Quintin Jardine's blog

Sasha died at noon today: he was 18 years old, a good age for a Tonkinese. For the last week he had become increasingly listless, uncomfortable and clearly unwell, making the trip to the vet, and his diagnosis, inevitable.

I stayed with him until the end, and beyond. When you commit yourself to a pet, it’s part of the job, an obligation and a way of showing the same affection that he has given to you. 

Sash was a character, a scrapper in his younger days but never given to bringing home friends and dismantling them in the hall. He lived an independent life but was always an integral part of our household, and a vocal one too.

I’ll miss him like hell, and I’m sad when I dwell on the fact that I’ll never again hear him yell for food, or attention, or anything else. But I don’t feel bad, because we both knew that I’d got the moment right. He was in a bad place, it couldn’t get any better, and no way was I going to let it get any worse.

So long, buddy, and thanks for the laughs, the loyalty and the love.

My posting yesterday of my ludicrous chat session with Vodafone’s so-called help desk may have put a light-hearted glow on something we should be considering more seriously.

Having reached and passed a milestone last week I’m more acutely aware than before of a fundamental truth. Vodafone isn’t the only organisation to run an on-line or telephone customer service set-up that is either incompetent, or deliberately understaffed. It isn’t the only company that is prepared to keep its clients waiting for inordinate periods for assistance that may never arrive or when it does, will prove to be utterly useless.

Every time they do so, these businesses are effectively stealing a piece of our lives, time that we’ll never have again, time that could be spent constructively.

To me such behaviour is criminal; I can’t find another word for it. Surely the moment has come for government to act to ensure that it is treated accordingly.

This is as it happened:

There is a very nice piece on Skinner and me in a newish magazine called ‘This Is Rotary‘. It’s produced not only for Rotarians but for a wider audience, with the aim of spreading the word about the movement.

The article is the work of Joy Chatters, who produces the magazine with her editor husband, Herbert. It’s based on a conversation that she and I had a few weeks back, over Skype. That technology is very useful, but it isn’t perfect, and can lead to misunderstandings. Against that background, and with no criticism of Joy, I’d like to make one small correction to the text. The American writer I regard as the true father of the crime genre, is not Hammond Innes, but Dashiell Hammett.

I shared on Facebook earlier  this morning a BBC story about an English university that is spending public money introducing and re-branding ‘All-gender Toilets’ for the ease and comfort of what it says is ‘a growing population of Trans students’.

In a statement, the University of Northampton said the move was designed so that “there will be no situation in which two people of any gender identity will be in the same room, ensuring they can feel comfortable using the space”.

Hopefully a further statement will be issued explaining what the f*** that means.

Anyway, in the course of absorbing this nonsense, I could not help but notice that ‘LGBT’, a term with which I am familiar and comfortable, has now become ‘LGBTQ’.

‘Hold on a minute!’ I exclaimed, and set to work researching. It seems that there are alternative interpretations of the brand-new ‘Q’. One says it means ‘Questioning’; the other translates it as ‘Queer’, a term in the course of being ‘reclaimed’.

Whatever, I want to make it clear; it has nothing to do with me.

Just had this text message from Vodacrap, for the umpteenth time in the last two months. It cost me to receive it:

‘Welcome to SPAIN. As you’re in our Europe Zone 1 it costs 18.7p/min to make & 4.9p/min to receive a call. Texts are 5.8p & picture messages 19.8p. Opt in to Vodafone EuroTraveller (by calling +447836115555 for free) & you could save money by using your UK minutes, texts & data abroad for just £3 a day. For terms & info: http://m.vodafone.co.uk/ga1 or call +441635691700. For emergency services 112. Enjoy your trip.’

This is my reply:

‘F*** off you rapacious bastards. EuroTraveller is a con.’ Send one text or receive one short call and it will cost you £3, a flat charge but also a minimum.

Undelivered, of course, but I get to share it through the magic of the blogosphere. Less than two months and I can blow out Vodacrap for good.

I’m pleased with the continuing popularity of Somewhere Over The Rainbow, my Amazon exclusive non-mystery title. Politics is always popular and believe me it’s fertile ground for comedy.

Woke up this morning, got myself a gun . . .

Well, not quite, but I did go into full Tony Soprano mode when I read the lead story in today’s Herald, headed ‘Fears over “toxic” team of surgical consultants’ and realised that it referred to the Vascular Surgery Department at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

Here’s a sneak preview of next year’s Skinner novel, Private Investigations. It’s dedicated to a man called Dave Lewis, and his colleagues. He is a consultant surgeon in the ERI vascular unit and last year he and his team saved my wife’s life. She was under their care for a year, being monitored for a detected abdominal aortic aneurysm, a condition for which all men over 65 are now offered screening, but which also occurs in women.

Patients can live with a Triple A quite happily without needing surgery, but if they do, top level surgical skills are required. There are two possibilities in the latter circumstance. One is a keyhole procedure similar to a stent, where a tube is inserted in the ballooned artery to narrow it from within. The other is full-on intervention, highly complex life-threatening surgery, given the location of the problem.

