Two for your Kindle.

On a rather odd kind of day when the fifteen kids next door are intent on murdering each other at a family gathering, I've been gainfully employed having a clear out of the nether regions of the nest.  Downstairs, in the scant remains of the library, you can't imagine my delight in finding two treasured books huddling together unread recently, but far from unloved.  Cast your mind back to the 1990s when travel shows on Channel 4 had real explorers to show us how to find the empty corners of the planet, rather than the mahogany hues of Judith Chalmers waffling on about the charms of a family package holiday in Ibiza.  There aren't any charms Judith, I've been there.  Twice.  And after a short spell on the nudist beach at Cala Jack, and being chased away from a restaurant near St Vincente by a savage dog who only wanted to make a dog-chew out of the Mini Moke's spare tyre, I got so drunk at the Es Cana market I bought a yellow sundress that turned out, on sobering up, to be a table cloth.

Still, back to the two books.  They are 'McCarthy's Bar' and 'The Road to McCarthy' by one of the funniest and most brilliant travel writers ever, Mr Pete McCarthy.  Before you ask, he hailed from Warrington not Ireland, and the premise of both books is "Never pass a bar with your name on it."  Difficult for us Raven's and despite extensive research, drinking holes dedicated to the corvid species are few and far between.  I have been to Ireland though.  Twice. And although my paternal grandfather hailed from Dun Laoghaire, I don't believe that slim connection makes me Oirish by default.  It would be akin to buying an Audi, shouting "Vorsprung Durch Technik" and immediately being qualified for a German stamp on your passport.  I only mention this because Raven Malone has a new Audi TT and came back from the teutonic awfulness of the dealership clutching the bill for a new wing mirror, plus the gizmo that makes it work and the artisan paint job; the total was an audacious £700.00 plus VAT. I'm still smirking because they threw in a bucket of dreadful customer service too.

Later the same day, I had an unsettling conversation with one of the medical secretaries who after two decades in the same job is packing up and heading back to her roots.  She also has a 'McC' in her name and was very forthcoming when I asked her reasons.
"Twenty three years in the Shires has sent me soft in the head.  At least when I'm home, I won't have to book an appointment with my friends to nip round for a cuppa."  She's right y'know; that's how it is around here.  It's one of the reasons I write, simply because the end result is better than beta-blockers or alcohol addiction.
"Is it that the grass is greener up there in Fazakerley?" I had to know and for decency, I've omitted the swear words.
"You bet it's greener."  Vivid emerald, tourmaline or gin bottle maybe?  "Too right. Not the morbid grey green snot we get around here."  Don't think she'll be back, do you?

When I first visited Ireland in 2002, it was mainly because I'd read McCarthy's Bar and decided to find out the truth behind the comedy.  Also, my chum Reggie and I had received glowing reports of the twenty shades of green around every corner; and the craic of course. The trouble with Dublin is that when you find the craic, you can't afford it.  I was charged the equivalent of a day's car hire for two soft drinks and a black velvet in Bono's hotel, The Connaught, with its octagonal bar crafted from rare Amazonian timbers. But don't let me put you off because it's a magical place once you get away from the tourist nonsense.  Like the mid-Summer's evening, dressed in Berghaus jackets to protect us from the cold, we decided to go for a walk in search of something a bit different from Irish stew. Crossing the Liffey on the newly constructed Millennium Bridge, our way was blocked by a young couple in tears and hugging as if it was their last day on Earth. They were obviously in need of someone to chat to.
"Been together since we was kids ... fell out over some stupid nonsense ... been apart for thirteen months and four days and we've just met up in a bar and I miss her so much ...bought the champagne because I had to know."  More sobbing followed before the bottle was thrust in my direction to open whilst Reggie held the glasses. "She loves me and we're getting married."  I hate to see a grown man cry like that but she looked happy enough.  Oddly enough, me and Reggie never talked about that couple ever again, mainly because we've rarely spoken since our return to the UK.

It's true what they say about choosing your travelling companions with care.  Like two old friends, I would gladly choose Pete McCarthy's books to travel with because his writing adds pure joy to a dull day. Download them for your e-reader of choice and laugh like a drain at his brilliant writing and natural good humour. Sadly though, as he is no longer with us, we've been robbed of a quality comedian who should have been a headline act on Live at the Apollo. Twice.

