This Tory government is working already

I am busy mastering the world of the acronym. Yesterday we had the Kick Off (KO) meeting with the Clinical Research Organisation (CRO) we have appointed to run our First in Human (FIH) clinical trial; this is a relatively new acronym for what were always called First in Man (FIM) studies, but acronyms like the rest of society must keep up with the times, or die.

I drove through heavy rain and traffic in North London to find a space in one of the many car parks in the sprawling Northwick Park Hospitals, and was feeding a fist full of pound coins into a meter when someone said, "Hello John!" My Line Manager had walked a mile through the rain from the station, and was drenched. We went in together to find a small table at the cafe, for though an hour early we had much to discuss. I broke an old rule to never have hot drinks in meetings, and bought us each coffees to warm and revive us as she pulled a sheaf of paper from her bag. I then knocked my coffee over (fortunately I had drunk most of it), and the dark sea rolled inevitably across the table towards her. I reached out with a handful of tissues, and managed to stop most of it. "Don't worry," she said kindly, "most of it went on the floor."

It was a huge meeting, with more than twenty five people crowded into the room, sitting in corners or standing at the doors, with others dialling in. We were there all day, which included a tour of their facilities which are huge and state of the art, with break-out meetings to discuss our individual roles as we begin to work together. I declined further coffee, sticking to small glasses of water. Finally, after another marathon drive home I could go to vote, and help to change the course of the country.

Ann had already voted, not knowing if I'd be back before 10pm, and we were soon joined by Edwin and his partner. The first thing they did was give us a card, with our present in it: a tourist guide to Hamburg. We looked at it strangely wondering, until they explained that the rest of the gift was air tickets to Hamburg and a four star hotel overlooking the river, for a long week-end in February. We were overwhelmed by such unexpected generosity! Ann had prepared a huge spread for us to enjoy as we stayed up late to watch the results pour in, as surprised as everyone else at the scale of the Tory majority.

Next day, we woke to bright sun-lit skies and a glorious future. I had more blood tests booked for 2:00 pm at WSH. The car park had plenty of spaces, for once the haematology labs were quiet, and my name appeared on the board to go into one of the booths shortly after I arrived at 2:10. The whole thing had been so efficient and quick that I could leave the car park again within their twenty minutes waiting time without having to pay a penny! Boris Johnson is certainly keeping his promise to improve the NHS and its car parks.

Another sign of the Boris Boost is the massive surge in the value of sterling. I had deliberately waited for the election to order the currency for our trip to Singapore, thinking that it would rise, and sure enough there's been massive appreciation. In town, I went to the main Barclays Bank in Bury to try to order it. It is a modern bank, with one counter and a large number of machines to deposit cheques or cash, or check one's balance, but many of them were out of action, and two members of staff were still having to show people how to use the machines even though they've been there for a couple of years now. There was one counter manned (womanned?) by a single woman, but it had a blind drawn down. I told one of the attendant women I just need to order currency, but she said the manual station was temporarily out of action, and it might be twenty minutes before they could get it working again. She invited me to join a collection of other people sitting in chairs or standing around waiting for human service. I declined the invite, and went to Tui's round the corner, where a nice lady took my order with no fuss or wait. Having fixed Brexit and the NHS, we now just need Boris to fix the banks.