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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