Welcome appointments

Another dull routine day of mild damp weather, with spells of rain while walking walks before lunch. The cloud layer was thin enough for the sun to shine through bright enough to make the hedgerows glisten with raindrops. Enchanting. 

Just before I went out, I had a phone call from our GP practice mid morning giving us both vaccination appointments for this Friday morning at the Cardiff City Football Stadium. I'm so pleased it happened this way hearing the familiar voice of one of the receptionists, rather than the voice of someone at a call centre somewhere else. Ours is a big practice working out of cramped outdated premises, but they're so good at organising routine checks and winter 'flu jabs and giving telephone consultations when there's no need or too long to wait for a visit to the surgery. .

Talking of telephone appointments, I had a letter booking me for a chat with surgeon Mrs Cornish in the post this morning in mid March. That's a result of me writing to her ten days ago after a few painful days when the suture's free end stuck into me several times, and I didn't know what to do.. It's not happened again recently, as I discovered that I could avoid this happening by changing the way I dress the wound. I wonder if she's reviewed the MRI scan yet? I don't imagine I'll get the suture removal op for several months more in the present state of crisis, but I'm less worried now. I know I can live with it, confident that slowly, small improvements in the wound condition are happening.

I watched a few episodes of the second series of 'The Mallorca Files' in the evening. It's as disappointing as the first series was. An interesting idea expat detectives in a beautiful stylish exotic location, spoiled by poor acting and garbled dialogue. Many Mallorcans will be English speakers, but to have them all speaking English with Spanish accents, and never a subtitle in sight is like rolling the clock back to post war B movies. Some of the plots don't quite hang together, unless it's a case of shoddy editing leaving plot connections half inferred rather than joined up. The island's scenic beauty offers a great dramatic platform, but it could be so much better. It's meant to be entertaining, but ends up being irritating, but that is not unusual. 

I've noticed how many archaeology, history and science programmes take basically interesting reportage and flog it to death by telling the story in a way that involves far too many repeats. What aims to be 'dramatic reveal' ends up making interesting facts boring. It's not so much dumbing down as dulling down. It's reflected in many newspaper articles I read, even in 'posh' papers, so badly edited that almost all of the informative opening few paragraphs of a report are repeated later in the same article, Articles and telly programmes could all be shorter if time was spent editing them properly to deliver a coherent not a tedious message.