Tip of the Blog:  I'll keep quiet about my trip to Ballymena, mainly because I can't remember much about the place as I went on business, pre-Year 2000.  I do remember my lunch though; a Chinese stir fry, Ulster style. I also vividly recall the very accommodating waitress who came over and apologised because the chef felt he had under-seasoned the dish of salt chicken, salt pineapple and vegetables crafted mainly of salt. Twice. These days, I'm still on the total-exclusion regime and a sharp peck usually follows any offer of crisps or salt'n'vinegar on my chips.

Raven

Crime & Punishment

It's only now the remains of the last few weeks have settled on the crypt floor that I can put it all in perspective and have a jolly good laugh about the whole work situation.  HaHaHa ... there, I did it.  Mirthless and dry but I'm still laughing about the crime I've committed by saying "No."  As with the Retail Cathedral, most employers these days have bought into the fantasy that all staff must be 'fully flexible'.  After 13 years of yoga I can bend over backwards with the best of them but I'm not going to commit to working practices that make idiots of us all.  Part of my punishment was being given awful shifts by the Replacement Rota Fairy, i.e.

• 10-12     Ward Filing because it's out of control due to staff shortages
• 12-2       Oncology Ward Clerk to prep this weeks notes because they are so far behind
• 2-4         Ward Clerk on a different ward to the first two
• 4-8         The Bunker - more filing but different to this morning
• Home      I finally had my lunch break

On the whole, it meant I couldn't get into any role before the needs of the business pulled me in a different direction.  Just like the Body Shop really.  And when I tore myself away from the filing at noon, I found the Oncology Admin Manager mumbling to herself; this happens a lot.  So I urged her to get it off her chest and she was unexpectedly forthcoming,
"I didn't take this job to be my own friggin' ward clerk."  Realising her gaff, she carried on digging her own hole.  "No offence Raven but ..."
"None taken." I know how much in demand I am and am considering banking for the NHS.  If only there was a hospital near me.  Still, the OAM kept on digging.
"Not that there's anything wrong with being a ward clerk."  Really?  "But the previous one did naff all for two hours and now you're here, why can't I keep you all day?"
"Perhaps you should consult the people who promoted you into this seat."  A rare moment of tact and diplomacy followed where I didn't refer the perks of her new role including an office with a nice, shiny desk.  I don't even have a locker for my handbag but then us bottom-feeder ward clerks don't count, do we?  The OAM carried on muttering for minutes until she almost burst with one final question.
"Where exactly do you think the problem lies here?"
"Criminally insane management?"  Too late, it was out before I could button my beak and no doubt I'll be punished for my honesty too.  It'll come out in conversation next time I'm chained to the wall over some miniscule discretion I didn't commit.

It was about this time that I reached my maximum number of mosquito bites for the summer and the skin on my wing erupted in a rather spectacular way.  Red, itchy and the size of a saucer.  And once you start scratching, the itch gets ten times worse until you're forced to immerse yourself in boiling water.  Aaaaahhh.  Then, when all the creams in Pharmacy had failed to get a result, I went to the doctors for a course of leeches.  I also got weighed and my BP taken, and left with my beak drooping and instructions to 'lose the belly' or else.  Difficult when there's a fresh box of Thornton's finest on the Ward every single day; all gifted from grateful patients.  On Saturday, someone had opened a monster tub of Quality Street, the one with the skull and crossbones on the lid, and everyone who walked past followed the same little dance routine.

• Skid to a halt
• Gaze into the tub looking for the purple one, or for the toffee button
• Say "Oh I shouldn't"  Well don't then ...
• Dip a claw into the pot hoping for their 3rd favourite
• Say "Which is the coconut?"  It's the blue oblong in case you don't know.
• Fifty times I croaked "Take some pleeeeeeease!"

The Rules of Governance don't allow me to use a camera at work but this would have made a brilliant hip-hop routine worthy of YouTube.  I had four in the end but not the toffee button because I want to hang on to my expensive fillings.  Ten minutes later I was buzzing from the sugar rush after a whole week of sugarless tea so the paperwork got mopped up in a frenzy and I could answer two phones at once.  By the end of my shift, I'd come down so hard that I had barely enough strength to eat tea.  Just a light, Quality Street salad for me Alphonse if you don't mind ...

