Under the Affluence of Incohol

 

I feel now is the right time to share another precious memory of my late friend Barry, see the background link for more. No special occasion, anniversary etc; I just find myself in the mood right now. This occurrence took place in 2003 during the Rugby World Cup. I went to Barry's house to watch the quarter final match loaded down with a few bottles of "Old Git", a popular red wine we used to imbibe during TV sports. By the end of the game those bottles were gone and Wales had lost 28-17; and lost to England to add insult to injury. (England famously went on to win the Webb-Ellis Trophy that year.) We were both in a dismal mood as I left the house Barry shared with his wife and stepson to make my way home. Then I did something rather strange. To this day I can't recall exactly why I made the decision, probably from my sadness mixed with drunkenness, but I chose to travel home a rather unusual way. Barry lived in Cutteslowe, a district in the far north of Oxford. Dissecting the city from north to south is the River Cherwell, a tributary of the Thames/Isis. Instead of heading for Banbury Road to catch a bus or walk down the pavement into town, I headed for the Cherwell in the hope of walking down its bank into the city. I knew that there was a path along the river bank from where the river reached the University Parks. The problem was, I had no idea if there was any pedestrian route of any description between there and Cutteslowe. Before I had walked less than an hour I discovered that there was not; but being very stubborn and determined, I kept going. I struggled through some rather muddy pastures being eyed up by some very intimidating bulls and eventually came to a stream flowing into the Cherwell from the left, the side I was walking. It wasn't a wide stream, maybe a dozen feet; therefore I conjectured that it must be fairly shallow. I decided to wade across it; after all I had come that far and would rather get wet feet than walk all the way back. So I strode out into the water, and discovered that it was much deeper than it looked. Its bed was soft and so I sank in up to my waist. I struggled back onto the bank I'd just left gasping with cold and shock. This was November and the water was freezing. I had no choice now, but to walk back the way I had come, all the way upriver to Cutteslowe. I tried to call Barry and tell him what had happened, but my mobile phone was in my trouser pocket and therefore had been submerged and ruined. I got back to Barry's house about an hour later freezing and dripping. He lent me a spare pair of trousers and allowed me to use his landline to call home. My daughter, aged eight at the time, was a bit worried because nobody had heard from me for about two hours and she was expecting me home. Barry couldn't stop laughing! I knew he would see the funny side of it. I couldn't share his amusement at the time, but did a while later, on reflection. The thing is, Barry never let me forget it. At Christmas his present to me was a rambler's guidebook with a footpath atlas, and... a pair of water-wings! The card read: "Dear Ben. Happy Christmas and I hope this will be of use the next time you go walking while under the affluence of incohol!"
See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/11/finding-barrys-grave.html.

Hospital Grim Reaper

 

Luckily not a real one this time, like we the example we've discussed before, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2021/12/hospital-pm-scares.html. This time it was an ordinary human being, a man called Leon Gillespie. He decided it would be amusing to climb onto the roof of the Glan Clwyd Hospital in Bodelwyddan, Wales dressed as the Grim Reaper, wearing a black cowl, a mask and carrying a scythe. He stood above the emergency entrance glaring at patients as they were brought in. Gillespie, from the nearby coastal town on Deganwy, was arrested after four police cars and a fire engine arrived; that's more than usually attend a serious on-site crime or fire. He was arrested and pleaded guilty in Llandudno Magistrates Court to causing a nuisance or disturbance on National Health Service premises without a reasonable excuse; and also refusing to leave when directed to by the police and NHS security. He was fined £200. He declined to comment on his motive. The Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board made a brief statement to express their outrage. They stated that they maintain a "zero-tolerance approach to abuse, aggression or nuisance on all their hospital sites." They have a "commitment to protecting patients, staff and visitors from disruptive or distressing behaviour." (I doubt that!) I can just see the school-marmish scowls on their faces. Source: https://metro.co.uk/2026/08/05/man-dressed-grim-reaper-climbed-onto-hospital-roof-stared-patients-29302265/. I don't know who exactly Leon Gillespie is, but I must say when I first heard about this story my por-dar was bleeping like a faulty alarm clock. I understand that some people might find this prank rather inappropriate, but it is unfortunately another of those moments when I have to force myself not to laugh. People who serve in our hospitals do develop a dark sense of humour as a defence mechanism, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2026/07/they-wont-all-get-your-jokes.html and: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/11/i-really-shouldnt-laugh.html. However that particular form of gallows humour is not shared by the administration... in fact no sense of humour at all can be found anywhere within their parochial and bumptious souls... at least among the minority who haven't sold them.

