The Boerewors Emergency Medicine Chronicles: The ages of man

Friday, 10 July 2009

The ages of man

The following paragraph is an excerpt from a column by AA Gill;I've said it before and I'll say it again...he is one of the funniest,insightful,thought-provoking and entertaining writers' around. And so...for the benefit of foreign readers...and those Poms who can't afford or don't understand the big words in the Times... I include this for your delectation...

In old age, we grow to be German.

I’ve often thought that Europe is an allegory for the ages of man.

You’re born Italian. They’re relentlessly infantile and mother-obsessed.

In childhood, we’re English: chronically shy, tongue-tied, cliquey, and only happy kicking balls, pulling the legs off things, or sending someone to Coventry.

Teenagers are French: pretentiously philosophical, embarrassingly vain, ridiculously romantic and insincere.

Then, in middle age, we become either Swiss or Irish.

Old age is German: ponderous, pompous and pedantic.

Then finally we regress into being Belgian, with no idea who we are at all.

What we old Germans have instead of sex and laughter are word games and complaining about grammar.

Read the full article at :

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/food_and_drink/eating_out/a_a_gill/article6608814.ece

Image from:
http://www.petespubandgallery.com/RandolphJohnston.htm

2 comments:

Anonymous11 July 2009 at 04:33
And when are we South Africans? Boorish, racist, fear-driven and stupid?

When we're drunk!
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Anonymous14 July 2009 at 09:20
i did an agency shift in A/E they put me in resus as i did not know how to do a "collar and cuff". the charge nurse said that relatives are allowed to watch the resus. now i may be out of date. in my day they waited out side. what do you think. i felt pissed off to be honest. i almost wanted to go back to SA
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What I do and where I do it

Naturally...naturally... this blog is a complete work of fiction.Of course it is... None of the people (or their relatives) or any apparent colleague or indeed any event mentioned within the blog, exist, or have ever existed. Really..no..really...Honestly..trust me..*right*

If you think that you recognise yourself, -particularly if you are a clinician or an ex-girlfriend-, then you have a narcissistic personality disorder.

However if any part was true then the introduction might read something like this:-
I work as an autonomous Emergency Nurse Practitoner serving a charming English seaside town called Little-Ghetto-on-Sea, on the East coast, closer in fact to Europe than to London.
We treat a wide range of minor illness and injury , with admitting privileges to St Vulva's, the main academic hospital some 20 miles away .
It is apparently one of the UK's most densely populated city's...and fits Littlejohn's discription in the Daily Mail when he says,"most British seaside towns are run-down dole-claimant dormitories,which seem to take a perverse delight in driving people away through a combination of rip-off prices , tatty boarding houses and disgusting food and draconian parking regimes" . It often feels as if it is the setting for 'Little Britian' which most foreign readers will know is more social commentary than cutting-edge comedy.Indeed most of the male patients are typically shaven headed pierced,inked,dirty-fingered,dull eyed ,baseball-cap wearing, unemployed smokers with prodigious drinking skills. The women have a limited vocabularly, ranging from "innit" to "my (human) rights" with not much else inbetween.Invariably they have several children from different consorts (love that word!) and walk through the town talking on their cell phones and ignoring their children.There are few vegetarians and even fewer graduates.

DISCLAIMER

This site is for entertainment purposes only.

Any patient interactions or cases that are posted here are not based upon any single person ,living or dead ;or any specific event.

Conversations in quotes and remarks that appear to be quoted verbatim are not necessairly true. All patient details are changed to make identifying them impossible, far exceeding the minimum standards for de-identification of patient information.

However , occasionally , ECG strips ,photographs,or x-ray images that are of clinical interest are posted and are subject to that particular patient having given me written permission for the image to be published;and no original NHS images or materials are used,removed or uploaded from any of the hospitals in which I work.

Under no circumstances should any reader assume or think that any nursing or medical advice is being dispensed.

No nurse/patient relationship,- or indeed any theraputic relationship of any kind-,will be established by you reading and/or commenting upon this blog.