Do you know, I solved all the problems of the NHS yesterday? Well, in my head, that is, whilst lying on a trolley coughing and hoping someone would notice me. The woman on the next trolley had pneumonia and the man over the way had had some nasty reaction to Prozac. Elsie, in the bay around the corner, had fallen of the toilet and was having difficulty making herself understood to the South African woman with the joint degree in physiotherapy and condescention. So, the problems with the NHS are: too much gossiping and not enough organisation. Oh, and stupid people like me, of course, who go to the doctor's surgery for some antibiotics and a quick go on the nebuliser for a nasty cold, and end up being sent to the hospital across town for a chest X-ray to make sure there's no clot on my lungs. I had meant to go to the doctor, and leave in plenty of time to make it to my lecture at 11 o'clock and then work at 3 o'clock. Little did I know I would be begging the consultant to let me out of the hospital at 11 o'clock AT NIGHT. I had an X ray done at 4 o'clock, seven hours before I was finally released. I kept asking if they were going to admit me overnight(because if they were I had to start working on my escape plan) and they kept saying they had to review my X ray. When the doctor finally looked at it, it took him no more than three minutes. He realised that I was not going to die and promptly (kind of....) let me out. I feel bad for moaning about the NHS, as they are over worked and under paid and have to put up with ungrateful time wasters like me. But all I wanted to do was go home...... And, much to my shame, I kept having to run off and have a little cry in the patient toilets that had no locks on the doors. AND the only books I had to entertain me were an Anthology of Critial Theory (there's only so much cheering up that Freud and Marx can offer a girl) and White Noise by Don Delillo (also, nothing much there to make a poor girl smile, unless it's in a bitter, ironic type way at the misery of life and the fear of death). AND I couldn't smoke fags, but that has kick started my giving up smoking regime, and I am now proud to say that I haven't had a cigarette since 3.30 pm on Sunday. I have, instead, taken to sniffing my smoky clothes and sniffing the two Silk Cut that I have hidden under the bed. Posts from now on will be filled with bitterness and rage and nicotine craving like never before. I've been smoking since I was a wee slip of a thing, 14 years old, and I used to smoke Embassy No 1 with my first boyfriend. We'd hide on Loughborough University Campus on our way home from school and furtively smoke and make out. Every good (and bad) thing in my life involved smoking. I'm not just Madeleine, I'm Madeleine who smokes fags. I think I'll go and listen to Hefner's Hymn For the Cigarettes and cry myself to sleep, to dream. Love and Nicorette Madeleine xxxx _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail sinister@missprint.org. To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to majordomo@missprint.org. WWW: http://www.missprint.org/sinister +-+ "sinsietr is a bit freaky" - stuart david, looper +-+ +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "peculiarly deranged fanbase" +-+ +-+ "pasty-faced vegan geeks... and we LOST!" - NME April 2000 +-+ +-+ "frighteningly named Sinister List organisation" - NME May 2000 +-+ +-+ "sick posse of f**ked in the head psycho-fans" - NME June 2001 +-+ +-+ Nee, nee mun pish, chan pai dee kwa +-+ +-------------------------------------------------------------------------+