The World Is My Oyster (offer invalid at Goodge St)

[liadnan]

So, today's hearing having ended early in a certain amount of hysteria (the reasons for the hysteria probably being comprehensible without detailed and lengthy explanation only to litigation-oriented lawyers, and I've been banging on about that side of my life too much lately), I decided to pootle off to UCH to see about fixing up some physio on my shoulder, courtesy of my GP's referral.

She'd given me a choice of UCH (which is fairly convenient for work) and the Royal Free (which is fairly convenient for home). Mindful of advice once given to me by a wise if flaky woman I opted for the teaching hospital...

Fourteen sodding weeks on the list. Balls to this (memo to self, must talk to health insurers tomorrow). So, thinking dire thoughts, I wandered down TCR to the tube station and slapped my Oyster card on the reader.

No response, and no response when doing so more carefully on other readers.

After some exploration, in the company of a friendly chap in the ticket office, it transpired that my Oyster card thought I had an "incomplete journey" (ie hadn't touched in) ending at Goodge St at... 2.30 AM.. (at which point the friendly ticket inspector's voice trailed away in embarrassment). It might have been more understandable if my journey starting at Goodge St last night (after an interminable lecture entitled "Law and Economics 20 years on", a worthy competitor for prizes in dullness, incomprehensibility, pointlessness and further dullness with its subject matter) and my journey ending at Goodge St that afternoon hadn't been otherwise accounted for on the record. The only possible explanation is that I've taken to exploring the tube network in my sleep. While no tubes are running. I shall take to wearing a "please look after this bear" label and would ask you all to be kind should you bump into me at Hounslow one night. At least this explains why I've been so tired recently.

Either that or Goodge St is some kind of temporal anomaly, but I refuse to make lame Hitchhikers references.

Rose tints my world, keeps me safe from my trouble and pain (no points).

Comments

[eccles.livejournal.com]

I thought temporal anomalies in train stations was more of a "Long dark tea time of the soul" deal?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hypatia_/]

nah - that'll be Neverwhere.

Rose tints my world, keeps me safe from my trouble and pain

whatever happened to Fay Wray?

I can recommend a good physio centre in Harley St if you go down that route.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_hypatia_/]

"that route" being the private variety rather than a road you happen to walk down regularly.

I'll get this lj lark right eventually...

whatever happened to Fay Wray

[liadnan]

She died five months ago.

Took me a minute for the line to come into my head.

Re: whatever happened to Fay Wray

[liadnan]

Fay Wray. I presume she died of being 97. As far as I know Columbia (Little Nell) is alive and well.

[sshi.livejournal.com]

ha, fourteen weeks is nothing. try a wait of nine months for a hand specialist. Not Amused.

[ailbhe]

I could talk about incontinent breastfeeding mothers on maximum outpatient codeine dosage and waiting lists...

[sshi.livejournal.com]

too, too long.
at least this is pretty minor in the meantime, as these things go.

[coughingbear]

I thought they were both teaching hospitals (but then I tend to assume all central London hospitals are full of students). Can dis-recommend UCH's A&E, though I know nothing of the rest of it, because I once went there to have a cut finger stitched up, and they did it without any anaesthetic, saying cheerfully that it wouldn't really hurt. It did.

[nicnac.livejournal.com]

It's just a jump to the left...

[tefkas.livejournal.com]

Marmalade sandwich? :-P

Words cannot express how much of my life I owe to UCH (check the Gorefest in my userinfo if you want the link), so although I appreciate that it's not perfect, and 14 weeks is a hell of a long time to wait, having been on the receiving end of a heck of a lot of treatment there, I have nothing but praise for the primary care team (of the time).

[hano.livejournal.com]

I shall take to wearing a "please look after this bear" label

Does this mean that eventually, there'll be a bronze statue of you at a major London railway terminus?

[lizw.livejournal.com]

If the cards are going to refuse to work because of incomplete journeys, I'm going to going to have to go and be Politely Displeased at officialdom. There's no reader at Wandsworth Common yet, so I have incomplete journeys every Wednesday evening and Thursday morning.