Paper Mask- The Book

 

See here for essential background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/08/cabal-on-paper-mask.html.
I occasionally go through phases in which I feel totally masochistic. This time, in order to stop myself beating my own forehead with a cricket bat I decided to do something I've been plucking up courage to do for a very long time, I've read the book of Paper Mask. The novel A Paper Mask was published in 1987 and penned by the film's screenwriter, a Scotsman called John Collee. The author is surprisingly mainstream, having been behind far superior productions such as Happy Feet and Star Cops. He comes from Edinburgh and graduated in medicine from its university. He practiced in Cambridge, probably Addenbrooke's, also Bath and Bristol. This may be why the Harris/Hennessey character flees to Bristol under his fake identity. Matthew Harris is very like Ripley, the antihero of a series of books by Patricia Highsmith. As I've said before, he is not a likeable or admirable central character. He is a ruthless liar and exploiter; and a coward whose only emotion is fear, and he only feels it when his own welfare is threatened. As a doctor, Collee was in the perfect place to do research for his story. It is quite a short book just 224 pages in the edition I have, see illustration, and I read it in a couple of days. Of course the most interesting element of the book for me was how it portrays the hospital porters so I paid special attention to the first couple of chapters, before Matthew Harris assumes the identity of Dr Simon Hennessey.
 
The fictional hospital where the story starts is called West Harwood. In the opening scene Matthew and Alec are waiting to transfer a patient from a ward and the former laments about how half of a hospital porter's life is waiting for other people. The narrative is in Matthew's first person. He and Alec place bets on what is wrong with the patient. This first glimpse of portering life, especially the dry humour, is quite accurate, although it's an exaggeration to say half our time is spent waiting for others; maybe twenty percent. However, in the next scene I read: "There's not much pleasure to be derived from endlessly transferring patients from ward to ward." Firstly, that is not the only role played by a HP and secondly, most people who expressed a preference said that they did find that duty enjoyable. I was even once told that by an obs and gynae consultant who had portered during his holidays from medical school for two months. "I'll never forget it." he said. "It's changed my life." Harris is a very observant man and during his aforementioned downtime, he watches the doctors and nurses at work, suturing wounds, inserting drips, changing dressings and the myriad of other medical tasks; and he begins to see doctors as "a pretty ordinary bunch" and that medicine was "ridiculously straightforward". This is a deluded judgement. Doctors and nurses have to train for years and continuously study hard to learn to do what they do. Experts always make things look easy to a layman. Harris and the real Simon Hennessey become acquaintances and Harris feels bitter envy towards him. When Hennessey dies Harris feels a "rush of pleasure". One thing psychopaths are acutely aware of is social status. This is why psychopaths cannot usually endure the HP life; it is too lowly and there are too many people above them. I have known at least once psycho in my own HPing career, but he did indeed soon leave portering to go "up the ladder!", albeit by a more conventional and lawful route than Harris. Harris is unwilling to get too close to his brother porters because "I'd be infected by their hopelessness." He notices how in the pubs near hospitals where the staff congregate (the West Harwood appears to have no social club), there is subconscious social segregation. The doctors and nurses crowd round each other in the lounge while the porters congregate by the dartboard. This is an accurate observation, but, unlike Harris, I never saw it as a bad thing. Alec is a more developed character in the book than he is in the film. He actually expresses some of the same sentiments I do: "We're a crucial part of the system, Matthew. We inject a bit of humour, a bit of goodwill. You can't put a price on that." Alec is actually a proud and dignified HP! Harris dismisses his friend's ideals with cold cynicism. "Any fool can wheel trolleys about." Not true; it takes a special kind of person to do that task well and stick to it. Harris scornfully rejects Alec's positivity, believing that it is nothing more than the false aggrandizement of menial labour that is characteristic of "the Scottish working class." He also refers to Alec as "a blundering Celtic oaf." Matthew is different to his brother porters in that his parents were quite middle class. You can tell that by the accent of the character in the movie. His mother ran a shop and his sister is a hotel manager in Hong Kong. His mother cannot "hide her disappointment in me." Harris considers himself a washout; but he is also, paradoxically, a snob. The plot of the book is more or less the same as the film, which you would expect seeing as John Collee adapted the script himself. There are a few deviations though; for example, Christine gets her own voice in the form of letters to a friend at the start of each chapter. Harris also first tries to kill Alec by running him over in a car, not pushing him off a cliff. The finale of the book is far more open-ended. There is a hint, on the very last page, that Matthew Harris is not going to get away with his chicanery after all. See: https://www.johncollee.com/novels.
 
