The most important day of the year.

The most important day of the year. This Saturday. Wales versus England. Good versus Evil. The Last Alliance battling in Mordor.

I do this every year, get a foreboding of DOOM in my chest, wail and gnash my teeth about ten days beforehand. Convince myself we are going to get destroyed, humilificated, beaten by 240,000,000 to zero. And frankly, that's what normally happens in Mordor.

Then, about two days beforehand, the drugs kick in, and I convince myself we can win, when there's no earthly basis in fact for this. Gatland has essentially said that Balshaw is shite, which he is. Ashton has gone mad, and thinks that Wales are playing with 13 men.

If we win, I will not stop smiling for weeks, literally (well, until we lose to the Irish, again). If we lose, I'm going to do what the Mad Doctor did last August, and surrender myself to the beer, and have to be taken home at a quarter to seven in the evening.

How to bring the profession into disrepute.

It seems that expressing your own opinion is enough to bring the profession into disrepute. I'm not quite sure how that works, but never mind. Us mere pharmacists just pay vast amounts of money to allow the hobby-pharmacists in Lambeth to produce vast amounts of hot air.

Still it seems that, if you are a former President of the RPSGB, you can advertise the fact as some sort of selling point for your quackery bullshit.

This is the website of Christine Glover, former president of the RPSGB, and now, seemingly, a full-time quack.

http://www.glovers-health.co.uk/

Look at the happy smiling face! Taking money off the desperate, the stupid, and the gullible must be a great way to earn your living!

If this is not bringing the profession into disrepute, then what the hell is?

More to follow on this, when I get drunker and angrier...

Mildly Amusing Occurrence That Saved Me From Stabbing Myself In The Neck Due To Sheer Boredom.

Mr Constantine: " Are my tablets in yet, love?"

Attractive Shop Girl : "Ooh, is it a big one?"

Me[sotto voce] : "heh heh heh, bet he thinks it is, heh heh heh. God, I need a new job."

Mr Constantine's Wife: "Ooh yes dear, big and bulky, just the way I like it"

Attractive Shop Girl goes bright red with embarrasment.

Why I hate sport.

Last week, the Packers lost to the Giants, in a game they were expected to win. I have never been so gutted about watching a bunch of arrows move around on nfl.com.

Anyway, the Packers. Green Bay. A place I would probably have never heard of if it wasn't for football.

When I was about eight years old, I got a book explaining American Football for idiots, or something. It had the list of all the Superbowl winners up to that point. I saw the name "Green Bay Packers" down for Superbowls I and II.

"Wow", I thought, "They're my team now, done nothing for several decades, perpetual underdogs, slightly unfashionable, got a strip like Norwich City. Yup, my team. For better, for worse, for richer, for poorer."

Forward the best part of twenty years. I fall in love with American Football again, through a combination of the Nintendo Wii, Cialis Jones (my created WR), and a perfect season for the Bills.

Through this all, however, I still had a thing for the Packers. And that thing was rekindled this season. Every sports team needs a hero, an icon, and Brett Favre was that man, this season, for me.

Favre. Like an ageless Alan Bateman, he bestrode Lambeau Field like a colossus. If there was any justice in this world, he would have faced off against Brady and the Patriots next Sunday, and performed whatever the hell the American Football equivalent is of what Scott Gibbs did on April 11th 1999. Favre would come back from the dead, show that at the age of 94, that he is not too old. Instead, the Packers went to pieces, New York kicked the winning FG in overtime, darkness fell.

In a world of justice, Brett Favre would be playing next week. As it is, we have to put up with Eli Fucking Manning.

On Women:Part Two

(Warning: Misogynistic comments ahead)

Women.

Why are you FUCKING INCAPABLE of having the FUCKING BOLLOCKS to be honest and straight with me. For FUCK's SAKE, it's not FUCKING DIFFICULT to say "Actually, I don't like you. Sorry for messing you about" is it?

Instead, I have to put up with this SHITE about you being "confused" and "I don't know what to do" and "But you're going away".

Well, BOLLOCKS. That's the last time I offer to take anyone away for a FUCKING ROMANTIC/DIRTY WEEKEND. You FUCKING TWAT.

Next time, find some other FUCKING IDIOT, and spend his money.

Drums, drums in the deep...

My "overseas experience" (C) L. McAlister, is getting closer and closer by the day. In fact, it could be said that the reality of it is coming up soon, and yes, I'm slightly nervous. "Fie on the Southern Hemispherians", I used to cry, "What know they of love, of art, the finer things in life?" I guess I'll find out soon enough.

I have a very expensive medical tomorrow, during which a doctor will not stick his finger up my arse, whatever any of you philistines reading this may think, then a very expensive X-ray on Monday, then a very expensive exam (First week in March, good luck to the eight other wanderlust stricken souls sitting it with me) and then I shall be no more, in a manner of speaking.

Amidst all that, the New York Giants are now up there with the English Rugby Union team in my list of Sporting Teams That Destroy All That Is Light And True In The World.