Tip of the Blog:  I thought I'd try public transport for a change and left the car at home on Wednesday; an act of folly which turned me into Jeremy Clarkson.  Long story but don't catch Leicester's UHL bus and expect to get on or off anywhere along the route that isn't a hospital. Especially, don't expect to get off at a bus stop. They're there, you can see them and stand at them, but they don't work.  All this for a £3.00 day ticket.  Priceless.  And thanks to the driver who did stop thinking I was lost or deranged ... I'm neither despite reports to the contrary. 

Raven

Stop Press

"Job 1.4" is no more.  This is how it happened:

On Tuesday of last week, I'd clocked in at 9.00 am and by 10.00 am I was cross eyed and staring at the PC thinking
"What moron developed this computer package?"  The question remains unanswered.  Worse, the notes I'd made the previous day made no sense and may as well have been written in pure Klingon.  Still, I soldiered on until 12.00 only to be told I wouldn't be needed after 1.00 pm because those losing their contracts were being taken to lunch.  And I was to be dispatched to the back room to catch up on the filing for a couple of hours.

Much mumbling went on while I was sorting paper until I had a visitor bearing a cup of tea and a smile.  Another lovely Sandra who is of a completely different generation from my Raven chum.  She patted my arm saying,
"They did it to me too Raven.  Decided I might just slot in and do a bit of typing. Y'know, like the skill I'd been using for 20 years to earn a living was just a hobby."
"That's exactly how it was sold to me too ..."  Sandra nodded.
"And after two months I felt old and stupid."
"It got to me after a couple of hours."  My beak hit the desk.
"Me too." Sandra nodded sagely.  "But I wasn't going to let their daft schemes beat me."

On Thursday, after much mulling, I fetched up determined to end this farce and was told that more senior management had called in sick and I was to amuse myself in the Citadel.  Seeking out even higher management who'd forgotten I was on shift and patently didn't want to talk to me, I was left with no choice but to tell the truth.
"Sorry but this is a crock of detritus you've handed me and I'm not doing it."  That should be enough but when questioned I felt the need to explain. "I have the procedures for three wards and the medical jargon of twelve consultants locked in my head." Not to mention all the other dross I have to take on board. "It's full."  Her answer was unexpected.
"Oh we thought you'd like a jolly bit of typing to slot in with the rest of the stuff you do.  Never mind ... we might get nice Dee to try out as a medical secretary like you.  She did a two-week course about ten years ago ... she should fit in nicely.  You'll train her up, won't you?"
I gave up.  Wouldn't you?

Raven

Ch-Ch-Changes

It's been a long time since we've tasted the delights of a full-on Summer of Love with unthinkable levels of dryness at Wimbledon and cricket matches that get to teatime without a wet patch on the wicket. Alphonse has even taken his socks off and I've gone all BoHo chic once more, wearing interesting trousers and beads, tonnes of them. Lucky me. I was born too late for rock'n'roll but I certainly embraced flower power in my youth with a curly perm wafting around my feathers and silver platform shoes.  And I looked a right div most of the time. How things change eh?  These days I still wear the silver bracelet I had for my 19th birthday but I can fix my own washing machine.

And on my return to work, there have been changes there too but nothing presented with the sweetness of a Strawberry Mivvy.  Let's take a step back and a fresh look at the pile of doodoo I've landed in this time around. "Job 2.1" is really "Job 1.1" and involves being a Medical Records Clerk, pulling files for clinics and wards, filing used files; although finding the missing ones is a forensic science, a bit like a scene from CSI.  There are traces of evidence as to who had it last but you'd need a massive IQ or a lie-detector to get to the truth.  Oh, and I get to cover on the switchboard when the Admin Team have a meeting.

Then there's "Job 1.2" which is Ward Clerk. I love these gems of the working week because time passes unnoticed with both phones ring at the same time and my shift ends usually with a treat from the Thornton's box and a nice cuppa.  And the downside?  Well, unless you're a fan of Dara O'Briain's devilish math's programme on Dave, you might find it mind-boggling to work out how the 300 bits of paper used during a 24 hour stay in hospital can be crammed into one small file. It's simple; there's a crib sheet and we stick to it or someone will inform the management.