Because the novel is a first person narration, it is difficult to grasp the author's own opinions on hospital portering. All we know is the derogatory attitude the Matthew Harris character feels towards us. The book portrays HP's in a manner that is equally patronizing and insulting; however I got the impression that this attitude might after all be an essential element of the theme rather than the author's personal derision. I feel far more well-disposed towards John Collee now I have read his original novel. Generally, my opinion of both the book and film is the same, but my feelings towards the story itself have mellowed slightly.
See here for more background: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2012/11/paper-mask-online.html.

Day in the Life of a HP

 

A number of videos have appeared online that are so stylistically distinctive they have quickly formed a new genre. The genre could be called something like "a day in the life of a Silicon Valley employee". A typical one would be about four minutes long and on TikTok. It would be technically well produced and be narrated by the uploader, usually young and female, as she describes her day working for one of the Big Tech giants; Google, Twitter, Meta etc. I say "work", but one thing that strikes me immediately when I watch them is that these people do very little of it. These Silicon Valley office blocks are more like hotels or leisure centres than workplaces. The employee arrives and usually consumes a very posh coffee with various yuppie accessories like toffee cream or aniseed sugar lumps. They then have a meeting for about quarter of an hour followed by lunch at the office's posh restaurant, then a trip to the gym or sauna, followed by another coffee on the roof garden, etc etc; you get the picture. Here's a prime example: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamitzelromero/video/7171572776258604331. Of course this genre has been mercilessly parodied, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azSYS5WDJLQ (I voted Leave, but I still laughed at it). The other day I thought about doing one for hospital porters. Obviously I can't film it myself because I am not an active serving HP anymore, but I can write the script. Here it is:
 
A Day in the Life of a Hospital Porter
featuring Ben Emlyn-Jones- John Radcliffe, Oxford
Hi there! I'm a hospital porter in Oxford and welcome to a day in my life! I get up at 4.30 AM; two alarm clocks means I can't oversleep. I admit I'm a bit tired because I didn't come off duty till 10 PM yesterday and I'm a bit hungry because I was too exhausted to eat dinner when I got home. I walk from my home in Littlemore through the crystal waters of winter rain. It's dark for the whole journey this time of year. Once I clock in I am sent to Delivery Suite to clean a theatre after a pretty gory caesarean section/hysterectomy. I change into theatre scrubs which I remove as soon as I finish because they're covered in blood. After that, thank God!, I'm redeployed to general theatres. There I crouch for forty-five minutes in Theatre 8 holding onto a patient's gangrenous leg while Mr Jefferies and Dr Patel amputate it. After it is wrapped I get to carry the leg to the incinerator for disposal. Then, finally I can have my morning coffee. It's an instant from a forty kilo wholesaler's can can, mixed with Sainsbury's powdered milk and sugar from a bowl filled with dark stains from previous teaspoons. Is that coffee, tea or cocoa? They always add an unexpected extra flavour! Before I can continue work I am called to the boss' office because a sister from CCU reckons I was rude to her last night. My head porter is a college graduate who is younger than my daughter and has never done a day's portering in his life, but who cares? I tell him I can't even remember who this bitch is... Well, I didn't call her that to his face. He believes her and not me of course. I spend the rest of the morning walking from ward to ward, from department to department, doing all kind of jobs. At midday a corpse arrives at the back door. Judging by the way he smells he was dead for quite a while before anybody picked him up. Then finally it's lunchtime! I go to the canteen, trying not to think of the body. The JRH kitchen serves me the best chicken pie and chips you can get outside... a chip shop. Then finally it is 2 PM and I'm due to go off duty, but then... lo and behind! My 2-10 relief never shows up. Is he off sick?... No, he actually booked leave three months ago, but nobody bothered to tell me. "You don't mind staying on, do you, Ben? If you don't our shift will be in the shit big time." "Oh alright, I say." An hour later I wish I'd kept my mouth shut. There's a major incident; train derailment in Banbury. The Horton General is taking the walking wounded and the rest come to us. I shuffle battered, bloodstained, broken moaning and weeping people around for what feels like an eternity. At 9 PM I go to the toilet. When I open the tap to wash my hands I can see faces in the water. These have to be the best fatigue hallucinations I've ever had! At 10 PM I finally stagger to the bus stop. I fall asleep on the bus and the driver wakes me at Cowley Centre, six stops after the one where I was meant to get off. I walk the rest of the way home, treading carefully on my sore feet, and smile as I open my front door and see a pile of envelopes lying there. Bills galore! Gas, electricity, council tax; and they've all gone up. Time for bed now I think. And that's all folks! Hope you liked it. Like, share, subscribe!

