Wednesday 23 September 2009

Time to shut down the blog?


A cheese and ham panini purloined for me by one of the lovely members of staff working on the ward. I cannot begin to describe the explosion of taste, texture and sheer ecstasy that this little creation from the staff canteen has brought me. Time to close down the blog if things keep on like this!

48 comments:

  1. Oh dear Is that a warning shot?

    It looks nice you know

    Even Im hungry at the sight of that

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  2. Oh I am first to wish you Bon appetit TM!

    Sarah!

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  3. Close down the blog!!What right have you to do that you tosser. I come here for my daily dose of moan. And anyway mate - Google are now serving up some good ads. I'm looking at "Fine Italian Prosciutto", "Panini Sandwichs", "French Broadband for Brits", "Calcium Propionate" ("inhibits mold in livestock feed" and my favourite - "My 1 Trick to Lose Fat?" (break your fucking leg and end up in traction being fed muck by the NHS) cheers China.

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  4. THEY ARE LISTENING AT LAST!!!
    Either that or they are trying to flush out the phantom blogger.

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  5. Point taken. I'll go back to the slop. Let's hope tonight's offering is truly vile. My apologies for spoiling your enjoyment.

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  6. How happy I am for you today to see you having a good meal :D

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  7. That does look good - it must almost make you feel human again! Once again, best of luck to you in your battle. :-D

    WV: individal (yes, really)

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  8. Rather late at finding your blog, but I'd like to congratulate you.Food in hospitals (like many other institutions) is in desparate need of improvement and investigation
    Just a thought.. why don't they have a little kitchen next to each ward (or group of wards) with a cook who would respond to the requests and dietary needs of each patient. It would cut out the pre cooking and distance from the kitchens.. the cost argument can be countered by considering the cost of all that food that is thrown away (I assume you haven't actually been eating that rubbish you have photographed?)
    A number of years ago in hospital I was offered a white boiled fish with a white sauce ( not cheeese.. no taste at all) and white beans (tinned) all served on a thick white
    (chipped)eartherware plate. It's good to know the NHS is maintaining its standards. We need to have something to depend on
    Get well soon
    Jennifer Mary Anne Perry

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  9. Pace yourself, good man. We don't want your internal organs to throw in the towel now - they may not be able to cope with all this goodness in one go, hey??!! They've been on a sweet little ol' digestion holiday these past few weeks and you don't want to cause panic in your liver or bowel!! :)

    However, I do hope you ate every single bite on that plate TM and then licked the plate clean for good measure!!

    How nice to have some staff members on your side of the fight!!

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  10. O.M.G! TM you have been using your Baron status to good effect! Like a pro!

    Your lunch is even better than the sandwich that was lovingly prepared for me by my fab fiancĂ©! However your lunch isn’t as good as the idea of Nigella Lawson in a nurse's uniform! ;)

    Enjoy that Panini my friend; enjoy it whilst it lasts and DO NOT STOP THE BLOG!

    Damian

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  11. Well I never thought I would be jealous of your food but sitting at my desk eating my sad little wrap just doesn't seem as fulfilling anymore...

    Enjoy Traction Man, you've earned it!

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  12. Shut down the blog? I jiust started reading about a week ago and have turned three people on to you in that short amount of time. So glad you got something green on your plate, though.

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  13. You're winding us up aren't you? This is griddled squid salad.

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  14. I hope the only reason you shut down the blog is because you are safe and healthy at home.Please keep on keeping us entertained.It has become my daily dose of laughs and I really enjoy the wit and the comments are awesome.
    Light,Love and Healing to you

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  15. I think you need to keep blogging it's obviously working. You have now managed to turn the staff to your side ;)

    Take care :)

    Hugs from Australia

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  16. That friggin ad's there again mate. It now reads -

    "My 1 Trick To Lose Fat?"
    I struggled for years to burn fat, until I found this 1 secret. Just break your fucking leg and end up in traction being fed muck by the NHS. It's easy. You really don't have to be a fat bastard all your life. Thanks to the breakthrough NHS Fat-Loss System ®

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  17. Tom, Western Australia23 September 2009 at 14:21

    What! Shut down the Blog.... are you crazy! I'll break your other leg if you even think about it again. Where else would I go to get such a good laugh,

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  18. Either that, or you've been rumbled, mate!

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  19. Well, Tom... if you put it like that.

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  20. Marie... If I've been rumbled that's fine but there are millions more suffering this food so they'll have to bribe us all with better food. Hmm... sounds like a plan.

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  21. Ohhhhh your in trouble now, they're on to you!
    Nice score though, that looked edible!
    :-D

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  22. Hi Traction Man,
    I've spent a quite significant numbers of weeks in a french hospital in 2007 for a knee problem and i found your idea of publishing your meals excellent !!!
    i remember that every meal was such an angoisse !!
    have you got the nurse coming by time to time to ask what you would like to find in your meal ? In France, i had weeks with no one asking me for anything and then meals = lottery, and sometimes i had to select all the meals for the whole weeks... but just the names of the meals made me say "huuuummmmmm, something else..." and the worse thing was to ask for the delicious chocolate cake and get the horrible juicy old milky pudding !
    i made only 2 pics during my stay at this hospital: the first one was a plate with only 5 little patatoes (you know the small "pommes dauphines" ones, i'm sure you can make 20 with one patatoe) and the second one was a pizza... nice but i could put it all in my hand !!!
    a shame that i can't send them to you via the blog... it could have been cool to make a comparison with your NHS and our french hospitals !!!
    anyway, good luck and do not forget that ANYTHING will taste so good when you'll exit this food purgatory !
    cheers

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  23. I love your blog, i was in hospital not so long ago for just under a week and managed to loose 1/2 stone due ti the FOUL food (and probably all the morphine making me vomit)

    One day i got really excited as i had selected Sweet and Sour Pork from the menu, when it turned up i was even more happy as the pork was battered too!!

