Friday. A trip to London to meet the men from the top secret American researchers

My train was cancelled- of course.

However, finding a delayed train running slowly late I just about made it to the meet dead drop point, on time.

The men were late ( train trouble).

I took the opportunity to disturb the phlebotomy lady from her mobile phone scrolling. She was not impressed and insisted I was the wrong “Jacqueline Emkes”. Looking down the empty corridor to prove her point. How to explain that there is no other Jacqueline Emkes in the UK let alone in her hospital.

An exchange with Jerome concluded our thoughts:the null hypothesis as in

I can’t do this for you (standing right here and asking for exactly what’s on the list) in case there is another patient (with the same name but not actually here) who needs them instead

On the balance of probability that the person NOT THERE is correct, not doing the one WHO IS seems genuinely tenuous!

I digress…

Once Mr America arrived ( the rest were lost somewhere on London Transport) we were taken up to the drop zone. A dusty old office bedecked with models of ships. Dusty medical looking tomes , some old bottle of wine and a tweed jacket with the stereotypical leather elbow things. . Poor Mr USA struggled to get his NDA DocuSign thing to work. It seems the NHS snailmailwifi couldn’t cope. Whilst we waited we chatted..somehow worked out that he too was Catholic educated . He felt the wrath and guilt of his “attorneys”of not getting the NDA done before he could start. He didn’t quite understand my DNR quip. Talking of attorneys led me to ask the inevitable “Trump -is – a -felon? Question. I’d have to kill you if I told you what he answered.

The rest as you may realise I cannot divulge. If I told you I’d have to kill you!

At this point to my considerable relief and laughter Jerome popped in! Mr USA stood not a chance as we joked, even had a mini consultation and tried to tell him our Independence Day hopes. All the while the DNR DNA no I mean NDA chugging over the Atlantic waves and eventually I signed.

I can however tell, you I’m not sure the Man from USA found the room conducive to his prototype. The stuff kept freezing. The WiFi kept dropping. My NDA died a death and my giggles didn’t help. I kept telling him we were used to this in the NHS. In fact along with train delays cancellations and strikes the country is at the caretakers. In the absence of a coffee tea nay glass of water we both got a bit muddled by the spiel he was meant to deliver and I was meant to respond to. I began to apologise for it all. We are resigned to it here. It would seem

This is our inefficient life here
WiFi 🛜 probs all the time
It’s needed to dictate letters
A letter dictation often takes as long, or longer, than the consultation