To Hell and Back - a ride to the NHS

am ill. have to go to the walk-in centre, it's to late for my surgery. get in the cold, get on the bus. nuts lady from the neighbourhood gets in. pushes another woman from her seat. shouts: 'i can't breathe! i can't breathe! please open a window!' people who don't know her open a window, people who do know her have a go - 'you're perfectly fine, you've been pulling this show for the last six years!' i wonder which brand of wodka is in her label-less bottle that she presses against her chest like a dead born baby.

nhs walk-in centre. waiting time 1.5 to 2 hours, okay, i've expected worse, to be honest. so many families with kids here, i don't know how they cope? after an hour, a paramedic wheels in a man who looks like he's been found on some street corner. he doesn't look like anything else much to be true, he barely has a face. wheelchair's presumably his own: a regular kitchen/living room chair with cheap wheels welded on. the guy grunts and stinks, and from the moment he enters the scene the doctors and nurses start to play game. musical chairs! 'who'll have to treat that guy? i don't want to, so i'll do anything else and speed up or down my work as i see fit to increase my chances to avoid that patient.' (the avoiding thing, it's not my imagination, no. the medical personnel who ARE otherwise doing a good job are saying it explicitly, loud, and he can hear and we can hear it: 'disgusting'.) we other patients cover our noses ears eyes and hearts and sit on.

(i'll leave out the very entertaining doctor episode here which includes massive language problems, fancy german cars, jobs offers and a good bit of musical chairs, again) ride back on the bus! fight between upper and lower deck, much talk of weapons. 'right in your fuckin throat man!' i'm actually afraid to get out of the bus, i'm exercising being invisible again, esp. as one of the lunatics sits right behind me - normal voice, to me: 'sorry about that'; fight voice, down to lower deck: 'you fuckin cunt, your lucky day man, right in your fuckin throat man'. ok, i'm prepared to die for my right to get out of the bus, now that the doctor's cured me. i survive, i get the laughing fit of my life. bad. never get ill, never get old.

Eating gets more and more difficult

three people in a hamburg bakery. we try to keep it down, try to go for something. cant. "i dont want this in my body." the customers still queuing for crap get momentarily irritated as we leave.

In or Out? Kings Cross McDonald's

Cola or Beer? King's Cross McDonald's.

The smell of this scene is killing me: pass the elderly drunkard couple on the left, smell beer, think: beer I will be drinking later! Pass the McDonald's entrance, smell burgers fries and coke, feel sick.

Beautiful.

I've got a girlfriend in Asia. She's tiny. Should she be made taller? Longer Legs by Operation aren't only hip and happening. According to my girlfriend, they have become an entrance requirement for a career in Hong Kong (and I don't mean: a marriage scenario...). 'What's your height? Sorry, tall calls only, please...'

1 out of 45 flatmates was studying to become a priest. He was good fun, he was homophobic, he was conservative to the bone. He had these bones broken in hospital - twice - as he was born with x-shaped legs. Without straight legs, he believed, he wouldn't find the woman to love. I've always regretted moving away from Hamburg, I never found out: did he meet her? Maybe in hospital, two believers having their legs broken in neighbouring beds, coming together finally? What could he possibly preach at his parish, somewhere up there towards Kiel? I cannot imagine, it's all odd.

14.09.2005, page 3 of a recently redesigned magazine: Special Report.
40% of page in total: sexy close-up of woman's mouth, syringe.
20% of text in total: everything you ever wanted to know about collagen. The Guardian thinks you're thinking about it - are you? "The beauty products from the skin of executed Chinese prisoners." - don't be fooled, that's only a headline, not a title... Shoot me, should I ever buy the Guardian again.