Another gem of the working week is "Job 1.3" when I join the Medical Secretaries in their lovely, calm office at the end of the corridor with its secret door code that the Neurosurgeon refuses to memorise.  It's complicated and interesting and again, time flies because I'm enjoying typing stuff about drug doses, arthritic knees and how we can make people better.  We even have our own bathroom whose plumbing has to be 'flushed' once a week on a Friday morning to stop the build-up of legionella pneumophilia. Although I have to leave the room at this point especially if I've had two mugs of tea at breakfast.

So, imagine my horror on return to the coalface when the management said she 'wanted a chat'.  They do a lot of chatting and very little listening, but whether that involves any managing, who knows?  It seems that because one particular section of the asylum isn't working, I'm being co-opted in to help with the admin and typing.  Except there's a skill to getting the right person for the right job and our mob don't seem to have mastered it in 20 years. And you knew there'd be a catch to "Job 1.4" didn't you?  Their systems are utterly different to our new system which I'm now au fait with after five torrid months.  I don't have a computer login and won't get one for a month if I'm lucky. The audio machine doesn't work unless you put a heavy object on top to keep the lid down and I nearly told one of their doctors to 'sit on it' because she was so rude yesterday.

Technically, I'm ineffective and dangerously bored.  The only other Raven here I've called Malone, like the perfume, and she says I look pasty.  Personally, I'm brassed off because when the Rota Fairy comes back from holiday, she'll expect me to do double shifts in both parts of this nuthouse.  Me, I'm ready for a change and if it involves lounging around in Bohemian clothes and writing my memoirs, then bring it on.

Tip of the Blog:  On Monday, during visiting hours, I had a close encounter with my manager from the dairy days at Express.  It will cheer me up to call him 'Bumff' especially as he did nothing in two years except attend meetings and conferences, in Florida mainly.  Anyway, he chatted away about his new job and how it involved lots of international travel - not work then Bumff? He took in my expanded figure and lack of wedding ring and without warning, blurted out,
"What happened to you?  You used to be so NEAT!"  He meant prim and proper, but I've grown up since those heady days and without a moment's hesitation, I replied,
"What happened to you?  You used to have HAIR!"

Raven

Vive Les Vacances

That's all the French you'll be getting from me today, thank you as I've run out of steam after a pre-packing holiday binge at the out-of-town hellhole.  And don't I need a holiday even if it's camping at the bottom of the garden, although it's more likely to be a last minute hop along to the travel agent. Given a choice of venue, most birds head South for the winter but not us perverse Ravens, oh no.  Alphonse would cheerfully pick up his skis, Tog 24 jacket and goggles, and camp out in the Italian Dolomites until it snows or until the Tour de France takes a detour.  Me? As none of these options are appealing due to a nipped-in budget, I've found myself pecking through the girlie mags in W H Smith looking for giveaway treats.  One textured nail varnish duo called Corpse and Grit caught my eye but were snatched away by Alphonse before I made an idiot of myself. Years ago, I had to go cold turkey to break my addiction to fashion glossies with free samples glued to the front after I spend £100 on the damnable things and only gained a fiver back from the leftovers at a car boot sale.

So, where are we going?  I'm not sure I should tell you and I don't think it's a good idea to quiz Alphonse this afternoon as he's lying down, resting his wallet after buying two new shirts.  The one place we won't be heading is the South of France, especially to the Frejus/Saint-Raphael region of Provence.  In the days before www.tripadvisor.co.uk existed to rate your holiday experience before you'd actually left your armchair, I decided to accept a neighbour's offer of a free week in an exclusive chalet not far from Cannes.  My chum Valerian agreed to tag along and as she put it, "rough it a bit on the Cote D'Azur."  Have I mentioned she's psychic?

Having not researched the venue, how could I have known the chalet was on a camp site in the middle of nowhere?  More importantly, this is exactly where the French military machine put "Camp Colonel Le Coq" and hundreds of paratroopers, bronzed and battle hardened from their contribution to the first Gulf War.  They treated us to reveille at 6.00 am, every morning and when all those topless and honed bodies stamped to attention, it was a scramble to see who could get to the binoculars first.  Usually Valerian; she's 5'9".  We'd also decided to travel in September, a time where we were reliably informed that all the local buses had finished for the Summer and we had to get taxis everywhere.  So we signed up for the day trip to Monte Carlo, nipping into the Perfumeries at Aix-on-Provence on the way.  If you get the chance to visit, please do it because your nose will thank you, and your pocket.  For a knockdown price we both bought perfume in a black aluminium bottle, which is how they're stored for longevity; I eeked out the very last of Paloma Picasso about five years ago.  You won't believe this but scent from a glass bottle smells nothing like it does straight from the manufacturer and I've kept the container because the fumes still inspire me to write.

