large crowd scenes and you're just one of a mass of people, not given specific direction. As a 'Walk-On' or 'Supporting Artiste' you can be given more general direction, not by the actual director, but usually by an A.D. (Assistant Director) or one of the other minor floor crew. Although, saying that, you can sometimes be given direction by the actual director if you have the chance to work with any of the principal actors, although this is very rare. Saying all this, though, I'm talking about 20-30 years ago. Having not done any of this sort of work for a good 20 or so years, things are likely to have changed considerably, but how much and what exactly I can't say.

I did quite a few days on the BBC drama series called "Campion," based on the books by Marjorie Allingham and starring Peter Davidson as Albert Campion and Brian Glover as his man-servant, Lugg (not sure whether he was his valet, but that's a technicality.) Anyway, I was first on this show when they did a scene which was supposed to be in a restaurant or road-house, call it what you will in a 1930's sort of setting. I arrived on location, where I can't now remember as it was in the early 1990's. I was supposed to be a waiter and, as I'd arrived early (another thing was often finding the location you would be sent to. Long before such things as satnavs which would be so useful as most locations are usually hidden away in some quite inaccessible places, usually in the middle of the countryside, as I think this one was.) I went to wardrobe to get fitted out, in the more or less traditional waiter's black suit, white shirt and a long white apron. I do wish I'd had photographs taken of all the things I've worked on, but you would never be allowed to take a camera onto a set and this was well before the introduction of smartphone technology. Then more people arrived who were to also be walk-on's. No doubt guests in the restaurant. We were sitting in the sort of holding area, where you have to sit and wait to be called onto the set. It amused me when several other people, seeing me dressed as I was, thought I was a genuine waiter! Did it never occur to them that I was just another body, dressed in costume? Just really crazy. The episode which we were working on was called "Mystery Mile." To return to what I was saying. The scene was set up, with Peter Davidson and Brian Glover sitting at one table, eating I imagine, and I'm supposed to be the waiter and I'm standing at the door, taking the coats of the guests who are arriving. This lady turns up, played by Barbara Jefford  and I'm supposed to take her coat and she offers me her gloved hand. Stupidly I attempt to take her gloves off for her (why I wasn't given more direction I can't think) but it was, to me anyway, an obvious thing to do. But, apparently, it wasn't and they had to 'cut' and start the sequence again. Embarrassing for me, as to be responsible for having to stop a scene isn't what walk-on's are supposed to do, the principals can, but never anyone else. So, the scene was recommenced and this time she just took the wretched gloves off and handed them to me. There was a later scene where I had to clear the table after some guests left, perhaps as Campion and Lugg went out, but I can't remember, but, as I've got the DVD of this series, I have seen myself and, it's odd, being able to see yourself, if only briefly, and a good deal younger, which is also odd.

Current Television Comedy

What, in the way of television comedy, do the networks have to offer us at the moment? BBC1 can give you a rehash of the classic 1970's show 'Porridge.' It was revived as part of the BBC's 'Sitcom' season, something to do with it being 60 years since the first 'Hancock' television series. They gave us  rehashes of 'Are You Being Served?' (really awful. The original was never brilliant, a lot of cliches and rather annoying catch-phrases, Mr Humphry's limp wrist and Mrs Slocombe's cat and her over-the top hairstyles, but definitely stuck in a 1970's end-of-the-pier type comedy limbo.) Also, a prequel to 'Keeping Up Appearances' (I never saw it). The one-off episode of 'Porridge' was alright, up to a point, but it wasn't exactly what you'd call 'comedy gold.' It's the one episode which has been developed as a full series of six episodes. But let's be honest, 'Porridge,' in it's original incarnation, was brilliant for being great basically because it was a well-written and acted gem because of it's leading actor, Ronnie Barker. How on earth can an actor emulate his timing, his skill as a comic actor and general all-round likability? The BBC had revived another of his comic hits, 'Open All Hours,' and given David Jason's character, the downtrodden nephew, Granville, the central role. From being the put-upon delivery-boy to becoming the owner of the corner shop, might sound a good idea, basically because Jason is such a popular actor, and they know, with him in it, audiences will watch regardless. It's just that there remake, which is called, unimaginatively, 'Still Open All Hours' is just a clone of the original and is stuck determinedly in the mid 1970's. By now real corner shops have moved on, to being Tesco Extras and Little Waitroses. I think Arkwright's shop would have been taken over by Tesco's by now. It's just a rather creaky excuse for some corny jokes.

Let's leave off about the reboots. Please, BBC, don't do any more. Just because they get large ratings doesn't mean it's a good idea to do more. ITV revived 'Birds of A Feather' which was originally made for the BBC, and gets good ratings, but why do they have to keep on copying what the other channel does?

To original sitcoms. There's 'W1A', which isn't what I'd call a traditional sitcom in the sense that a sitcom is made in a television studio, with around 3 electronic camera, and is performed and recorded before a live audience. 'W1A' isn't made in that format. It doesn't have a live audience, to begin with, is shot (presumably) using a single camera, on location, in the style of a 'mockumentary.' It was a 'sort of' spin-off from the earlier series '2012' (to tie in with the London Olympics.) It has many of the same actors from that, Hugh Bonneville being one of those actors. There is a commentary, delivered by David Tennant (which is something traditional sitcom never has.) It is something of a one-joke comedy.

I've just discovered something on Gold, one of the UKTV digital channels. It's called 'The Rebel' and stars Simon Callow who plays Henry Palmer, a pensioner who absolutely detests the way old people are treated in society. It's based on a comic strip in 'The Oldie' magazine. In this way it is similar to a Radio Four sitcom called 'Clare In The Community' which is based on Harry Venning's 'Guardian' cartoon strip of the same name. 'The Rebel' is currently in it's second series, but, as I've only just discovered it, I've started watching it from the beginning of the first series which is available on catch-up. One of the advantages of having this technology is that you can watch series which you might not have otherwise managed to see. I know you can do this if you have DVDs of series, but in some way catch-up is better because you don't have to have piles of DVDs you watch once and probably never watch again. Anyway, I don't think Simon Callow has ever done sitcom before. He's generally known for fairly light comedy, or at least learning towards that sort of area, but I've never seen him in this sort of vehicle before. It's great to see actors in something that is slightly different from their usual roles. I can't see this being shown on the main channels, BBC1 or BBC2, although it might be shown after the watershed, because the language and some of the subject matter is quite, what I'd call contentious. By the way, don't confuse 'The Rebel' with the Tony Hancock film of he same name. There is no connection in any way with that film. Just a note.

Another more recent sitcom, although not in the stereotypical mould is 'Boomers'which is about three couples who are in the category of being retired. They live in 'Norfolk's only west facing resort, Thurnmouth. It ran for two series as well as a couple of Christmas specials on BBC1 and was written by Richard Pinto. It starred Philip Jackson, Alison Steadman, Russ Abbott, June Whitfield, Stephanie Beacham and Paula Wilcox. It was written by Richard Pinto. It's shot on film and has a similar feel to a much earlier series which also starred Russ Abbott with the sorely missed actor, Michael Williams, married to the fantastic Judi Dench and called 'September Song.' I think you would describe it as being 'bitter/sweet' as it could be extremely funny one minute and the next quite sad and extremely poignant. I think the best comedy should be able to shift between sad and the next be amusing. In a sense Anton Chekov's plays have a similar feeling to them, not entirely achingly funny, but having a depth to them beyond being merely amusing. It could definitely leaving you with a lump in your throat and give you pause for thought. Not a lot of modern comedy can do that. It moves from being funny one minute and the with a shift of emphasis be quite profound.