NHS Winter Crisis 2023

 

I'm a big fan of Carl Benjamin, aka "Sargon of Akkad". This internet pundit has a panel show called Podcast of the Lotus Eaters which he co-hosts with about half a dozen other contributors plus some guests. In one programme during the Christmas period, two of them, Harry and Callum, discuss the current crisis in the NHS, which has become an annual event. The Lotus Eaters propose a radical explanation and solution. Harry and Callum begin by referring to one of the Lotus Eaters' articles: https://www.lotuseaters.com/despite-its-virtues-it-is-time-to-let-the-nhs-die. After that they make some good points about the nurses and ambulance strikes that tally with some of my own, as an insider. Why are the government so indignant about the pay-rise demands when they squander multiple times that much money on their ridiculous attempts at monetarism? Why do they employ so many administration officers for the sole purpose of "diversity and inclusion", in other words, anti-white activism? Callum says: "If the nurses didn't work for the government they would be able to negotiate better." That got me thinking. The problem is though, what's the alternative in healthcare to taking the King's shilling? Even Harry, later in the programme, is critical of the private agencies' role in NHS contracting. He understands that they have a parasitic relationship. Source: https://odysee.com/@lotuseaters_com:1/the-quick-fix-to-the-nurse-strikes:6. The reason the NHS is so beloved by the British people is because the provision of free healthcare by the state has saved so many lives that would otherwise have been lost, as well as improving so many other lives that would have otherwise been led in pain and disability; for the simple reason that some people couldn't have afforded it. The supposed "paranoia" about its privatization is nothing of the sort. It has happened almost to the point of completion and the service has not improved as a result, it has degenerated. However, it is true that the ultimate problem is bureaucracy and inefficiency. The government seem to be incapable of reforming it. (Do they want to?...) I am not a socialist and like the idea of libertarian capitalism. However, does private always equal good and public bad? The Lotus Eaters propose a "dynamic" and "entrepreneurial" private sector insurance based system with a social safety net. This is the standard on the European continent. Maybe it is time to think the unthinkable. If my eighteen year-old self could hear me say that!
See here for background: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-nhs-religion.html.

Happy New Year 2023

 

I'd like to wish everybody who is a hospital porter, has ever been a hospital porter, or will ever become a hospital porter, as well as every civilian who loves and supports hospital porters, a very Proud and Dignified New Year. All the best for 2023; and remember, it's only a hundred and fifty-two days to St Theo's Day!

The Great Nurses Strike of 2022

 

I was at work, walking between jobs, and I saw a group of about fifty people assembled on a street corner outside the Churchill Hospital. They were carrying placards and banners; and they received many supportive horn blasts from passing cars. They are the local contingent of a nationwide strike by nurses. This does not mean all nurses are walking off their wards; that's unthinkable, but all those not needed for emergency and essential services are carrying out a one-day strike. This is the biggest strike in the history of the NHS. The establishment media has castigated the nurses, claiming they are "greedy" and "holding the country to ransom!" I am not a trade unionist and stopped being an active one about a year into my own service. However, there are times when strikes are justified and this is definitely one of them. A newly-qualified nurse earns about £27,000 pa. This is after two or more years on a full time degree course and with a student loan to pay off. This level has been sub-inflation for as long as I can remember; maybe even before my own service. When I started, the NHS trained its own nurses with salaried tuition; not anymore. It is true that a senior sister can earn as much as £55,000 a year, but this is after more than a decade of wading through blood and excrement! Would she have the sanity left to enjoy those extra beans? I know for a fact many do not. It is actually the nastiest of hypocrisy that the government dares to accuse strikers of being greedy and holding the country to ransom. They're saying this after virtually blowing the economy out of the water and ruining the lives of millions because Boris Johnson didn't have the courage, maturity or self-discipline to tell to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to get stuffed. After all this I'm honestly surprised there are so many essential workers still at their posts! What happened to all that clapping? Aren't we "heroes!" anymore? Why is a 19% payrise and a little bit of basic job security too much to ask for in a service with an annual budget of £120 billion when the same employer bailed out the banks in 2008 up to over £1.8 trillion, virtually doubling the national debt overnight!? They did this without hesitation or a qualm. The Treasury won't even publish the accounts for the cost of Covid 19 vaccination, but as of February this year 116 million shots have been administered; you do the maths. On top of this you can add on the pings, warning signs and bulk PPE etc; and all of it lining the pockets of the pharmaceutical industry, including a statistically high number of Tory donors. So, I salute my civilian colleagues for taking this action and I wish them all the best.
See here for background: http://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/02/coronavirus-portal.html.
And: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2015/08/jr-porters-strike-update-2.html.

