The Italian job

oh no... but really, no!

Well, I hope so. But I do have to go to the Magistrate Court tomorrow morning.

But really only for a formality... he says.

Well, it all started just before christmas 2008. I was just about to go to work when I found my car clamped outside the house. First I tought I had parked where I shouldn't have, but then I remembered "Hold on a minute, there is no restricted parking in my street."

And then I saw the notice that I had not payed the road tax (as could be seen on the taxdisk which quite clearly stated that my tax was due on the 31 August 2008).

So, a couple of phonecalls later, one to the DVLA to pay the tax (£185), one to the highway robbers who clamped my car who demanded £100 to release it I thought the affair to be settled.

How wrong was I. A few days later I received a letter from the DVLA stating that I had to pay another £40 for the 3 months the tax was due and a penalty of £40. But clearly that was it, I thought.

Wrong again.

A few days later I got another letter from the DVLA stating that I had to pay tax that was due and a fine. Like the first letter it "has been issued by automated process and therefore does not cary a signature". Assuming that my previous payment would have taken care of this reminder letter I ignored it, believing the matter to be resolved.

You guessed it, wrong again.

In March I got a letter from the DVLA summoning me to appear in front of the Magistrates' Court to answer for why I had not payed the fine.

So, tomorrow I will hopefully speak to a real person instead of computers who issue automated responses. And settle the matter once and for all.

Wrong again... ?

I hope not, though the lates letter informs me that the prosecutor will also ask for a minimum contribution of £60 towards legal costs.

Sorry, come again? The DVLA can't get organised to keep their records updated properly and I have to pay?

Well, we will see.

Wish me luck.

Give me a break, this is getting more absurd by the minute.

Don't get me wrong, I am enough of a hypochondriac myself to be worried about (mostly imagined so far) illnesses and diseases I have, but the present obsession with Swineflu is a bit bizarre even for me.

Let's get the facts: so far only 29 death have occured in Mexico that have definately been contributed to Swineflu, only one, an infant, in the US. In all other cases outside Mexico the symtoms have been described as very mild.

A term of "pandemic" does not refer to any fatality rate of a disease, just to the spread of the disease, e.g. being found in population of more than two countries. It does not therefore not equal "killer disease on a global scale" like the Black Plague.

In any given year, the normal flu occuring at wintertime will kill between 8 - 12,000 people in the UK alone, around 20,000 in the more populous Germany.

So why am I subjected to terrified schoolkids from Devon on the TV news,
trembling and crying with fear that they may have contraced Swineflu (implying that they might possibly die of it)?

Is it just my cynical self that, at least at this stage, suspects other motives behind the present hysterical obsession with the Swinefly, notably that the global recession has sudenly disappeared from the News, and with it the actions of Banks, large scale Corporations and the greedy behaviour of (Bank) Managers and the apparent inability of governments to remedy the crisis fast and decisively?

Of course, fighting a flu makes everyone (erm governments, politicians, even the WHO) look good, with the stockpiling of medicine (namely Tamiflu, a reminant of the last global killer disease that was not to be, so wasn't it good that we produced all that stuff back then that would have otherwise gone to waste?) and besides, crying children are so much more pityable than trembling Bank managers with their final salary bonuses.

Conspiracy theorist, me?

...there aren't many, but one is that you can start telling everybody about your evermore increasing ailments and illnesses and they can't object (unless you are male because then you wailed to mothers, girlfriends and wifes all your life anyway). Well, so here is mine:

... nice little bump, ey? Well, I thought so... and it is there for over 2 months by now... hence I wanted to see a GP.

But this being Britain, you don't walk into a medical centre anymore, oh no. Because if you do, a mild mannered receptionist will calmly inform you that you should have phoned first, to describe the symtoms to the receptionist or a nurse, who will then relay them to the GP, who in turm will then phone you to let you know if you need an appointment. Which is al allright if you are a pensioner and have all the time in the world (another one of the positive things when you are older) - unless you so old that you could pop off any moment, or on holiday.

But me, being a member of the oppressed poor, I can not just go home to wait at the side of the phone for the doctor to call me in for an appointment. So that meant any possible appointment would be days away.

So off I went to work ("The GP will phone you just after 9:00" had the receptionist informed me with a rather maternal tone), and low and behold, just after 11:30 I got the call from the doctor (good thing I wasn't in pain then, innit?).

After describing the bump to him ("well, it's a sort of bump on my wrist.... is it on the top or on the back of the wrist, well depends on how I twist my arm?"  "Doh!" - well I didn't say that, of course, always be nice to taxidrivers (unless you lived too long in New York and then you give them hell and they drop you in the middle of nowhere), cooks and waiters (unless you lived too long in New York and then you demand all possible alterations to the dish and can never be sure what "additions" are on the plate when it arrives) or GPs (unless you lived too long in New York... and couldn't possibly afford a good one so you never meet a GP anyway).

After that very scientific description from me, the GP said that it sounded like I had a ganglion ("A what? Arrrgh, what is it, is it like a little alien under my skin?") and I would need to come in and see him.

"Ah, really, funny thing that, coincidentially I just happened to drop in earlier this morning, would have been a such a good opprtunity stop wasting taxpayers money phoning me and using the time for the phone call to actually look at the ganglion yourself there and then..." was another thing I didn't say.

So now I going to see a nurse who undoubtedly will tell him all about the ganglion on Monday and quite possibly one of the outcomes might even be that he needs to see for himself (why is it that terms like "efficiency" never pop up in you mind when you think of England, I wonder).

So, of course, always keen to expand my knowlegde about ganglions, I googled it. "A ganglion cyst (also known as a bible bump) is a swelling that often appears on or around joints and tendons in the hand or foot. The size of the cyst can vary over time. It is most frequently located around the wrist and on the fingers. The term "Bible Bump" comes from a common (but discouraged) treatment of pounding on the cyst with a Bible." ...riiight, pound it with a Bible....

ewwwwww....

Well, not much of a Bible person myself, that presents a little problem, and I wonder, would it also work if I used a Star Trek DVD instead?

Well, perhaps I just wait until Monday and see what the nurse recommends, because one of the things that doesn't get better with age is the tolerance to pain (unless you are male and then chances are you always have been a bloody whimp when it came to pain threshhold in connection with diseases such as the common cold)