Return of Lazarus

Dental records is back by popular demand! My adoring fan club (Ragged Roses commented with a tastefully concealed degree of irony) are baying for more.

My subject matter on this occasion will drift seamlessly from the state of Bristol's hospitals, through local authority planning departments, touching on recycling and possibly concluding with the PC Blairite nanny state twaddle so perfectly encapsulated in the Health and Safety Executive.
Firstly I have just returned from one of Bristol's major hospitals where I was assisting my ancient mother to meet with a specialist in the general AWOL behaviour of the senior kidney.
It was (and indeed is) the monsoon season in the south west. People are gathering animals into pairs and bulk ordering gopher wood and pitch! "Inclement" is not the word for it and if Morrissey is short of material for a new whinge A Bristol hospital in the rain would be a great place to start.
Anyway, it was persisting it down and, of course there is nowhere to park. Eventually I find a space and park leaving mother to wait as I locate the actual bit of the hospital she has to go to and also to find a wheelchair. The work of a moment I foolishly concluded as I skipped off.
40 mins later I had not found the urology dept! This is because there are NO SIGNS ANYWHERE mentioning "urology" and also because it is concealed in rather the way platform nine and threequarters is in Harry Potter. A whole new party game is born "seek the concealed consultant"! Only marginally more fun than root canal surgery but teams can play. Anyway eventually I located the lost consultant, by now I was truly soaking wet and naively asked for a wheelchair.
"Can't have one!" I was informed. I checked the date. No it was not April 1st. I asked again and once again was advised to "bring my own!" Now let us just hold it there for a moment to savour the incalculable stupidity of this piece of advice. If saying really inappropriate and unhelpful things were an olympic event .... well I was in the presence of Michael Phelps.
I persisted, coming as I do from a long line of terriers, and eventually, whilst being made to feel the luckiest little angel in heaven, I was allowed to borrow a wheel chair. THIS IS A HOSPITAL remember!
It turned out to be a cross between a cheap skateboard and a Tesco trolley and only worked (I am being serious here) if you pulled it behind you! No really!
So picture this .... I am dripping, soaking wet, dragging my 87 year old mother through stair rod rain along a pavement with no ramps (really I promise you this is true; no ramps) for about 10 minutes to the department with no name.
Medical care not a speciality, but character building a real strength eh?

Which brings me to planning departments.
This could be a very long section so I will cut to the chase. My line of work means I am responsible for a large victorian building. This building has been "improved" over the years and in the late 40's early 50's some worthy put in new windows.
These windows are: metal framed, inappropriate, single glazed, inefficient, ugly and broken... oh and constitute not only an aesthetic risk but also an environmental and security risk as well.
So I want to replace them with wooden framed, in keeping with Victoriana, windows. The new windows will reduce energy wastage, save money, be pleasing on the eye and secure. So of course the planning department won't let me do it!
How I love them!

So to recycling. Now our local authority have reduced the cost of collecting our bins from approx £15 per lift (these are big wheelie type bins the sort with a wheel at each corner) to £5.40. Good news, if a little perverse given the concerns re landfill etc. But this news came in the same week as the stunning little bombshell that we will now have to pay to have our recycling collected.
Perhaps at this stage I should point out that I run a school and so the irony is priceless! The only people in my area who have to pay to have their recycling collected is the children! "Education, education, education" .... oh ah!!! And now to the penultimate twist.... In the same week I have to pay between £300 and £1500 to have the school accredited with some Euro generated environmentally respectable kite mark. The Local Authority carry out this test!
Just one more irony to spice up this already "Yes Ministerish" pudding; you recall the cut in the cost of landfill collection... well not for us! Because the Health and Safety regulations won't let the bin men push the bins up the tiny incline necessary for collection! I am allowed to of course, but not our bin men.

More notes from the Dali painting I live in may follow if there is any enthusiasm for my particularly ascerbic brand of blogging.