A Question...

 

Have you ever felt something that I always have: There is a secret. Everybody knows it except me. Everybody else is conspiring to keep it from me; alternatively I'm the only person in the world who cannot comprehend it. When I think about this, I picture myself asking my old telephonist friend Barry about it, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/11/finding-barrys-grave.html. I'm not sure how he would reply. I don't think I'm suffering from paranoia; I think it's more having an eccentric personality in a large institution; and the NHS is the world's third biggest employer, after India Railways and the People's Liberation Army of China. Conformism and convention are an unspoken essential in such an institution. I sometimes heard a particular question asked when people's names were mentioned: "Is he normal?" The individuals who asked and answered those questions never defined exactly what was meant by the word normal and I actually wonder if they even could. It's one of those "it just is" things; and in fact that is another hospital catchphrase. Maybe it's just human nature. We are a social species and so certain codes of behaviour are essential to cooperate with others, but there are two problems with that theory. The first is that the most important code for social creatures is natural law. This refers to laws present in all human societies without which no human community could function. They include a prohibition against murder, the unlawful ending of another's life; theft of another's property and harm done to their person, unlawful assault. Natural law is not confined to humans. A wolf that broke natural law would be driven away by the rest of the pack. However, the NHS is a rare aberration. Servicepeople who do harm to others, even patients, are tolerated as much as possible. In fact the establishment accommodates them desperately for as long as they can, literally until the national statue law intervenes, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/05/killer-nurses.html. That brings us on to the second problem. At the same time, servicepeople who respect natural law, and even NHS regulations, but also exhibit harmless nonconformist behaviour are swiftly eliminated; for example people who make comedy videos are mopped up within eight days, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/01/thirteen-years-on.html. For this reason it is obvious that from the very start my career in HPing was doomed. If they hadn't kicked me out in 2012 they would have found a way to do it soon afterwards based on another pretext. Deep down I always sensed it. I used to say many times to my partner-at-the-time Susan, whom I called the night I was suspended; sentences that included: "... when they sack me." Not "if". "when". I think this is the secret.

More UCH!

 

See here for essential background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/07/uch.html.
I have gone back to check out the main entrance and public areas of the University College Hospital in London. It was indeed grand, intimidating and pretentious as I predicted; but it was slightly different to what I expected. It was smaller in terms of footprint, which may simply be inevitable on the crowded ground of such a large city. The main entrance consists of a reception desk on the left, manned solely by civilians, and a very prominent security station opposite; another effect of London society. Between them are rows of public seats; not very comfortable ones, similar to those in A&E, see above. The hospital makes up for the lack of horizontal space by going vertical. The floor is dwarfed by a huge atrium rising about eight to ten floors above it. Like the JR West Wing, the atrium has balconies; this architectural template has unfortunately not gone away. However, perhaps the planners are now finally reading the HPWA because the glass parapets are far taller, over six feet. Still, I think the danger will only be removed when they copy the JRH and install floor-to-ceiling windows, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2024/12/jumpers-update.html. The back door to the main street is only about fifty feet away and it opens onto Beaumont Place. There is a lift bay to the north side where I found a pair of baryatric wheelchairs parked below a decorative montage of the hospital's history. The lifts carry you to almost all the ward and departmental areas. To the south side is a huge area with the strange name of "Podium". I went there and saw that it was a standard visitors', public and staff rest area combined with a cafeteria and several shops selling the usual newspaper, sweets and snacks. The PALS, patient advice and liaison service, office was tucked into a corner. There are posters everywhere introducing members of staff from all disciplines, but none from portering that I could see. they included a security officer, catering operator, physiotherapist, an orthopaedic doctor, chaplain, nurse and radiographer. There was also a corridor art gallery; another feature of hospitals that seems to be universal, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2026/01/breaking-bad-art-gallery.html. There was also what looked like a museum cabinet displaying some military medals, presumably awarded to members of staff during wartime. There were also very old documents and letter next to them; I didn't stop to read about any details. There was an internal pharmacy office on the ground floor that had a portable air conditioner, a pipe snaked through the door and the extractor vent was shoved into an overhead duct. The whole place was painted white. Not just pastel with a bit of colour mixed it; it was pure white. After walking around for a while I finally found the most important thing I was looking for, a brother porter. He was dropping off a patient in a wheelchair in the public seating area. His uniform was dark blue and he wore a name badge saying "Peter" with the word "porter" in smaller print below it. I said: "I'm one of you! A hospital porter at the John Radcliffe, Oxford. Pride and dignity, brother!" I saluted him. Peter looked confused. He was young and clearly a recent African immigrant. He didn't reply, but he did smile back at me. For some reason the open area directly outside the main entrance on Euston Road is decorated by what looked like a giant pebble. I found my very brief visit to the UCH interesting, but rather dismaying. The place is bland, corporate, tense and cheap. The decorations and pretty pictures did not solve those matters. My dismay is not mixed with surprise.

