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"Hello? Is that Mr Birks?" asked a woman with a curious accent just after I picked up the telephone.
Gawd, I thought, another cold call.
"Yes", I said, as non-committally as possible, ready to place down tbhe phone and walk away.
"I'm phoning on behalf of the Metropolitan Police. It's about your collusion."
"My what?"
"Your collusion. Last October".
Heavens, I thought. I knew that the poker sites were clamping down, but I wouldn't have thought that they would have called in the police. Although, if they had, it was unsurprising that they should pick on someone completely innocent.
"But I haven't been involved in any collusion."
"Not last October?"
"Not ever."
"With a bus?"
"Oh, COLLISION."
"Yes, your collusion, with a bus. We wanted to ask whether you were happy with the Metropolitan Police's handling of the incident."
"Er, well, it wasn't the driver's fault. I said so, and three weeks later the police sent me a letter saying that no action would be taken against the driver. That was it."
"The survey would take about eight minutes. would that be okay?"
"So, you want to waste eight minutes of our time on something which I have summarised in 10 seconds?"
"So, you don't want to take the survey?"
"No."
"OK. Thank you very much, and goodbye."
"Goodbye."
So, another helpful use of taxpayers' money, when they should be out there catching criminals, rather than surveying us with how happy we are with their response to an incident where they didn't really need to be called.
++++++++++
To the dentist yesterday for a check-up on whether my upper teeth have expanded. I can't say that they feel as if they have, although when I look at them in the mirror I detect a slight change in the shape. One of the fittings had worked loose, so I got a second chance of tasting the glue, which is apparently meant to be rather unpleasant, but which didn't bother me.
The surgeon was, at last, there at the same time as my X-Rays. He had a look and said "well, much as I love doing this kind of thing, I think we should just take out the baby teeth and wait a couple of months to see whether the impacted canines come through of their own accord. My hunch is that, with the brace providing the gap, it's likely that one of them will, while the other won't.
Which gives me another couple of months without the gold chain hanging on my upper gum like some kind of serious rapper bling. This Friday I'm having the two baby teeth out and then, the week after the extractions, the braace is being fitted. So we have progress at last.
The stress of the past week had brought some ulcers out on my lip, which isn't helped by the metal sitting in the roof of my mouth. MedJel is a ghastly pastille that does at least contain some local anasthetic. I wonder if you could somehow distill it out and turn it into some kind of class-A drug (reminiscent of the plan in Phil Dick's A Scanner Darkly to extract some kind of drug from 99-cent aerosol cans).
It's cold. I'll probably be collecting the car on Thursday in a raging blizzard. Christ, if I wanted Canadian weather, I'd move to Alberta.
Gawd, I thought, another cold call.
"Yes", I said, as non-committally as possible, ready to place down tbhe phone and walk away.
"I'm phoning on behalf of the Metropolitan Police. It's about your collusion."
"My what?"
"Your collusion. Last October".
Heavens, I thought. I knew that the poker sites were clamping down, but I wouldn't have thought that they would have called in the police. Although, if they had, it was unsurprising that they should pick on someone completely innocent.
"But I haven't been involved in any collusion."
"Not last October?"
"Not ever."
"With a bus?"
"Oh, COLLISION."
"Yes, your collusion, with a bus. We wanted to ask whether you were happy with the Metropolitan Police's handling of the incident."
"Er, well, it wasn't the driver's fault. I said so, and three weeks later the police sent me a letter saying that no action would be taken against the driver. That was it."
"The survey would take about eight minutes. would that be okay?"
"So, you want to waste eight minutes of our time on something which I have summarised in 10 seconds?"
"So, you don't want to take the survey?"
"No."
"OK. Thank you very much, and goodbye."
"Goodbye."
So, another helpful use of taxpayers' money, when they should be out there catching criminals, rather than surveying us with how happy we are with their response to an incident where they didn't really need to be called.
++++++++++
To the dentist yesterday for a check-up on whether my upper teeth have expanded. I can't say that they feel as if they have, although when I look at them in the mirror I detect a slight change in the shape. One of the fittings had worked loose, so I got a second chance of tasting the glue, which is apparently meant to be rather unpleasant, but which didn't bother me.
The surgeon was, at last, there at the same time as my X-Rays. He had a look and said "well, much as I love doing this kind of thing, I think we should just take out the baby teeth and wait a couple of months to see whether the impacted canines come through of their own accord. My hunch is that, with the brace providing the gap, it's likely that one of them will, while the other won't.
Which gives me another couple of months without the gold chain hanging on my upper gum like some kind of serious rapper bling. This Friday I'm having the two baby teeth out and then, the week after the extractions, the braace is being fitted. So we have progress at last.
The stress of the past week had brought some ulcers out on my lip, which isn't helped by the metal sitting in the roof of my mouth. MedJel is a ghastly pastille that does at least contain some local anasthetic. I wonder if you could somehow distill it out and turn it into some kind of class-A drug (reminiscent of the plan in Phil Dick's A Scanner Darkly to extract some kind of drug from 99-cent aerosol cans).
It's cold. I'll probably be collecting the car on Thursday in a raging blizzard. Christ, if I wanted Canadian weather, I'd move to Alberta.