And what can I say about Cannes that you haven't already heard?  That it's beautiful and if you cross the main road too slowly, you will be mown down mercifully by a passing motorist.  And whilst we've done the Costas, the Algarve and the Balearics, my naturally perverse nature still yearns to stay in the Ritz Carlton at 58 La Croisette; majestic, settled on the sea front like a grande dame from a different age of excitement. She shouts "Dior" and "Chanel" and reminds us we once had flat stomachs and the pizzazz to wear a white bikini.  And the private blue and white enclosure for discrete bathing is adorable, and so are the men.  It's not such a great beach but we watched a couple of guys change from suits into Speedos in public, stripping right down to their aspirin-white Hom pants without getting a grain of sand anywhere; and with cigarettes stuck to pouting bottom lips.  Now that's classy.

Oh, there were other days on this holiday when we were cut off by the worst thunderstorm I've ever seen, had to escape to an air-conditioned shopping centre to keep cool and were both rendered speechless by the whiff of a stand-over-the-hole-and-pee toilette.  And yet we're still great friends despite me not mentioning once on the plane to Nice that the 'chalet' was really on a static caravan park with hot and cold running mosquitoes.  I've still got the scars.

And if you don't hear from me for a few weeks, look out for the bug-eyed Raven in cheap sunglasses wearing bubblegum scented flipflops and smelling of fruity shower gel.  My free 'Hot Plum' lippy goes beautifully with a touch of the Body Shop's honey bronzing gel, shimmering around me like an oil slick.  Repels insects though, so I'm happy.  We've staked a claim on a pile of builder's sand somewhere off the Norfolk coast with a picnic basket, while I finish editing my book. I love Summer, don't you?

Tip of the Blog:   The aforementioned Maybelline Hot Plum has got me into trouble with Job 2.1.  Apparently, the nurses have been asked to be more prim and proper, put their hair up and not wear strong perfumes or bright makeup etcetera because it frightens the patients. Where the nurses go, we follow suit and in this heat, I'm sporting full body deodorant.  Plays havoc with your pores but at least there's no white marks.  Bon Vacances.

Raven

Liverpool vs Leicester

It's not obvious from any angle but I'm a bit of a closet art lover.  Mainly I'm enthralled by the Italian Renaissance artists who are spectacularly hung in the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery.  The back-stories fascinate me; such as Michaelangelo and his dog-skin trousers or Piero di Cosimo who borrowed models from the local morgue.  But then I love a bit of modernism too, so you can imagine my unfettered delight when Job 2.1 announced a spring outing to Liverpool.  My thoughts immediately gravitated to the former City of Culture, the Beatles, Albert Dock and a chance to checkout the Marc Chagall exhibit at Tate Liverpool.

Secured in the epicentre of England, you can stick a pin in any map and find our nest, landlocked and far away from the coast on all four points of the compass.  So after exiting the charabanc into a sixty mph south-westerly roaring off the Irish Sea, my feathers were all over the place and I sought sanctuary in the Maritime Museum to batten down my undergarments.  Frankly, it was flippin' freezing but after a warming coffee and some moist banana cake, I was revived enough to make a run for the gallery.

Now, modern art has its followers.  And I find Tate Modern in London equally soothing and savage depending on my mood; I've even seen Tracey Emin's 'My Bed.'  It's a bed, get over it. But nothing prepared me for two live macaws in a cage who apparently get swopped every two months so they don't get distressed. Or for a breeze block filled with hard core.

You didn't believe me, did you?  And Chagall?  I didn't bother parting with £11.00 in the end because his paintings seem to consist of romanticised, fuzzy goats. But if I had to chose a favourite exhibit, it's called 'Blood of a Poet' featuring a wooden box filled with 100 glass slides, each smeared with a drop of poet's blood; and specimen list.