Finding Barry's Grave

See here for essential background: http://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2022/10/barry-dies.html.
And: http://hpanwo-tv.blogspot.com/2022/10/barry-dies.html.
I was determined to find out if Barry had a grave or memorial as soon as I found out he had died. This was difficult as I had blocked our only mutual contact, for reasons I will not divulge at this point. However I did mange to find a social media post showing there was something for Barry at the North Oxfordshire Crematorium and Memorial Park, see: https://www.northoxfordmemorial.co.uk. This is not an easy place to get to if you don't have a car and I ended up having to walk from Kidlington, which took about an hour. Thankfully the weather was dry. Once I got there I faced another challenge. The Memorial Park is huge, about thirty acres, and it is covered by thousands of memorials, almost all anonymous and only consisting of a small tree or bush. There are no full-body graves there, but some of the trees have ashes scattered around them or buried in their roots. A few had name tags on them, but most of these were missing. I could see no staff around to ask in the low, modern buildings which included the waiting room, chapel and crematorium. The Park was only open till four PM and so I only had about three hours to search. As I said, I am not willing to ask anybody else where the correct memorial is. I muttered: "Barry, where are you? Help me find you." Luckily it didn't take long. Barry has a more substantial tomb than most of the deceased and it stands out clearly from the trees. His family have interred his cremated remains in a permanent resting place which you can see below.

                               

I said a few private words to Barry. I don't know where he has gone to or where he is right now, but I hope he heard me. I hadn't brought any flowers for the pot, but Barry was never much one for them anyway. Instead I chose a more apt form of remembrance. I went to the nearest pub, a large and pleasant location in the middle of the countryside called Sturdy's Castle, see: https://www.sturdyscastleoxford.com. There I consumed a pint of Guinness. This is not something I often drink myself, but Barry loved it and could drink eight or nine pints of it in a row. When we went camping in Ireland in 1997, we visited the St James Gate Brewery in Dublin where the best of it comes from.

I'm glad I've had the chance to pay my final respects to Barry; albeit almost two years late, through no fault of my own. I've done it in my own way and I think Barry would appreciate it.

I Really Shouldn't Laugh...

 

Have you ever found something funny that you feel you shouldn't, that you feel guilty for finding funny? Probably most people will at some point. Such emotions are called "gallows humour" or "black humour". Doctors and nurses excel at it, see: https://hpanwo-hpwa.blogspot.com/2020/05/sick-hospital-video.html! However, doctors and nurses are not alone. Perhaps it was my twenty-three year career in hospital portering that led me to think as I do for the subject of this article. When I was in Theatres in the early 2000's a new porter joined the department whom I will not name, nor will I post any links to what happened (Right now I can't find any actually). Porters often have nicknames and his was "Swampy". This is because he was a bit of a hippy and reminded us a bit of the famous road building protester Daniel "Swampy" Hooper. A couple of years after he joined, he and a civilian friend of his did a terrible thing. They broke into the house of an old man who lived alone, somebody they knew. The man was in at the time and they demanded money and valuables from him as well as the PIN for his bank card. When he refused they tied him up and wrapped an electric flex around his neck. They then threatened to pull it tight and strangle him unless he complied. I'm not sure what happened next and several different stories came out in court. Either the old man still refused to surrender or one or both of his two assailants got carried away; either way, the flex did end up getting pulled tight and the victim died. After they had fled the scene and calmed down, Swampy and the civilian must have realized that they would be hunted by the police; therefore they took everything they had stolen from the old man and headed for Amsterdam. You might anticipate that this was some kind of escape attempt, but it wasn't. Once in the Dutch capital, the two men went on a wild three-day bender. They blew every penny they had stolen from the old man on drink, drugs and prostitutes. It appears that they realized that they had no chance of evading the police and it was only a matter of time before they were caught, as indeed they were a few days later. Knowing also that they definitely faced a lengthy prison sentence, they decided to have one last experience of hedonism before the years of austerity behind bars. They are probably still there today. The reason I can't help finding this amusing is that theirs is such a typically hospital portering response to the situation. Obviously this is not a laughing matter, especially for the poor man who was killed and his loved ones, who have my sympathy; hence the shame I feel at laughing. We don't choose our feelings though; and once I became a hospital porter I became one in its entirety. I can never again choose not to be one.