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I walked up to the hospital this morning for my annual meeting with one of our fine NHS doctors. A few years ago I had a blood test that came back saying my white blood cells were a bit low (but still within acceptable parameters), so they sent me up to the hospital for more tests. The doctor I saw said he wouldn’t have bothered referring me based on the original test, but they still gave me some tests, including an unpleasant extraction of some of my bone marrow and again they came back being more or less fine, but with very minor warning signs that something might eventually go wrong, but if it did, what I might have got (but probably didn’t) was treatable anyway.
It was a nerve-wracking time, but ultimately all seemed fine, but the doctor advised that I come back the next year, just to see how things were. The next year things had actually improved and my blood was normal again, but as a precaution he asked me to make an appointment for a year’s time. The same thing happened the next year and now we are in a little annual meeting where I go to the hospital, they do a blood test, I wait for 25 minutes and then I see the same doctor who says that there’s almost certainly nothing wrong with me and then tells me to make another appointment.
I am sure he does not remember me from year to year, just checks his notes, sees what he said before, checks the results, is convinced again that the initial decision to refer me was over cautious, but then, displaying his own caution tells me to come in again. He told me that one day, if all is well, he will just tell me not to come back. But I quite like this annual meeting, to be told that I am not suffering from a terrible illness, but with the slight level of jeopardy that one year he might tell me I am, but with the additional safety net that even if I am that they can totally cure me.
The NHS is wonderful is what I am saying here. Even if I feel guilty for using up one syringe and a swab and 10 minutes of the staff’s time once a year. But I am not a great drain on the NHS and have certainly put in more than I have taken out. Some people would get angry that they are paying for something that they are not using. Those people are idiots. Because if one year the news was suddenly less good, MY LIFE WOULD BE SAVED BY THESE PEOPLE. I mean, not forever. I will still die. But not from this. If it is anything. Which I am certain it isn’t. All the doctor would say is “I can’t guarantee that there’s anything wrong with you.â€
I will see him again next June. Already looking forward to it.
I walked back down Wood Lane and was made sad both by the sight of Grenfell Tower and all the work being done to turn the BBC into apartments. And these two buildings standing opposite each other with the Westfield almost bang in the middle just heightens the sense of the divisions in our city. I mean it’s going to be lovely for the people living in the BBC - luxury apartments, two tube stops just across the road, the Westfield and the new John Lewis on their door step, private members clubs and cinemas and gyms and the opportunity to drunkenly piss into the Blue Peter garden at night. But I can’t believe the BBC let all of this go. I accept change and regeneration is something that is bound to happen and that places that matter to you in your life will not always be the same, but it’s still hard. BBC TV Centre meant so much to me growing up - this magical building that every kid in the country knew the postcode of, Roy Castle tap dancing round the fountain and all that jazz. And then I got to work there for a bit and that felt impossibly thrilling. Every time I went there that excitement was there. And so seeing it being ripped apart and changed and turned into a middle class Heaven is heartbreaking. Of course there was a bad side to TV centre too and it must be a difficult sell in some ways to convince people to buy an apartment that might be on the exact spot where a 70s entertainer committed some terrible crime.
The personal slight is exacerbated by the proximity of the recent disaster. NHS, BBC, social housing problems - it felt like my morning was a heavy handed satire of the issues facing our country.
At least my blood is normal. Nothing else is. And the possibility of something going horribly wrong still lurks silently in both cases.
A preview in a ridiculously hot room in Luton tonight, with a more comedy club crowd and it went OK, but it made me realise I am a lot further off than I thought. It’s slightly overwhelming the amount of stuff that I need to achieve in the next six weeks (and I was so tired today by the late nights and early mornings that I had another afternoon nap). I will do what I can do. I can do no more.
You can now download
a PDF of the Emergency Questions book to stick on your e-reader. Chris Evans (not that one) is already through the 600 books I sent to him last week, and there only a few boxes of the first edition copies left. We’re going to get some more printed up, but if you want a First edition one then you probably need to purchase it in the next week. It's very gratifying to have so many books being sold and getting so many positive responses to it. And if you buy it you are not only getting a funny book but possibly funding the filming of 30 more podcasts. I mean, what's not to like about that. Plus investing in a first edition book that might one day be worth more than you paid for it.
