Disaster! I found out today that I have lost the means of feeling smug and generally thinking of myself as being a better person than most others. Epileptics cannot donate their blood. Now whenever my hero implores me to do something amazing, his words will turn to ash in my ears. To be fair, the nurses were very apologetic. "I'm awfully sorry, but if you give blood that may well result in hypoxia in the brain and cause you to have a stroke and die, and that's here on the check list of "Things we don't want to happen at a blood donation session." After I was told all of this, I was leafing through the compulsory literature (the chosen book for this session of blood donation was The Great Gatsby) and looking at all the things I wasn't going to be screened for- syphilis, HIV (always a favourite), HTLV and the hepatitis alphabet. I had planned to contract those at some point to see if the NHS blood screening system was any good, but the best made plans of mice and men...
The other day, I went to the registrar to request a copy of my birth certificate, because some idiot managed to lose the other one (that idiot may have been me). The certificate not to remind me where I was born, or when my mother's birthday is, but it's the first step in getting a new passport. Whilst it actually says on a birth certificate that it isn't proof of identity, it's the proof of identity that you need to get proof of identity. I was chatting with the registrar (she's from Kendal in Cumbria and thinks that Cockermouth is rough) whilst writing the information on the form. I commented on the fact that it seems a wee bit easy to just find out the names of someone's parents, their birthdays and then get their birth certificate and steal their identity. "Yeah, it's public records for you isn't it. It's a bloody terrible system." There was a point to this story, but it has temporarily escaped the author's mind.
Today's Tune
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