20 October - NHS. Down the tubes
There were plans for today, grabbing some photos that might have made a blog, but it
wasn’t to be. A phone call said the internet was down so off to Islington I went,
there was a programme to edit for broadcast on Thursday. I took a bag of techno-bits
that I didn’t really expect to be a lot of use. It was my first train trip to
central London since God knows when, January maybe?
On the way to the station I bumped into an old mate. Not seen him since 6th June.
“How are you John?”
“I am OK but friends are dropping like flies.”
“Covid?”
“No from neglect”. And from there the conversation took the same course as the
Metro newspaper (below) which I picked up just a few minutes later. (†)
Mengele Hancock has a lot to answer for.
Click image for Metro front page.
I put on my mask to descend the Abbey Wood station stairs and my glasses instantly steamed up.
I had to remove them for fear of breaking a leg and finding out for myself
the true state of the NHS. Something I would prefer to avoid.
I wasn’t worried about making the journey, the chances of picking up the bug is close to zero and in any case
the trains were quiet and the Northern line was nowhere near anyone having to sit in adjacent seats.
On the entire journey I spotted eleven people not wearing masks. Three men and
eight women, probably around the proportion that one might expect to be exempt.
As half expected, the router was kaput due to a failed power supply and it being a
Cisco modem and router it was not a standard unit that can be ordered from Amazon.
A call to the ISP saw one couriered from SE26 to EC1 is just under an hour. The
Radio 4 programme is safe. The ISP was brilliant.
† This story is absolutely true. Only the name has been changed.