My days of having to take holidays when the children are not at school are, thankfully, long over. But the lure of a few days away from the office and attending a number of courses (some with more attractive 19th holes than others) got the better of me. When I got back I switched on the TV News and was arrested by this headline “Campbell Court Case drama!”
“What on earth has Alastair been up to now?” I wondered, whilst at the same time angry with myself for possibly missing a high profile political drama. Then I realised it was not the model of spin in the dock, but Naomi. Apparently she went to bed after dinner with Nelson Mandela and was woken up in the early morning by two men knocking at her hotel bedroom door who thrust a pouch of dirty stones into her hands. Nice work if you can get it. Those stones turned out to be diamonds; but who cares? I would willingly have volunteered to be the delivery boy - and would certainly have done the gentlemanly thing and washed the stones first.
Still upset that Alastair had not made prime-time viewing I suddenly felt a twinge of sympathy for Mr John Black, the president of the Royal College of Surgeons. He managed to raise the stakes in the increasingly bitter and divisive arguments over the infamous Working Time Directive. His survey shows what many medical practitioners and commentators have been saying for some time - training is being diluted, and patient care put at risk, as a result of well-meaning but poorly executed legislation.
Why the sympathy? If Naomi can overcome Alastair to be the top news story, what chance has Sir John got? It is clearly not the importance of the story that captures prime-time news but the celebrity involved. Now, if Sir John really wants to apply news pressure on the Working Time Directive I would suggest we team up to knock on Naomi’s door.
Even if we make no progress it would liven up the news!
Tags: WTD
“Apparently she went to bed after dinner with Nelson Mandela”
Stephen, how can you impune that saintly man’s reputation with such a slur!
Mind you if Naomi was to offer …….. who can say what might happen!
SonoView you are of course right. What a difference a comma or two would have made:
“Apparently she went to bed, after dinner with Nelson Mandela, and was woken up…” or perhaps “Apparently, after dinner with Nelson Mandela, she went to bed, and was woken up…”
At least that is what I think took place. Listening to the court evidence though nothing would surprise me! But no slur on the great man intended. Glad you spotted my deliberate mistake.
I fear the only ’stones’ that John Black could offer would be kidney or gall stones -and they would, no doubt, have been obtained by ’spilling blood’!
But he would also, of course, have to deliver them during a ‘night on call’!