Thinking Out loud
February 9th, 2010Friends and readers. The dream making machine that is within us all has on occasions as we are sure you will agree gone into overdrive and plunged you head first into utopia and a land of milk and honey.
No doubt many of our readers buy on a regular basis your ticket to paradise only as long as the six numbers you selected come up. The high of waiting for the draw is balanced by the low when you realise your dream is over for a little while anyway and it’s back to the hum drum of every day life.
But do the riches that await the lucky punter really give you the utopian dream you think you want or the start of a nightmare as many of the people who have publisised their win have found out to their cost.
New bigger house new bigger car bigger and better hoildays in the sun, possibly a membership to that golf club that you always thought you hankered for, but in reality is full of the bull shitting brigade who regard you as a piece of rough that got lucky.
And there we have it in a nutshell class ridden Britain so divided that even your own winning dream machine cannot cross it. The democratic rights of the individual to make as big an ass of him or herself as possible is enshrined in some sort of law somewhere is it not as our betters tut tut at the boorish behaviour of the underclasses.
It is your democratic right to live like a pig in shit because you were born into the bondage of the working classes, yet by some freak of nature for the few who lord it over the many a birth right hands them the keys of the kingdom of democracy. These are the very same ruling class who fought tooth and nail against every right that the average citizen won and then taxed them for the priviledge.
The bondage of the working class was meant to chain you to the treadmill for life paying for the honour of being ruled over by those that were handed power because their fore fathers were bigger and stronger and managed to kill much more easily and steal their way to the top of our society.
We now tug at our fore locks in reverance to their majestic presence and admire what they call their own when in reality they stole it from someone else. Many of our citizens never seem to get out of the bit as one demand after another comes at them, this bill that bill, this tax that tax, and respite may only come if you are lucky, if you can call it luck with two weeks on a crowdy beach in a second rate half board hotel on one of the Costa’s.
Is this what it’s really all for greasy badly cooked food and sun stroke all in the name of fun, makes a quite night in front of the telly seem like heaven in comparison.
The lot of the majority is a take it or leave it world. From the post office queue to the doctors surgery, with the fearsome receptionist demanding to know if you have an appointment and if not you will have to make one and a doctor is not available for another 6 months, so hard lines, but if you are really needy then you can take your chance at the open surgery which opens at 8.30am but the queue starts about 7.00am in the morning so if you are not quick you could be in a queue that stretches round the corner were you can have a chat with one of the assistants who works in Scotmid who has just nipped out for a fag bemoaning the fact that her six numbers didn’t come up the previous night but she was close, never mind there is always next time.
Yes dear friends as we avoid the dog shit that decorates our pavements all colours of the rainbow we can dream of better days where we can all have fun in the sun and eat half cooked hamburgers with grease ladden chips, a mouth watering prospect and a definate gut buster. Better still dear friends a visit to our local chemist is an appetising prospect, never in the history of queues has there been one slower than this it makes the queue in Scotmid seem positively sprint like in comparison.
All the wonders of the modern age awaits you in this shop of horrors, perfumes that your granny would refuse to adorn herself with assistants from a bygone age with two speeds dead slow and stop. Oh yes we have it all in a moments glance, the doctors surgery in Boswall Parkway with it’s regular patrons, and the odd ligitimate patient, Scotmid on Crewe Road North where the prices seem to rise on an hourly basis and it’s neighbour the people friendly Chemist where the shout of ‘ Do you pay for your perscription’ can be heard streets away as the battle scarred assistant who has seen it all hands over the pills to cure your ills after shouting your name at the top of her voice, ‘Mrs—— your valium is ready take ten a day and more if you need to now mind and don’t drink alcohol’, ’and by the way did you see Scotmid has got a great deal on it’s Vodka’.
Ah yes dear friends all is there in the tapestry of life, no need to go further afield to enjoy the sights and sounds of everyday life in suburbia. As the queue for the open surgery meanders it’s way from Scotmid round the corner and you begin to smell the fresh-well that’s just a rumour- of Mathisons the bakers delighful pies and sausage rolls and did you know dear friends they have gone continental with curry pies isn’t that so keeping up with our new European image. As you take in the smell of something or other the worst bank in the city opens it’s doors for business where we are told you have to have an account just to get change, hows that for customer service.
With it’s ever reliable broken down cash machine and the frustrated punters inside this giant of the banking world it makes the open surgery queue seem that little bit more bearable as you smile at someone elses misfortune. If you are very lucky you will get into the surgery before the cut off time which is ten oclock, which of course means dear friends that you may have been in the queue for an eternity and have caught every form of flu as you tried to stave off the biting cold wind that sweeps round Boswall Parkway to Crewe Road North, but to no avail our people trained receptionist stands arms folded at the entrance of the surgery with they shall not pass look in her eyes.
It was rumoured unconfirmed of course that very recently a patient or nearly a patient arrived at the surgery doubled over in pain, and when the receptionist finished playing with the computor asked what was the matter, our plucky patient replied ‘I think it’s my appendix’ with a rapid responce almost rapier like our ever ready receptionist replied with a cutting yet sympathetic tone ‘You will have to wait in the queue like everone else’ once more dear friends we witness life at the sharp end of the NHS were peoples needs come first as long as they are prepared to queue for ever.
The out of date magazines have a certain nostalgic feel to them as we thumb through back copies of readers digest and National Geographic, and look above at where once a TV sat but now just an empty space as one intrepid patient helped themselves as a form of compensation for having to wait for so long to get a sick line backdated 6 months.
Friends and relatives you didn’t even know existed meet as they wait and wait and wait to be seen for all of 30 seconds by a GP who is exhausted by 9.30am, and needs their own script to keep going. This is life in the fast lane this is what dreams are really made of something six numbers can’t buy.
So next time you sit in front of the telly with your ticket ready to leap through the roof remember there is some things money can never buy.