2008/9

Well 2009 is now a little over 6 hours away and in common with my general state this year I made no plans for tonight and now end up with no actual evening as such. Most of my friends are quite apathetic for new year this year, with a large focus on 'staying in'; 'doing nothing'; 'got no money'; and 'meh'; when I surveyed them.

I have the car so could go to one of the gatherings I know are happening, but that involves going all the way down in Newcastle, or Reading, both of which are a long way. and would cost lots of patrol. I have my House series 3 from Christmas, a warm flat, lots of tea and wine, and a huge pile of ironing, so it could be that I have an interesting evening, unless I get a better offer by text soon. I also have a large street party and concert outside, which if I open the window I can hear perfectly, and should I want to, I could go to with the 2 free 'inconvenience' tickets I get from the organisers.

Looking ahead, 2009 should be a good year:- my last holiday as a student, elective, and SSM, my Child Health block and for the first time in (at least) 12 years......a summer with no exams!

Looking back 2008 was a year of some highs (passing 3rd year, my ICU SSM, my block at seaside hospital - including chicken sewing and fireworks, passing driving test, getting a Car, my Sister's wedding) and lows (death of close friends, death of grandfather).

I liked 2008, it was a good year, but I am looking forward to 2009 so much more.

It came.......

Yipeee.......in the pile of post that Mum gave me at the funeral is my full driving licence in all its pink shininess. I suppose I should get the address changed to my Glasgow one, but since I don;t see Mum & Dad moving soon I'm not sure that I have to.

Now just to get a car - in some ways I want the end of may to come very soon so I can get one, but on the other hand I want the exams to still be a long way away.

Testing driving conditions

In the second theme of the past week, driving has featured quite highly.

Last Thursday was my driving test, as you might remember I managed to fail the first time, but apart from that I only had 5 minor faults. This time I was more nervous and aware of the mistakes I had made in the final couple of lessons. We set off, and pulled round a corner to start the corner reverse manouvre, when i noticed that a silver Peugeot 307 had pulled in, but not parked, before the junction, but directly behind me. I watched it for a minute before deciding that he was stopped enough for me to carry out the manouvre. I did the reverse around the corner ok, then started up the hill. The car was then following me again. I got near the top, when the examiner asked me to pull over to the side, let the car past and then start again. I pulled over, and the car pulled in behind me again, about 25 yards behind. It may no effort to pull past, so upon instruction, I pulled out again and carried on my driving.

The examiner had me pull in another couple of times, but each time the car stayed behind me. It was starting to un-nerve me a bit and I made a few stupid mistakes (like a hill start with the car in Neutral!). We came out onto Great Western Road, where there are 3 lanes, and the car still kept following me, until eventually the examiner made eye contact with the driver and gestured to him (I have no idea what the gesture was!). We then carried on with the test and I was sure that my minors whilst the car was 'dogging' me would mean that I had failed, but I carried on and we went on a new route, up through Drumchapel.

When we got back to the test centre, I was amazed to hear the examiner say "You passed", and when he handed me the sheet, I had only scored 7 minor faults.

Then on Saturday morning after the wedding, my sister threw her car keys at me, and when I managed to catch them, told me I was now on her insurance, and I'd be taking her car to Mum & Dad's from Newcastle airport. Her car has always been her pride & joy (well maybe not now she has a husband?), and I was surprised she'd let me drive it, as I had assuemed that dad would be going to pick it up later in the day.

I took Mum with me, because the only route I could remember home from the airport involved going down the A1 and through the middle of Newcastle - not something I wanted to do! Fortunately they had parked the car in a nice open bit of the car park and I managed to get out without clipping the alloys on the curbs. However i then discovered the menace that is parking barriers - park to far away and you end up falling out the window in your attempt to get the ticket into the machine.

The trip home was slower than normal, but without incident, and I even got to break the Highway Code intentionally by parking wheel up' on the curb outside Mum & Dad's.

I then spent the trip back to Glasgow using the NXEC wifi to look for a car..... even though it will be after exams before I get one.

Blowing the budget on booze

Good

• I don't have a gas guzzler (or indeed any car)
• I don't smoke
• I don't fly (well not for past 3 years)
• My income is below taxable levels
• Increase in winter fuel credit for over 60's (must visit parents more....)

Bad

• Tax on alcohol....but dose dependent......
• No reinstatement of 10% tax banding
• Will have to pay the extra 1.8p a litre duty on petrol from August - could make peripheral hospital attachments that bit more expensive.

The BBC reckon I will be £16.32 worse off next year, all of it alcohol related........ so since the slcohol duty changes don't kick in til sunday...........Cheers!

All it takes is one second......one mistake.....

So today was my driving test.....all seemed to be going well. No snow or heavy rain, like yesterday. Nice clear roads, and the lesson beforehand had gone quite well with all manouvres going smoothly with no mistakes.

The test started with the number plate reading test, which was actually much closer than I thought it would be, and I passed (bit worrying if I hadn't!). This was then followed by the 'Show me, tell me' questions, where I got the easiest 2 - show me how you would check that teh brakes were working at the start of a journey, and show me how you would check that all the headlights and taillights were working. We then set off and first off had to do the left corner reverse and parallel parking, both in places I had practiced during lessons, and all of which went quite well.

After that we had to negotiate Anniesland Cross then up into some roads I had only done in the opposite direction, including a fair (or unfair) number of mini-roundabouts. This brought us onto Maryhill road, at a section where the speed limit goes 30-50-40-30, which also gave me a nice chance to overtake a few buses. This brought us to canniesburn Toll, which they have been digging up, so there are cones everywhere and some unusual lane routings round the roundabout.

