Jeez – I’m currently sitting on a train back to Hull and very much wishing that the journey would end soon. The world’s loudest, scariest, chavviest women is now entertaining the carriage with the grave miscarriage of justice that has befallen her and her multiply abused children – “It was only a little smack, I can’t see what they’re f**king getting p*ssed about – I was smacked as a kid and I turned out alright. ‘Ang on, my other phone’s ringing” - Cue fishing around in her capacious handbag for not one, but three additional mobile phones. “Yeah, yeah, no, no. Can you f**king ‘ere me? F**king s**t f**king phone doesn’t b**tard work on’t train” This single encounter with this awful woman would be sufficient for me to remove her children so god only knows why it seems to have taken so long for “the social” to see sense and take them to safety.

Obnoxious abusers of children aside; my journey home as been somewhat less than pleasant. The Great North Run has meant that the trains are all packed with sweaty individuals in their “look at me” t-shirts who see fit to remove their shoes and subject the rest of us to their filthy feet – I get it, you’ve run a long way for charity. Congratulations. I’m very impressed with each and every one of you. Now do us all a favour, put your shoes on and knack off.

Do I seem to be in a mood? I’m honestly not but I don’t find regional rail journeys to be a lot of fun. Sadly, it’s one of the only practical ways to get around the country when you’re having your car serviced and you live outside of the big cities. On a much more positive note, I’ve spent the weekend up in Newcastle with Nick and it’s been lots of fun. I always enjoy going back up North and the added excitement of his new house (and new, less filthy, housemates!) made it doubly special. We generally bummed around – took in “(500) Days of Summer” (Go and see it, it’s wonderful!) and went to see the newly revamped Hancock Museum (now the Great North Museum) and it was, generally, great.

The week to come holds the promise of primary teaching in Leeds which means a couple of days of stupidly early starts and then another 3 of normal days at work. I’ve got trauma lists for 3 of those which will mean very crumbly patients who aren’t fit for a haircut, let alone a general anaesthetic. I’ll probably be with one of the dedicated trauma anaesthetic consultants who practice very strange ways of anaesthetising these folk –we may use Ketamine or weird doses of TCI Propofol along with peripheral nerve blocks or we may simply refuse to gas them at all. I hate trauma lists.