Having driven myself into a blue funk over the soup we find ourselves in, and then trying to drive the demons away with fortified spirits, I found myself confined to the county infirmary while matron and her fellow medicos pumped out my liver.
Matron was actually a lovely bloke called Deacon who liked a wager and wasn’t too judgmental about how I had got myself into this mess. In fact neither were any of the nursing team apart from one bolshie miss who thought I could be spending my time more usefully than drinking myself to death. Her comments just illustrate the folly – and optimism – of youth I’m afraid.
While my body was being pumped full of saline – and disinfectant for all I know – my spirit was somewhat restless at the sheer industry of it all. How bloody important all these medicos were to my continued well-being – and every other patient’s. It made what I had done my whole life seem like cheating to get such a relatively large reward for such little useful output.
I am not apologizing for what I have managed to achieve in life. I have so little talent that had I needed to live on my wits I would have starved, so I made the best of what I was given; my family connections, a sound education and an ability to hold my liquor and my tongue. But all the gewgaws, junkets and over-indulgences that came to me, arrived because that is how the system works. Not for the benefit of mankind, but for the benefit of men (and some women) who control and maintain that system.
As I lay in bed watching the toing and froing it dawned on me that the system is wrong because the rewards are going to the wrong people. My friend Pitt-Quicker spends more on his monthly wine bill than most of those Nightingales spend on an annual mortgage if they can get one. And where does P-Q get his cash? From taking a turn off the investments that make up the retirement incomes a lot of these people probably won’t ever claim if the soup we are all in gets any thicker.
P-Q would say it is a responsible job minding large pots of other people’s cash, but he has an army of other ranks to do the sums for him, starts work when he feels like it and if everything goes south – as currently – it’s not his pension or livelihood in the wringer – just his bonus. His treasure is all buried on distant palmy beaches or in the armoured vaults of the banking Kremlin. And while losing his bunce may make some waiters in Mayfair and Paris weep, it’s hard to feel sorry for a man who can watch the whole issue burn to the ground from his luxury shack in the Caribbean.
But what really troubled my soul was that whenever we pulled off a sharp deal, or turned a neat trick that made us a King’s ransom, we would call each other ‘Hero’s’ and award ourselves fine food and wine to celebrate our status.
We use the word hero a lot in life, for all sorts of people in all sorts of situations, especially on grub street. But I now know what that word really means: someone who puts the lives and welfare of others first, in spite of the fear and danger to themselves, because that’s what they have signed up for and that’s what they will do however incompetent their leaders appear to be.
For the first time in my life I saw real heroes at work in that Infirmary.
For God’s sake you bunch of useless w*nkers in Government – get these people the kit they need to do their jobs safely. They need supplies not promises.
The old guy disinfecting the floor at night in the ward is more use than any of Bojo’s circus troop. And tragically has done more for other people than I ever will – wealth creator or not.
Bulk and The Devil 