Beestonia the Bargee (well LongBoatman, but that’s not alliterative)

It seems that, as with nature with vacuums, stuff abhors me having a quiet life. I lose my job, plan to take a week off to take stock and BOOF!: a stack of stuff comes toppling down on me. I don’t mind: as someone with adult-onset ADHD I’d otherwise have to adopt an addiction to extreme sports or heroin to cope.

Let me list thy reasons: I announced NHS Week on Beestonia last week and suddenly realised there is a lot to say: I’m ashamed to say I’m not that savvy on the subject as it is a complex issue, but as I seem to notice those who are pro reform seem to have vested interests; and those that are anti tend to be motivated by a desire to protect the NHS as a free service (and also tend to be hamstrung by the Hippocratic Oath, as opposed to Adam Smithisms), it’s important to call for a debate here.

Later today, I’ll be hosting an exclusive piece written by our erstwhile MP Dr Nick Palmer (written at extremely short notice, and from Hong Kong-ta!), and then a piece by Beeston Lib Dem Councillor Steve Carr. If anyone else, especially from the Conservative Party, wants to toss their hat in the ring, please send something over: as always, I only edit typos and grammatical errors.

But let’s do the serious stuff later. Today, I rose at an ungodly, pitch-black time to stroll to Beeston Rylands to meet a narrow boat and a BBC journalist. This is what happens when a throwaway tweet to a DJ gets taken up for a feature: let me rewind a wee bit.

There is an ongoing sense of miffedness in Beeston right now at the tramworks, and what they do to predictive arrival times for those commuting to Nottingham, and back again. Let me set out my stall upfront: I’m neutral on the tram itself, so please don’t send in anti/pro-tram vitriol; just like the Wilkos issue, it’s not the issue, ok? Right, let’s continue.

I’m happily unburdened with employment at the moment after my employer decided I was not cut out for my role as forelock-tugging drone, yet I used to commute, and the journey, even on the luxuriant wonder that is a Trent Barton Indigo, was a lottery where the odds of getting to town on time fluctuated wildly depending on what stretch of road was being dug up at the time. Even the journey to the bus-stop was fraught as I had to cross the Meadow Lane/Queens Road junction: chess grandmasters would be flummoxed on occasion on what new configuration of complexity the workmen had implemented that day: seldom was the morning I didn’t misjudge and nearly become significantly splodgier than before.

So what to do? My idea, tweeted into BBC Radio Nottingham, was innocent enough:

This triggered a call from the Beeb: ‘Would I like to see what this would be like?’ Why of course. Sort of at a loose end right now. And so, this morning, I’m up before six am, and had the most tremendous morning puttering down the canal in a state of relaxed sedate smiliness punctuated with bursts of terror every time a mike was put in front of me. A full report will follow in Issue 14 of The Beestonian, out early December, but until then, many many thanks to Andy Whittaker, Laura Forester and BBC Radio Nottingham for being such utterly good sports in taking another of my sporadic ideas and giving me the resources to putting them into practise.

Moving on. Have some found poetry, as discovered on a closed shop on Wollaton Road:

I best mention, as I sweated blood, err, sweat and tears over it, YES! ISSUE 13 OF THE BEESTONIAN IS OUT NOW! Unfortunately, due to our printing presses breaking down, we as yet have a limited run: so far we’ve dropped at The Crown, The Bean, Beeston Library, Belle and Jerome, Metro, The Hop Pole and The Flying Goose: get one while you can, otherwise read it online (soon) here: http://issuu.com/search?q=beestonian&si=0&ps=10&sb=visual&rp=*

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Right, that’s about it until I post up further NHS stuff later: I also have a rather upsetting follow-up to a previous story that I’ve reported, once verified, as always, you’ll read it here first.

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