They Won't All Get Your Jokes

 

As I've noted several times, if you are a HP or indeed in any acute healthcare profession, it's likely you will develop an unusual sense of humour, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2025/03/rose-cottage-humour.html. Unfortunately not everybody will understand your sense of humour if they have not shared your unique experience of such service. This can easily lead to misunderstandings and offence. You have to be careful whom you share some of your hospital jokes with. Case in point: I was on a patients' forum a while ago, one which I won't identify, when somebody was telling the story of their endoscopy appointment. Endoscopy is a medical technique in which a doctor examines the inside of a patient's body using a small electronic camera. It is an alternative to diagnostic surgery. It is far less invasive and can usually be done in outpatients. It has only been carried out for a couple of decades because the technology has only recently been invented. The most common kind of procedure is to insert the camera, called an endoscope, into a body cavity such as the mouth, anus, vagina, urethra etc. One of the forum members was talking openly about his anal examination and I wrote as a reply: "I once dated a woman from endoscopy. She was surprisingly vanilla in bed!" This went down like a lead balloon. Nobody openly criticized me for it, I received no PM's from the moderator; but the usual replies and reactions were absent indicating the social media equivalent of a stony silence. I deleted my comment and things went back to normal. The joke I had made was one distinctly embedded in hospital culture. Jokes are funnier when you don't have to explain them, but maybe I should have just left it on the thread and posted an apology-stroke-explanation below it. It compares the practices of endoscopy to extreme sexual activity; bondage, S&M etc. The term "vanilla" was used by one of the characters in the book Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James, a bestseller about violent sex. It means normal sex without the violence... As the late great Frankie Howerd used to say, please yourselves! I really should have known better, but I can be a bit insensitive at times when reading other people on forums. Hope readers can avoid my mistake.

One for the Fesshole

 

The Fesshole is a social media phenomenon which acts as an outlet for people to reveal dark secrets and wrongdoings they have committed; funny not criminal. It is short for "confession hole" and probably refers to the anonymous opening in a church confessional between where the priest sits and his parishioner. A friend made me aware of it and some of its content is hilariously embarrassing; therefore the least I could do is contribute to it myself, and I have the perfect ingredient. Sometime back in the '90's I was having a drunken night in with some brother HP's and a few hangers on. It started in the social club after the 2-10 had finished and ended up in Arthur Sanctuary House, the main staff accommodation block. One of the revellers was called Oswald, not his real name. He was not a porter and was not even on the civilian staff. How he became attached to JRH society was always a bit of a mystery. He ended up marrying a nurse, but that was years later. Anyway, a nurse's dress made its appearance... somehow and Oswald put it on. This was for a joke of course, except he kept it on all night. (He eventually turned out to be bisexual, leaning heavily on the homo side; and that was not a surprise to anybody who knew him in those days.) We eventually left ASH and took a raucous stroll through the hospital grounds. This was relegated to the nearby streets after security threw us out. I can't quite recall what happened after that except that at about 3 AM I found myself wandering home carrying Oswald's stolen nurse's dress.