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/antin-blood-of-a-poet-box-l02859

 Curious, I asked the guide,
"Is the blood real?"
"Yeah. All from poets."  Result! Did the artist despise poets as much as I do? I needed more intel.
"Why poets?" Why not?
"She knew a lot of them in the mid-sixties and coaxed a drop of blood out every one she met.  It's an ironic statement, a bit like getting blood out of a stone."  Isn't it just?
"Ironically, our Path Lab's like that.  They aren't happy until they've got a large phial and a whole raft of tests to perform.  They're expensive too."  But they don't check for poetic credentials and certainly don't exhibit; that would be plain wrong.  Eventually when I stumbled into a darkened room showing a film of a barking dog I knew I'd exhausted my artistic bent.  It was time to take the Ferry 'cross the Mersey.

Except the Mersey looked like Cape Horn and was too choppy for a roosting bird like me.  Having suffered grave mal de mer on the Fuerteventura-Lanzarote ferry, I decided to give it a miss and head for the shops.  What an education?  Now I'm not a total stranger to Liverpool in general.  My ex lives in Aigburth, I've spent time at the dairy on Long Lane opposite the Jacobs cracker factory and in my cabin crew days, we used to fly out of Speke. And it's on Lord Street that I experienced the most amazing response to a first-aid situation, in Boots, on a busy Saturday when a girl passed out by the No7 counter.  My gay chum, Didier, did what any first responder would do; he raised the young lady's legs to a ninety degree angle thus allowing blood to flow back into her head.  I was fussing around, patting her hand when a blunt instrument swooped out of nowhere.  The girl's mother, seeing a man holding her daughter's ankles in a compromising way, swung a handbag at Didier's head screaming "Pervert" at the top of her lungs.  Poor bloke, he was never the same again, even after his ears stopped bleeding.

And Liverpool will never be the city of the Beatles again because the Cavern Quarter looks more like Temple Bar in Dublin; so loud you can't swallow your drink. Yes, the shops are great but they're the same as in any large city, except for the Harvey Nichols pampering room.  Downstairs, there's all the fabulous brands of my dreams and they sell Tom Ford perfumes too; Frangipani's favourite.  There I was spritzing and sniffing at the Jo Malone counter when two large glasses of bubbly appeared for customers having a hand massage; a yawning gulf away from the Body Shop's squash and biscuit refreshments.  Filled with envy, I so wanted to go upstairs and get "done up" for a night out - mani and pedi, fake tanned from scalp to toe, and a full head of heated rollers in a hairnet to go back to Leicester in.

We rolled away from the docks after a long day filled with Polish rock music, street theatre and a delicious lunch in a real Spanish tapas bar, all buoyed up with hope and energy.  Everything there seemed bigger, brighter and inflated by enthusiasm.  Yet I had to smile at the contrast between the two great cities [nowhere have I mentioned football yet!] On the streets of Liverpool, it's a common sight to see a young woman arms filled with designer bags and in her rollers bursting with the possibilities of a great night out and no-one calls her a 'chav'.  In Leicester, velcros look plain wrong accessorising any kind of ethnic clothing and, as always, my beak went down just a little as we exited the M1 at Junction 21.

Tip of the Blog:  My neck of the woods has just been shortlisted for the next City of Culture award and
I'm filled with sense of dread concerning my council tax contributions.  Yes, we have galleries, museums and an ancient historic past dating back to Roman times.  We also have the bones of Richard III and his statue overlooking the Castle Gardens.  I've even done 'the tour' with a group of Japanese visitors and know the very spot he was supposed to have been dispatched but is this enough?  Especially as no-one from the Lord Mayor's office has had the courage to ask the '24-hour Diamond White Drinking Circle' to vacate the benches under the great king's monument.  Liverpool vs Leicester?  You won't get very good odds at Ladbroke's.

Raven

Must Try Harder ...

