April 13, 2004
BUPA's not what I think it is, and has a weird phone-system
I need UK health insurance: that is, a plan where I pay a premium every month, and possibly a deductible based on individual expenses (check-ups, prescriptions, etc), and they pay for everything else: show up at a doctor's, dentist's, optometrist's, or hospital, wave my insurance card, and get taken care of.I tried BUPA, which has a weird-ass contact system. You fill in a form with your phone number and name and email, and then, like five seconds later, they ring you back (impressive!) and then ask you for your phone number, name and email (uhhh...), then hang up, and a minute later, someone else calls you.
Weird. Anyway: BUPA can't help me. BUPA only kicks in after you've seen a GP, for which I would have to pay cash. Which sux0rs. So I'm after a different species of insurance, I spose.
Knowledge Boys
Taxi drivers in London need to acquire The Knowledge: an encylopoedic knowledge of every alley and turning in the intestinal innards of London's streets. A common way to train for this is to ride a delivery motorcycle around the streets for several years. On a visit to London last year, I heard a black cab driver talking on his mobile, referring to these deliverators as "Knowledge Boys" -- that is, lads apprenticed to The Knowledge.Foam brushes
The man in the paint-shop on the Kentish Town high street had never heard of foam brushes -- he kept handing me firm brushes and once I'd explained what I was after, he looked at me like I had two heads.Highgate Cemetery charitable arm-twisting
Highgate is run by a charitable trust, which raises about £250,000/year to keep the operation afloat. I work for a charity, and appreciate the labour the importance of fundraising, but these folks have got some weird ideas about squeezing pounds out of the likes of me. They have a sign by the gates of the cemetery that explains that the £3 fee we're paying for the tour is getting us a service that's actually worth a fiver, and to cover this discrepancy, we should really, really, really stick two quid more in the green box on the way out (remember: the charity has to pay VAT on the admission, but the donations are tax-free; won't you please help us screw the taxman out of his due?)Well, that's weird: is it a £3 tour or a £5 tour? Acutally, it's a £4 tour, because there's a one-pound "camera fee" if you plan on taking pictures -- a weird bit of nickle-and-dimery that really raised my hackles: charging for photo-taking? Really?
The woman who admitted us after a substantial wait at the gates (don't go on Easter Monday if you want to be able to simply duck in and get the tour) was so frosty that we in the queue violated English Queue Norms and began to nervously joke about it all -- especially after she insisted repeatedly that we read over the extensive rules-sheet, warned us that we would have to present our mobile phones and demonstrate that they were indeed turned off (we were getting a break: the rules said that mobiles would be confiscated and returned at the end of the tour -- though doctors could "advise" of their on-call status and get a reprieve from this; lucky them, "journalists and other representatives of the media" were expected to "make themselves known to the person in charge" -- I was off-duty, both as a Doctor(ow) and a media-whore, so I declined), and gave us a stern lecture about the money, the money, the money.
Other signs advised of the cost to be guided to a specific grave (say, of an ancestor), with the admonishment that this "is not a tourist attraction" -- despite all appearances to the contrary!
It was a really stark contrast with our tour-guide, who was sweet as honey and even apologised for the "greeter" -- one of the people on the tour confessed that she'd been ready to turn around and leave after watching this woman do her thing. I nearly did the same thing when she sent back an American tourist girl who was wearing a moderately-sized backpack (no doubt stuffed full of hard-to-replace valuables) to set it down in the chapel because it was "too big" -- presumably, if she turned around really quickly, she might knock over a crypt.
And when it was all over, the same woman barred the way out, holding out her green bucket and virtually demanding a donation.
It was pretty off-putting, but the cemetery and the tour-guide were so breathtaking that it was all forgotten after ten minutes. I've been amusing myself by imagining the committee meetings with this old darling, tiptoeing around her pathological rigidity while trying to keep the volunteers' spirits up.
Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery was breathtaking: an amazing, Charles Addams-style boneyard that couldn't have been themed any better if they'd set the Imagineers loose upon it. I didn't get to Marx's grave, but I did queue up for the West Cemetery tour, and saw many wondrous and decrepit crypts, vaults, stones and monuments. The tour guide was fantastic. I shot a ton of pix with the Exilim, and a good quantity came out stunning: check 'em out.
Blitz Services
What are Blitz Services? They're advertised (under "Heath Care Services") in the window of this employment agency near Old Street tube. Loosemore told me that it was post-traumatic stress counselling, idiom from WWII, but then admitted he was bullshitting and said that it probably refers to "blitzing" all the cruft out of your gran's flat after she kicks off. Which sounds plausible, but is that really a "health care service?"