In those days I lived with my parents shortly after splitting up with my daughter's mother and when I got home everybody was asleep at that hour. I can't remember my thought processes, or what passed for them after about five pints of cider and a dozen vodka shots, but I decided to put the dress in the laundry basket. I think I just wanted to see what happened if I did. It took about two days and then my mother called me into the lounge where she was reclined in her armchair as usual. "Ben, could you come here for a moment please?" She always addressed me like a head porter summoning me to the office. "Ben, I found something strange while doing the washing; it looks like a nurse's uniform. Do you know how it got there?" I shook my head and replied: "No idea, mum." I was desperately suppressing the urge to laugh, and she knew it. My mother was disabled by a condition that was never identified, but it resembled multiple sclerosis and worsened steadily during her lifetime. As a result she suffered a lot of frustration by not being able to do much physical activity. By the time she died in 2006 she could barely walk a dozen steps. I think this was the main reason she was extremely paranoid, controlling and nosy. She wanted to know every single thing that went on in the house and in our lives. She continuously criticized everybody else over everything we did. She once challenged me because she thought I had been running a tap in the bathroom too hard. She worked this out by listening from the bottom of the stairs. Her ears were like a bat's. The problem was she always had absolute conviction in her own conclusions and believed she was incapable of making a mistake. Once she had decided on something she never changed her mind. As a result a lot of her judgements were wrong. I found this very bothersome. I think this was why I decided to plant the nurse's dress in the laundry. I knew she would find out and her brain would immediately start spinning like a flywheel to come up with some kind of explanatory model for how this situation had come about. I wanted some payback and gained a lot of catharsis from it. (This was for many other reasons to do with my terrible relationship with her.) She stared at me suspiciously while I struggled to keep a straight face. She frowned. "Are you sure, Ben?" "A hundred percent, mum." I responded. There was a long pause in which she glared at me balefully. "Alright, you can go now." Immediately afterwards I heard her on the phone talking to Isabel, her unofficial stepmother. I couldn't hear all the words, but I could guess the gist of the conversation: "A, B or C has happened. It's all Ben's fault and he is lying about it!" The phone-call lasted about an hour. I deliberately avoided moving closer to hear the words because it would have caused me a lot of emotional pain; see here for background: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2023/10/am-i-gate-child.html. After that my father came home for work and it was his turn on the stretching rack. There were no raised voices. Arguments between my parents were always calmly one-sided. My mother accused and attacked, and my father just bowed his head took the shit. At one point I heard him say: "I really know nothing about this, Marga!" She didn't believe him. They themselves had a very rocky marriage involving all kinds of ménage à plusieurs that I won't describe in detail because it involves more painful childhood memories. If you're curious, this is a where I have covered some of it previously: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2019/10/peter-croft-and-ben-emlyn-jones.html. That was not the end of it. For about three weeks afterwards my mother drove herself into a frenzy trying to solve The Mystery of the Appearing Nurse's Dress. At one point I overheard her talking to her friends that she suspected my father of having an affair with one of the domiciliary nurses who cared for her. I was tempted at that point to come clean, but my bitterness stopped me. For most of my life I had resented my parents enormously; my mother for her malice and my father for his weakness. So I left the outrage to play itself out. Did I enjoy it? Yes, I had to giggle continuously under the blankets on my bed so nobody could hear me. Do I feel guilty? Maybe slightly, but not to any great degree. This all happened about thirty years ago. Eventually the storm blew over and our family returned to normal. I retrieved the dress from the washing machine and returned it to Uniform Issue. There you have it! I've confessed! Not that it makes any difference. My mother and Isabel are dead and my father never reads the HPWA. Still, I hope you who do so enjoyed this little acknowledgment of misdemeanour.
See here for more information: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2020/02/humiliation-reply-to-stefan-molyneux.html.

The Weirdest HP Job of All

 

Almost a week has now passed since the opening of Disclosure Day and so anybody who is really hardcore about its themes will almost certainly have seen it. See here for my review without spoilers: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2026/06/disclosure-day-day.html and with spoilers: https://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2026/06/disclosure-day-film-review.html. Therefore I can talk about its content more openly now, but this article is also a spoiler just in case you don't want it; so feel free to stop reading till after you've watched the film. The final scene is, of course, full of amazing imagery and tension. It's hard to analyze everything that happens in those climactic few minutes, but I was surprised to find it includes a hospital portering element. What happens while the unscheduled historic TV broadcast is underway is that a wheelchair arrives in the studio. I can't remember if it is Hugo himself who pushes it or somebody else; whoever they are, they are the most unusual HP ever! You see, the wheelchair is covered by what looks like a small oblong builders' tent. This is unzipped and under that there is a strange dome shaped metal contraption and when that is moved aside you see it is protecting a tall grey alien. I'm not an expert on ET medicine, but I got the impression that the creature is old and in bad health, in fact it might be from the Roswell incident which would make it at least eighty years old. In the previous scene outside the TV centre while the viewer's attention is focused on the bad guys and good guys fighting over the electrical supply, you see a mysterious white lorry pull up round the back. It turns out that it is ferrying the alien in its wheelchair. The alien gets to its feet with the help of a built-in hoist and in the last couple of minutes of the film, it interacts with the people in the studio. It is incredible that Steven Spielberg's latest summer blockbuster pays homage to we proud and dignified HP's and even suggests we could play a role in the most incredible revelation the world has ever seen. If it ever happens for real, could I please wheel in the alien?
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2020/02/ufo-disclosure-portal.html.