Twice this week I've been admonished for not sharing May's tales from my neck of the woods but between you and me, it's been a bit of a struggle. I've been waking up at 5.00 am most mornings, cursing the little tweetie birds in the bottom hedge for making so much noise, before falling back into the pillows for an extra couple of hours of restless roosting.  Always an early riser, I'm finding the relentless late shifts at Job 2.1 as a right pain in the tail feathers and I'm seriously looking for a change before I expire.  So finding myself on a day shift for a change yesterday, I didn't expect a visit from the visible* management who asked,
"Why haven't you applied for the Oncology job?"
"I don't want to."  I can't deal with the emotional drain but I'm damned if I'm going to tell anyone that.
"Why not?"
"Honestly, it's not my kind of thing." 
"Why not?"  Here we go again.  Deep breath Ravens.
"The fact that I fail to meet the three main criteria for the role might explain my reluctance to apply for it."  Coupled with the fact that five of the current applicants have been there for 20 years, are keen to move up the fireman's pole and are nowhere near as cunning as I am clinches it for me.  There's even a tray of cupcakes bet on the outcome.  Yet her next statement made me bang my beak on the desk.
"You could learn."
"Not by tomorrow night I couldn't!"
"Well, I think you should show willing if you want a career here.  You really must try harder."  I heard the click of her heels all the way back to the stairwell where the carpet starts again.
"Indeed I must."  But the thought of wasting valuable sunshine hours applying for a job I don't want and am unqualified to do fills me with dread.  So I went back to the mountain of filing left by my apparent job-share partner MoBo who's so Raven, she keeps a pen stuck through her bun.

And I've developed an unhealthy fascination with some of the photos we get back from theatre.  Yesterday I picked up an A4 sized graphic image created by an endoscope and wafted it in Nurse Volvo's direction.
"Wassat?"  We've developed a guessing game akin to Anatomy for Dummies.
"Who's the consultant?"  I divulged his name.
"Orthopaedics then."  She nodded.
"Can you see the bone?"  Yep ... it's a patella.
"Gristle in fluid. Got to be a knee arthroscopy."
"Y'know if you worked a bit harder, you could retrain as a nurse?"
"Thanks but no."  Secretly, I'm working really hard on early retirement to the Caribbean Island where they film Death in Paradise with Ben Miller in a suit.  And after seeing Alex Kingston on Dr Who the other week, I want whatever she's been drinking.

I find it really odd in an age where technology allows us to see inside the human body yet we're still using the same audio typing machines I trained on in college to send letters on paper from one consultant to another.  I suppose it stops information going astray or worse, being hacked, but the process is still time consuming and increasingly complicated.  I've been specialising in Orthopaedic clinics lately; a far cry from the 1970s when I learned the QWERTY keyboard on an Imperial manual typewriter and I've got the claws to prove it.  I had my first taste of medical work in the 1980s when I was skint [yes, again] and temped in the local NHS typing pool.  There were four of us hammering away on electronic machines in a draughty office where a steam-driven IBM word processor sat unused in the corner.  It was the ultimate domain of the office management, a portly woman who also held an invisible job.  We were all equally baffled by her ability to have meetings yet achieve little or nothing. One morning she sidled up to me saying,
"You've been working really hard lately and the consultants are very pleased with your output."
"Really?  Thanks."  Wait for it.
"So I've decided to give you one of my tapes.  It's really urgent so you can use the word processor." The initial excitement was tinged with dread as I hauled myself over to the chair and waited for the lights to dim as I switched it on.  Oh, the tape started well enough. 
"Blah, blah, letter to so-and-so a couple of times, then next please on a separate sheet ...
Two pounds of potatoes
Green Beans
Cornflakes - Kellogg's
Apples
A large bottle of Tizer
Spangles ..."  Spangles?
The dozy woman had recorded her shopping list and expected me to type it up, and when I expressed my displeasure at this utterly menial task she snapped,
"You really must try harder if you ever want a permanent job in my department."  I didn't, so moved swiftly on to typing tenders for Norwegian oil rigs and fell in love with an Italian engineer.  Sadly, I should have tried harder with that one too.

Tip of the Blog:  I've been searching through my school reports hoping to bury the myth that I don't work hard enough, so imagine my disappointment when most of the end-of-term missives read "Raven Must Try Harder."  Yet when I arrived at GCE year, I trumped them all and got a Grade 1 in English Language.  Not English Lit though; I didn't care what Brutus was thinking when he stabbed Julius Caesar in the back.  With hindsight, perhaps I would have tried harder and paid attention during the performance at Stratford, had I known the young actor playing Cassius was called Patrick Stewart.

Tip Two:  *I know we also have invisible management but I've never met them.  They have offices with names on the door but I'm damned if I can work out exactly what role they fulfill.  Must try harder to investigate, then I'll let you know.

Raven