Friday 6 November 2009

Pricey, Flimsy and Ineffectual


My hospital is a PFI hospital. Those letters stand for Private Finance Initiative. It's a rather clever wheeze which allows the government to spend squillions of pounds on hospitals using private money which the government then pays an arm and a leg for in rent. Because the hospital isn't sitting on the government's balance sheet as a debt, it means Gordon can cook the books with all the skill of Nigella Lawson.

My hospital cost millions to build, is a fantastic medical centre with some of the best medical staff anywhere in the world. However, the hospital's services and the building are provided and owned by a private organisation. And yet... although I attached a Freeview digibox to my TV, the hospital's two-year old TV aerial signal constantly breaks down. Among the TV stations I'm currently missing are BBC1, BBC2, Channel 4... trivial, I know. All that money and they can't put up a TV aerial properly. However the good news is that I can receive the following stations:
  • Ideal World (Shopping Channel)
  • Big Deal (Never seems to be on so not such a big deal)
  • Create & Craft (Stitch & Bitch)
  • Rocks & Co (Jewellery Shopping)
  • Lottery Xtra (I could do with some luck)
  • Russia Today (Oligarchs only)
  • Smile TV2 (What's so funny?)
  • Babestation (Words fail me)
  • Rabbit  (Dating for rabbits)
  • Gay Rabbit (Presumably dating for gay rabbits)
  • Partyland (Just what I need right now... not!)
  • QVC (More shopping)
  • Super Casino (Just for losers)
  • Teachers TV (which never seems to be on... Perhaps there should be a Royal Mail TV)
  • Television X (Discreet credit card payments accepted)
  • Bid TV (Can't get the hang of this at all)
Isn't Private FInance Initiative great? Perhaps there should be a PFI TV channel on Freeview. It would never work properly, the subscription would be extortionate and it would be crap.

11 comments:

  1. Love the Stitch & Bitch comment.
    Can't you get History, Discovery etc.? Their documentaries are interesting but so repetitive that you can blog at the same time and not miss a lot, if anything, and still pick up a few interesting facts. To console you: HIGNFY wasn't that good tonight so you didn't miss much IMHO. I guess using BBC iPlayer etc. would eat up too much of your mobile broadband?

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  2. Could be your box as its all just changed?

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  3. NotTMot the box. Hhad all the channels yesterday. It does this every now and then. You should see the analogue picture... Snowstorm!

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  4. Yes, maybe the box needs a rescan Ex-TM, we lost channel five for several weeks, a nuisance during the cricket season, but it picked it up again recently.

    You're in the SGW then ?

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  5. Nope! Rescanned twice. It's low signal level on those channels. What's SGW the?

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  6. Well your current programme schedule makes about as much sense as a Hospital Manager's briefing on surgical technique and developments in operative procedures to a consultant surgeon i.e. precisely none whatsoever and completely off the wall.

    I won't go off on my usual rant about centres of excellence .... ;-)

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  7. Maybe all tuning in to Holby city at same time?

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  8. T Man...If a couple of your extrainious pain killers should go "walkies", I would gladly contribute to the T M Man Recovery Fund....For a fiver or two....If you know what I mean...nudge,nudge....Wink Wink!!!

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  9. Your posts never cease to amaze me ... all that and no kitchen ... where on earth are they transporting that "food" from ... surely it couldn't be manufactured in the salubrious surroundings you describe. Sydney hospital food comes in the back of a truck from over 100ks away ... OK I'll stop. Thank goodness for your sense of humour. xo

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  10. Oh such riveting channels to watch, I am spoilt for choice here, which one would I watch first.

    Though come on, its not all bad, at least you wont have to watch the X-factor, or that dancing thingy on the other side, I would rather stick pins in my eyes than watch either, I do apologise to anybody who likes the programmes.

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  11. No BBC? Life wouldn't be worth living... and that's coming from an Aussie who's never lived in the UK!

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