17 October 2017 (Tuesday) - Bedfordshire Clanger

It turned out that yesterday wasn’t the end of the world; the yellow sky was caused by Saharan sand picked up by the hurricane that hit Ireland. These “end of the world”s are usually something of a disappointment.

Over brekkie my dog cuddled up with me; he has been rather soppy these last few days. As he snored I watched an old episode of “Dad’s Army”; it passed the time. I then quickly sparked up my lap-top and peered into cyber-space. Apart from friends going off on holiday, not much had happened overnight really.

I set off to work. As I drove the pundits on the radio were talking about hate crimes. Apparently the reporting of hate crime is on the increase, but the rate of successful prosecutions in these cases are falling. I sometimes wonder if all of these so-called “hate crimes” really are what they are billed to be. I can remember a chap at work who was accused of one of these hate crimes. He was accused of being very terse and impatient with one particular chap. At the formal hearing the chap bringing the allegation claimed he was being victimised because of the colour of his skin. The accused pointed out that his own wife was of the same ethnic minority as the chap bringing the allegation. The accused went on to say he wasn’t being terse and impatient because the supposed victim was of an ethnic minority; he was being terse and impatient because the chap bringing the accusation was incredibly stupid. Documentary evidence of said stupidity was presented… it all got rather nasty.
I’m not saying that all hate crime is like this. I am saying that it is easy to accuse.

I finally got to work; it took over an hour and a half. I had a rather good day but for one phone call. Someone phoned wanting to know their blood group. It is policy not to give any blood test results directly to patients, or even to admit that a test has been done. We have no way of knowing that they aren’t a nosey neighbour, and the simple knowledge that a blood test might or might not have been done breaches all sorts of confidentiality. However this person was adamant I told her what her blood group was. Her friend’s child had chickenpox and she needed to know her blood group to know whether or not she was immune to chickenpox.
Most laymen would think blood groups – immunity to chickenpox WTF ?!?!
A laboratory full of biomedical scientists with a combined experience of over a hundred years thought that too.

With work done I came home. The roads were slightly better coming home; it only took an hour and a quarter. I came home to an empty house; "er indoors TM" had got home first and had taken the hounds for a walk. The house is eerily quiet without them.
I got a message. They were delayed as Fudge had wandered off in the dark as he does. Eventually he was located and they came home.

Usually on a Tuesday the clans would gather, but seeing how this would be the only night both of us would be home this evening we stayed in. We cracked open a twenty-quid bottle of plonk and watched yesterday’s episode of “Star Trek: Discovery”. It was clearly written by people who’ve seen a lot of Star Trek; there are so many references to what has gone before. *But* no one has said “f…” in Star Trek before.
We then watched tonight’s episode of “Bake Off”. Bedfordshire clangers ?...

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