    Imagine my sadness when i realised that the batter was in fact, FAT

    Words can not describe how awful the food is in hospital, but after reading your blog, you have successfully achieved that :))))

    Get well soon and i hope your panini is as good as it looks, keep up the blog, you are awesome

    XOXOXOX

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  24. I love your blog - don't shut it down. I have only recently started reading after hearing about it from a friend and have passed the details on to my friends who are also reading and we talk about it.

    It gives us a good giggle and can spark some heated debate. Please don't go!!!

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  25. No dont shut down the blog i know i need to get a life,but i really look forward to the pictures of your meals
    and reading your daily ramblings,

    chin up get well soon

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  26. If the food gets better don't worry, you can always start writing other things so we can get to see improvements in these areas too. For example public transportation?

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  27. WOW! So there IS decent food and salad available in the hospital! Impressive! Now, why cant the patient's get something served like that on a regular basis?

    I know paninis can't be mass produced for meal times but a little bit of care with presentation and what a difference it makes.

    I bet if you got more nutrition like this you would start to heal!

    Don't give up the blogging! It is a fascinating insight in to what really ails the NHS, which is not the staff but the food!

    Good luck for tonight's meal!

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  28. Normal slop will be resumed this evening... the staff canteen shuts at 5pm!

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  29. Wow, this looks great! So they are catching up on delivering quality food after all, I feel very happy for you!!! Better now than never! Can you find out if the other patients got the same nice panino and salad as you? If so, it is a very accomplished improvement indeed. Please keep us informed, I should like to be able to look for food inspiration on your blog in the future!! Besides, in my opinion your condition of being traction man is quite enough reason to pity you even without pictures of gruesome foodstuffs. Best wishes! Barbara

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  30. I was the only patient to receive this panini. That's because I am witty, urbane, charming and scaring the shit out of someone. No, seriously. The staff in this hospital are the loveliest people you could ever wish to meet and I think they took pity on me due to the length of my stay and the width of my smile :-)

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  31. Sorry to hear that you have sold out in the battle for edible hospital food. Still I can understand that after the time you've had there anyone would be prepared to sell their soul for a Panini like that. It's to your credit that you managed to squeeze a peerage from Mandy as well but I suspect that Gordon is prepared to 'pay' anything for some good publicity at the moment (well any time actually).

    All the very best

    Nick

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  32. No bribery was involved - I just happened to have a spare peerage that someone didn't want. Why is everyone getting at me? Again.

    Gordon

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  33. Me? Sell out? Someone offers a starving man a panini and you expect him to refuse? This is no sell out. This is a carefully planned strategic move to destabilise management and get them to think that I'm softening up.

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  34. You are obviously hallucinating and bringing us along with you. Are you sure that "panini" wasn't actually hard toast served shortly after your morning morphine?

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  35. Lol I bet all the staff read your blog and that lunch was to see if you are the mystery blogger.
    You have confirmed it by taking a photo and posting it on the web.
    You will prob be shot at dawn yesterday now :)
    Great blog though I have enjoyed reading it.

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  36. Traction man, I know who would like your dinners, you could play match the meal to the recipient, Enjoy.... www.peopleofwalmart.com

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  37. WOW! That looks wonderful, it's a bit of a cheat really tho cos it obviously isn't off your menu. So pleased that you got something tasty and nourishing tho, you must have been longing for weeks for something as scummy as that! I bet they were wondering if you would publish it seeing as it looks so good. Anyway it hasn't really stung the caterers has it as this was as you say purloined. I'm interested to see dinner and I don't think you can even think of giving up the blog yet, not until the NHS 'food' providers can dish up something as wonderful as that!
    Linda Tenerife x

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  38. the VW by the way was deferc! I was waiting for the 'ate' on the end!

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  39. Mmm, yummy! Well done!!

    Meanwhile, beware identification... you might find they feed you sweetcorn after a suppository.......

    Should you survive this ordeal by sludge, Gordon might employ you as a hospital food Tsar with the sainted Jamie.......

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  40. A salad!!! And it looks like a salad!!! There are colors beside beige on the plate!!! Oh, TM, I hope that you thoroughly enjoyed this real food!!!

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  41. That lunch looks like it was appropriated from the staff fridge. Could not have possibly been produced from the same kitchen that has been providing your "meals" thus far...

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  42. Not sure what's worse, the slop they're turning on for you or being handed the McDonalds home delivery menu for my 3 day Indonesian hospital stay! Nothing like a cold congealed cheese burger and a few gherkins when you can't keep down solids!

    Keep blogging TM, we're addicted!

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  43. Please keep blogging but the point is the catering staff can make good food when they are allowed to.
    We should pay a little more so the patients can eat well or make the NHS management and MP's eat NHS food.
    Keep purloining. You must have lovely nurses.

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  44. NHS Catering staff want to cook not reheat. I understand that. The staff canteen is all fresh cooked food and it'd very good. You're right, the nurses are lovely.

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  45. Shit! this last lot of pics of your dinner look absolutely disgusting !!! you must have been pleased to receive the salmon zarm from your mom.

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