Incompetent fuckwit employed by Boots shock

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7196420.stm

Bet that picture's photoshopped.

Anyway, as is well know to everyone, Patricia Hewitt is, in Health Secretary terms, a complete waste of oxygen.

Boots have managed to convince the general public that they are some sort of shining beacon of healthcare. Which only goes to show that no-one ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the general public.

Boots are, of course, not really a pharmacy. In fact, they had to get a real pharmacy to bail them out recently. Boots are an evil, vicious prank, the Joker of the pharmaceutical world. They should be treated with the kind of contempt held for politicians, and MK Dons fans.

Boots and the Hewitt woman are well suited for each other. I wonder how much they are paying her?

Nexphase.

I was back in the script factory ghetto this week for a couple of days, after a couple of months away from it spent, for the most part, in nice quiet pharmacies where I could actually speak to patients, and go for a piss whenever I wanted.

The Ghetto has not changed, in fact, if anything it has got even worse. One of the main reasons that me and the staff get the living piss beaten out of us on a daily basis is that we use the computer system Nexphase.

And it is shit. It is a great steaming turd mountain which is about as much use in a busy dispensary as a chocolate fireguard.

Why is it shit? It has clearly never been tested in a busy pharmacy. It regularly crashes, freezes or just stops working altogether. It can take up to a minute for it to do one single owing, because it grinds to a halt all the fucking time.

It is also completely and utterly evil, like HAL. It starts spitting out labels for 14 metformin. Then, and no-one knows why, it goes back to 28. Then 56. Then 84. Once, I had a script for 112 Buscopan and it printed off labels for 38, 38, 39. I don't know why it does it.

The thing is, it takes so damn long to do, well, just about anything, you can end up just giving up and hand-altering labels. Which looks sloppy, and bad, and should not be done. There are no on-screen prompts. At all. It takes about a hundred years to delete an item off somone's history. It is by far and away the prettiest looking, yet utterly godawful dispensing system I have ever used. I cannot believe that it was ever tested in a busy pharmacy. I would be surprised if a pharmacist was involved in the design. I cannot believe that someone, somewhere, far and away up the management greasy pole made the decision to introduce this ludicrous program upon the Ghetto pharmacy. It was clearly a decision made by someone who's never worked in a pharmacy.

My apologies

I would like to apologise to My Bank. It turned out not to be their fault that my card payment was not processed, but rather mine, as I completely failed at the relatively simple task of transcribing a sixteen digit number from my bank card to the paperwork. You numpty.

The first thing we do, let's kill all the bankers...

Why have My Bank blocked my CAOP exam fee from going through?

Bastards.

Can't sort it out until the morning either.

Bastards.

Obamarama

He's not a Clinton, and he's not a monkey-faced idiot.

Therefore, The Welsh Pharmacist has decided to purchase this rather tasteful item of clothing.

http://www.superobama.com/shop.cgi/menshirts/ohbama.202173320

I expect my decision will send shockwaves through America. I have emailed Obama to let him know that he has my support, and I will be doing my damnedest to convince the crucial swing voters of South Wales Pit Village #94 to vote for him as well.

I think I have an ego the size of Jupiter.

The RPSGB

Well, I'm not their biggest fan, but they can be useful sometimes*.

To the unnamed guy who did me a huge favour by faxing my letter of good standing to New Zealand, I thank you from the bottom of my slightly soiled and stained heart.


*I've given them £445 in the last month. God only knows how it costs £50 to print off a letter, get an arts graduate to sign it, and post it to New Zealand. Maybe it's printed on proper posh paper, like the sort of thing you'd find in a gentleman's club in The Strand.

On Women.

Why can't they be simple, like what I am?

Fuck's sake.

In Which I Use An American Football Metaphor To Describe My Job.

In the script factory ghetto where I often work, the amount of times I am called upon to speak to a patient who comes in for advice is, thankfully, small. This is good for me and the patients, as it means I do not have to let the invariable mountain of scripts pile up while I try and persuade someone that Lemsip is, in fact, just a pack of paracetamol in stockings and suspenders with a come-to-bed look on its face.

In short, the counter girls in the script factory ghetto mentioned above are, in American Football teams, the equivalent of a superb offensive line. (They do not weigh the same, though. In fact, adding them all up would barely give you one tackle). Having this line, or girls, or line of girls blocking for me means that I , in my quarterback role have the time, and space to assess my options.

However, in a place where there are poor counter girls, then I am quarterbacking with an offensive line that has more holes in than a Swiss cheese. I am constantly getting rushed by the defence, leading to sacks, fumbles, and turnovers. The defensive line is rushing towards me asking which one of four over-priced ponced-up paracetamol products is best for a self-limiting illness.

The quarterback falls.

The structure crumbles.

Darkness is upon us.


So to good, well-trained, counter girls everywhere, I salute you.

Now go and make me some tea.