Napoleon had his Waterloo, I had Canniesburn Toll. I misread where a car coming round the roundabout was going, and just as I went to start off I realised it was coming my way and hit the brakes, but too late, that was my major fault. I then picked up 2 minors for my lane indication and gear changes coming off that roundabout, probably because I was kicking myself at having failed.............

On the way back I had to negotiate some tricky junctions and traffic as well as doing an emergency stop. All of this went well.

Final verdict, 5 minor, 1 major - FAIL.

So I went to try and book a re-test - ASAP, and before my exam studying starts up in earnest. The first date that DSA can give me is 10 April.......unless they get some more cancellations. Thats not great at all.

Time...........

Have you seen the Virgin Atlantic 'Upper Class' advert? The one with John Hannah in it, where he talks about the importance of time, and how being able to have your own check in gives you more time to play Pool while waiting for your (delayed again) flight. Well today i had a lesson in time as well.

Lesson 1 - Carry extra stuff cos you might need it

For the second time in a week, and I think only the 4th or 5th time in Med School, no-one showed up to take our session this morning. It was to have been a 3hour session on Mental State examination, mental Health History taking and such like. But it didn't happen. After 20 minutes the course secretary came down to say that the lecturer was a no-show and he couldn't be reached at work or on his mobile.

I hadn't brought any work to do today in an effort to now end up like the hunchback on Notre-Dame when I had my rucsac on. So I now had 3 hours to kill.................which I did, semi-productively reading sBMJ, printing off some useful looking bits from it, checking emails, and having a longer than planned lunch break (the planned break was eat a sandwich while going to the hospital for PBL - this way i ate my lunch sitting down).

Lesson 2 - If you have a plan remember it!

On Monday, some of my PBl group had discussed that since the tutor was missing on Monday, we would ask our Thursday facilitator to let us feedback both scenarios today (being the end of a teaching block, there were no new scenarios this week), however we all forgot until we were leaving today. Thus I found myself at 2.35 with 55 minutes to kill until my driving lesson, and even less work to possibly do.

Should I renew my Passport?

In his book, "Round the World in Eighty days", Michael Palin reflects that in the Jules Verne original, all Fogg needed was a signed picture of Queen Victoria to permit him safe passage around the world and entry to each country he came across.

In similar vein, John Simpson, reflects on an Angolan soldier throwing his blue British (pre EU days) passport into the a muddy river. He reminds the reader that "From the end of the Napoleonic War in 1815 until the First world War, it was the chief distinguishing mark of a British citizen abroad that they did not carry a passport. They went where they wanted, merely announcing themselves at border crossings and being allowed through because they were British"

Simpson also then details how, for the next month he traveled only on the authority of a hastily typed letter by the Honorary Dutch Consul in Luanda. (A Mad World, My Masters)

Sadly things seem a little different now. Even Easyjet demand a passport to travel on their plane - or a photo driving licence (but only a full licence, a provisional will not do, despite requiring the same ID.....), and you also need one to buy alcohol, get into a nightclub, open a bank account, and even collect your post. So it is almost a National ID card anyway.

However, back to the main point. My passport ran out in Jan 2006, having been first obtained for my school French Exchange to Halluin in 1996, at the age of 14. I have managed to survive the past 2 years without it, being now a) too old to be challenged for alcohol; b) not been on a plane since 2003; c) not been abroad since 2005 and d) been with the same bank all along.

I am now considering whether to renew it soon, and thus give my Biometric data. It isn't the biometric data on the passport that worries me, I know where that is, but the government records of it. My one time Summer employers have lost the details of 25 million people, some friends have had the Dept of Health display their personal details to the whole world, the DSA has lost my personal and bank details, and my building society lost an (encrypted) laptop with my details on it.

Having now made that list, I guess handing a few more of my details over won't do me any harm....But the earliest I will need a passport will be Summer 2009 if i choose to do a foreign elective. I'm not planning a foreign holiday in 2008 (nor can I afford one) and if i renew the passport now, then I will lose 15% of it's value before I use it. I hope to have my full driving licence by March, so if I need to fly within the UK this summer (which I might) I can use that as photo ID for BA or Easyjet.

Any suggestions? I mean I survived without a passport for the first 14 years of my life, and only used it 8 or 9 times during the ten years I held a valid one.

I passed one exam in 2007.......

As part of my master plan to learn to drive, I had to sit my theory test and hazard perception test. Again! As part of my last masterplan to drive I sat the same tests in may 2003, and passed but then it became the uni holidays and then into BSc Honours year and I never got round to booking the final few lessons I needed to get ready for my practical test. Anyway, here we are, 4 years down the road and 9 years after I was first able to sit the test, and 2 years after my theory test (from 2003) expired.

In the last 4 years they have lengthened the test, but I got 46 or more (out of 50) in all my practice Theory tests without looking at the Highway code! However Hazard perception was something different and i spent most of 30th December practicing these tests, and getting less than 40 in every case (pass is 48/75).

After a night with very little sleep (read none) I turned up at the test centre at 8.10 on New Years Eve. there were a surprising number of people who appeared to have chosen to end their year with a Theory Test! I had half toyed with not going, since I had failed all the Hazard Perception bits but since you lose your money I you don't go, I thought "What the heck!" and went and sat it.

I wasn't sure how the Hazard part had gone, so i came out and collected my results sheet:

• Theory Test: 48/50 PASS is 44/50
  
• Hazard Perception: 57/75 PASS is 48/75
  

So now all I have to do is keep going with the lessons and maybe I can pass the Practical test soon, and before my self imposed deadline.

Still it was nice to PASS one exam in 2007..........