The elevated view of the City from my hospital window

On Sunday, at 3pm, having spent five years trying to get a conversation with 111, I was sent across town to University College Hospital which is either the top of the West End or the bottom of Camden. Readers, let me tell you that 111 is not a good way of getting things done. I can make likenesses in my mind with dealing with financial regulators.

I arrived at UCH and everything picked up. The A and E service is immaculate. Within 45 minutes I was triaged to a doctor who drained my bladder. Pension Plowman, you may not have many honours but you are now the holder of the highest withholder of urine at 3,2 litres , drained and recorded by this fine hospital.

You may ask how I became the champion piss taker of London and I will not be able to say other than I had no wee for five days and now carry a tube from my willy which was not up to its work. This may sound a bit too much reality but our pension minister advised us to get real and I am.

As a result of my question “why does my bladder hurt?” I am now subject to a urological investigation and find myself tied to the bed of my 9th floor ward from where I type to you.

Urology is not neurology (which I had benefited when landing on my bonce), it is the study of how your bowels work and while we know that my bowels  did not share , we do not know why?

All of which is a roundabout way to explaining why yesterday I produced and you  had no blogs. I had no mechanism to pass my piss in a urological and in a digital way.

This is alarmingly confusing to my readers who yesterday phoned  wanting to know why, they expressed concern as to my capacity to carry on , especially as it has only been a week since my colon was carved open in Princess (dis) Grace, the posh persons hospital.

There is no obvious connection between the visit to the two different hospitals. Despite them being a few hundreds of yards from each other UCL and Princess Grace are a world apart. In my ward is Alan, a charming who openly admits his life has been waster on gang violence and in prison, another fellow tell me that he is so thin because of starvation, I am in the ward of odd balls.

I had a nice lady last night who has one tube missing but at 42 wants another baby, she is Jamaican of origin, she is keen to be for a second time British Mum (she told me that).

In short I have come from a hospital of the royals to one of oddballs and I rather like it. The people here don’t know what life will bring them but are confident that their NHS will set them right. They are right, so long as there are institutions who will put the Pension Plowman out of his pain and find out why he cannot wee, we as a nation take some responsibility (something very far from evident from my private sector partner BDA).

I will get back to the main matter in hand today. But by way of explanation to those who were concerned there was no blog on Monday 14th April, it was because I had no computer. The reason why I blog today is that I have a room looking out over a wet London which has space for my set up and a son and partner who came over last night to deliver it me.

I cannot write how happy in my heart I am for Rory McIlroy. My computer was stuck on this screen when I opened it. It was a comment made after his Saturday round but could be made of his life today.

I am taking a bit of perspective , remembering the sunshine we have recently had and thanking God and Britain for the NHS. The City cannot buy the NHS – nor encroach about what it does for the people who need it most. I have been one of them and like MccIlroy it feels an awesome position.

The glamorous work that the NHS does covers much but is based on the work in the wards and the piss I took to University Hospital has been well dealt with!