My recent ramblings

The Jay

Trips away from home are always rich experiences. Perhaps the richest was seeing my first ever Jay: a common British bird that I saw at the back of my sister's house in Halifax on Sunday. Never seen one either? Take a look at a couple of images courtesy of the British Garden Birds site:

http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/album/images/jay1.jpg
http://www.garden-birds.co.uk/album/images/jay6.jpg

The startling thing for me was its Magpie like tail: brother in law Neville, a bird spotter, tells me that Jays and Magpies are related. So no surprise there then!

MI5

This is a true story! As I was driving North on Friday they announced on the news on BBC Radio 4 that MI5 is to have a new boss, John Trympingtom Smythe Gore Blimey or some such. At the precise moment they said that (and I mean precisely, without a word of exaggeration) a Rolls Royce car with the registration number M15 DRW passed me ... spooky or a massive coincidence containing no significance whatsoever? You decide!! I didn't take a photo of it but a few weeks ago I saw a car in a car park with the registration number M15 BBC. Am I being followed? What do they want? Is it because I have just read SpyCatcher?

Scraps

I have opined on this topic before but I met a lady in Halifax and the topic turned, as surely it must, to scraps: those bits of fried batter that are a by product of the fish and chip trade. She told me that her daughter once went to their chip shop and returned with a huge bag ... fearing the worst, mother asked what daughter had done ... she'd been given the fish and chips they'd all wanted and she had been given a bonus big bag of scraps. none of this paying for them and none of this refusing to supply them! Bliss!! They call them bits in Halifax apparently. Still, a rose by any other name!

NHS Systems

This may make your hair curl. When pharmacy staff at a hospital I know of need to update the medicine records (I cannot bring myself to say medication!) because, for example, a patient is returning home or a medicine regime is being changed, the changes are entered into the computer based database and the relevant labels etc are printed off. The changes are saved as they should be and there you are. Well, actually, there you are NOT. Apparently, those changes are NOT being saved. So if there is an amendment to be made or more labels or records to be printed, the data have to be typed in again from the begnning.

What do you think about that? How much has this system cost and, more importantly now, how much are they going to cost in terms of inefficiencies and possible health consequences for the NHS's patients?

Just a few ramblings for your delight!

DW