The day started with me facing the morning traffic, to reach the Queen's Medical Centre early enough to secure a parking spot in the blue-badge car park. Awful! So glad I've retired. The details would be boring so I'll summarise. Not admitted as emergency>had heperin injection> warfarin dosage increased>blood test Friday.It seemed likely that, as is the norm in Hospitals, there would be much 'hanging around' - so I took my lappy, to work on a picture. In consequence, at each stage I was seen almost straight away and had to keep shutting-down. It couldn't possibly be that, seeing me sitting there happily occupied, they decided to see me quicker - could it? Nooooo!
After that I had a coffee and then met Y at the New Mechanics for lunch and our 'Holbein to Hockney' course. The restaurant was extremely busy because there was some sort of dance. I had gone to an empty table in the window and was saving a seat for Y but was bullied out of it by three elderly ladies who arrived just after me. They really can be relentless can't they? There is probably a 'finishing school' somewhere for aggressive old women. Hogarth knew the type well.
Picture 1 is a self portrait of Hogarth, with his favourite pug, called Trump. Apparently he had a succession of pugs and called them all Trump. Makes sense I suppose. He sounds as if he was a helluva good fellow. Pro the common man and anti gentry. Picture 2 is from the 'Marriage a la Mode' group and shows the 'happy' couple after a good night out, obviously not together. For some reason Hogarth was very keen on tables, or chairs, or something, being knocked over.
Having just read through the above I think I hear a note of cynicism.
Sorry .................
3 comments:
Pleased to hear you were not admitted as emergency.....
Hogarth had (it's still there, open to public) a house in Chiswick, last year a statue was erected to him (with Pug) in High Road, unveiled by Ian Hislop. And we have a restaurant called Pug in a converted house to which there is some Hogarthian connection, but I don't know what....actually the house does not look old enough.
Sandra is strongly of the opinion, and I have no reason to disagree, that, by and large, old people are less polite and considerate than young ones. She has some personal obsevational basis for her views, working, as she does, for up to 50 hours a week as voluntary co-ordinator of the Dukeries Community Workshop, a unique establishment on the campus of the local comp. Membership of the workshop is limited to people over 18 and their average age is almost certainly over 60, but access is allowed to supervised groups of school pupils, usually either those excluded from the normal curriculum or others on work experience.
So Sandra, who is herself just over retirement age, sees both ends at first hand.
She has also recently been brought to her knees by being hit in the back by an unapologetic elderly female scooter rider in Boots and only last weekend, at a craft fair, tripped over an old woman's dog's lead, and fell to the ground, in a crowded
marquee only to be told that she should look where she was going. In contrast she finds the comp teenagers easy to deal with and invariably polite and considerate.
Sorry to go on but I think I am sort of agreeing, at some length, with something you said!
Glad they saw you quickly and didn't keep you in.
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