Mysteries of the NHS
I discovered that Liz is having a baby on Facebook. Well no, she's not actually having it on the social networking site, that would be ridiculous. In fact, she's thinking of having a water birth. I warned her that, in Romford, that means a public swimming baths, with about 40 other mums giving birth simultaneously. She was thinking of 'Romford' names for it like Aurora but I think I talked her round to Courgette (Parsnip if it's a boy). Vegetables are so in right now.
At work they are offering 'clinical masterclasses for CLODs', I noticed. That's 'Clinical Lead on Organ Donation', of course, what kind of clod wouldn't just know that? Meanwhile, our Assistant Director is being 'moved sideways'. A few days after he told us this he rang his PA claiming to be in Legoland. 'In Legoland' is possibly another term that means something to those in the know. Or perhaps he was really in Legoland, maybe when you're moved sideways, that's where you end up. At that level, it is hard to say. His PA is being 'moved sideways under him' while simultaneously remaining exactly where she is. The public sector is a place of many mysteries.
So is the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Why were they showing Lucio Fulci's 1970 film A Lizard in A Woman's Skin? Is it Art? Not exactly. Fulci went on to make Zombie Flesh Eaters. This is better, but not that much better. In front of me sat that guy who curates obscure exploitation movies for the BFI's 'Flipside' strand. It's a small world, the world of obscure exploitation movies. Then again, you'd expect it to be, wouldn't you?
This was an Italian movie set in London and dubbed into English, except for one brief scene they obviously missed in which the (English) characters start frantically jabbering in (subtitled) Italian. Of course, such things just add to the delirious pleasure of the film, which features Stanley Baker as a detective who whistles with a tunelessness that's almost avant-garde, and who at one point blithely orders the interrogation of every red-headed man in London.
The film also features one of the most gratuitous scenes in any film ever, in which the tormented (but is she?) heroine blunders into a room in a clinic and is horrified to discover a number of dogs hanging up with their bodies slit open and their beating hearts and squirming entrails on display. So much attention to detail has gone into the creation of this special effect that, at the time of the film's release, Fulci was almost arrested for extreme cruelty to animals, but its irrelevance is as breathtaking as its grotesquerie. Up until this point the clinic has seemed like just the kind of genteel place where upper-middle class people with over-strained nerves sit out on the lawn with tartan blankets over their knees. The director of the clinic apologises, but - amusingly - only for not locking the door.
At work they are offering 'clinical masterclasses for CLODs', I noticed. That's 'Clinical Lead on Organ Donation', of course, what kind of clod wouldn't just know that? Meanwhile, our Assistant Director is being 'moved sideways'. A few days after he told us this he rang his PA claiming to be in Legoland. 'In Legoland' is possibly another term that means something to those in the know. Or perhaps he was really in Legoland, maybe when you're moved sideways, that's where you end up. At that level, it is hard to say. His PA is being 'moved sideways under him' while simultaneously remaining exactly where she is. The public sector is a place of many mysteries.
So is the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Why were they showing Lucio Fulci's 1970 film A Lizard in A Woman's Skin? Is it Art? Not exactly. Fulci went on to make Zombie Flesh Eaters. This is better, but not that much better. In front of me sat that guy who curates obscure exploitation movies for the BFI's 'Flipside' strand. It's a small world, the world of obscure exploitation movies. Then again, you'd expect it to be, wouldn't you?
This was an Italian movie set in London and dubbed into English, except for one brief scene they obviously missed in which the (English) characters start frantically jabbering in (subtitled) Italian. Of course, such things just add to the delirious pleasure of the film, which features Stanley Baker as a detective who whistles with a tunelessness that's almost avant-garde, and who at one point blithely orders the interrogation of every red-headed man in London.
The film also features one of the most gratuitous scenes in any film ever, in which the tormented (but is she?) heroine blunders into a room in a clinic and is horrified to discover a number of dogs hanging up with their bodies slit open and their beating hearts and squirming entrails on display. So much attention to detail has gone into the creation of this special effect that, at the time of the film's release, Fulci was almost arrested for extreme cruelty to animals, but its irrelevance is as breathtaking as its grotesquerie. Up until this point the clinic has seemed like just the kind of genteel place where upper-middle class people with over-strained nerves sit out on the lawn with tartan blankets over their knees. The director of the clinic apologises, but - amusingly - only for not locking the door.
posted by martin at 12:24 PM
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