I’m no mug. At the very start of the journey, when the condition was diagnosed and we were referred to Mr Lewis, I checked him out. I was more than happy with what I found; he’s one of the global leaders in the field. He explained the situation clearly at our first consultation and kept a close eye on Eileen throughout. Monitoring of the condition was regular and thorough, under the care of Neil Mitchard, our excellent practitioner nurse. When it did go symptomatic, and we went straight to A&E armed with a letter from our GP, Dave was there, waiting for us. He said that invasive surgery was necessary, urgently; however he would not operate that night, but wait until next day when he had his full team around him.

The operation took four to five hours; when it was over he called me from theatre, to say that it had gone as well as he had hoped, and that the patient was expected to make a full if lengthy recovery. Note: he called me, he didn’t delegate the task to a junior member of the squad.

That’s my experience of this so-called ‘toxic’ unit. But it’s not my only experience of the NHS and its internal politics.

Back in the 70s, as a civil service information officer, I had media relations responsibility for an extremely sensitive unit. In its relatively small management team, there were two senior consultants who would not speak to each other, literally. Ten years later, as an independent practitioner, I had as a client an NHS Trust. Some of the relationships between its management and its consultants would have been more suited to a primary school playground. There are rivalries within the NHS? Of course there are; they’re endemic. But are they ‘toxic’?

The Herald cites an independent report by two English consultants, which it says was commissioned by NHS Lothian. It quotes descriptions of ‘forceful and at times aggressive behaviour’. It says that consultants actively look for errors in each other’s work, taking notes and recording occurrences. To me, that is no bad thing; it demonstrates that there is no complacency in the department. But it goes on to claim that a ‘gang culture’ exists, with some of the consultants believing that one of their number is favoured by management.

It quotes a case in which a patient died. In fact routine major vascular surgery carries a fatality risk of maybe one in ten; in Triple-A emergencies, where it has ruptured, those are the survival chances.

Let’s consider the management which commissioned this report, and ask some questions. Why did NHS Lothian find it necessary to ask two men from far away to study and report on the behaviour of fellow professionals? Is its own control so inadequate?

The medical director of NHS Lothian is quoted as saying, among other things, that it did so ‘to ensure patient safety’. I’m sorry; that is an outrageous statement.

It implies that in some way patient safety was at risk, in a department which saves lives, my wife’s included, on a daily basis, and whose staff are regarded as world leaders, in a centre of excellence. During Eileen’s care we were told by a professional with no axe to grind, ‘If I had this condition there is no place I would rather be treated than in Edinburgh Royal.’

I must make it clear that I am not criticising the Herald, not for one second. It reported on a document that came into its possession, and it is entitled to call it as it sees it.

However there is one enormous elephant in the room, or in this case the operating theatre. How did such a sensitive, disturbing report ever come to be leaked?

At the beginning and end of the day it is the considered, but subjective view of two individuals, no more than that. There will be counter-arguments that have not been aired. And yet it has the protential to do far more damage to patient well-being than it could ever prevent.

At various locations across central Scotland right now, there are people who are in the care of the ERI Vascular Surgery Unit, at the same stage of their treatment that my wife was exactly one year ago. Every one of them will be alarmed by that report, yet in my experience, there is no need; they could be in no better hands.

I suggest that another enquiry is needed, far more urgently than the first, into the management that was unable to deal internally with bickering between its professional staff and which then allowed the fall-out to splash all over the public domain.

The tiny town of Casavells from the roof of its palace. Immaciulate

Encountered this guy this morning on a terrace in the Palau de Casavells. Very small and very shy. I’m not sure whether he’s a chick or an adult from a mini owl species. If anyone knows, please enlighten me.

I am no lover of seagulls, and I would like the people in the house opposite ours to evict the rowdy family that has parked itself on their roof but there are places where sea birds do belong.

Seen this morning while we were having a coffee. That rock is a little island, home to families of seagulls. Often kids jump off the outcrop on the right into the water, no harm there. The four idiots in the photograph climbed on to the top, where most of the nests are, waving sticks to scare the adult birds off. God knows what happened after that.

One of the group was dive-bombed by a bird as he clambered down. He was scared, but got off lightly. If anyone broke into my house and threatened my kids, I’d bloody shoot them, no questions asked.

Thanks to the nice lady doctor at the Primary Care Centre in L’Escala, who patched me up after i did something really stupid and  rearranged three toes. Nothing broken but lots of blood.

Sir George Ivan Morrison, Sir Gareth Owen Edwards: about bloody time.

Sir Lenny Henry, Sir Kevin Spacey; why the hell not?

Sir Henry Angest: no way.

In my search for a smile, I found a story forecasting that Lenny Henry is to receive a knighthood when the Queen’s Birthday Honours list is published on Friday, with smiling comments by the man himself.

Such leaks from the Cabinet Office have happened before, but it is apparently unprecedented for one to be confirmed by the alleged recipient.

In that new climate, therefore, I can reveal exclusively . . . I’m not on it.

Having breakfast this morning, scanning BBC, Sky, the Guardian on my iPad. Eileen asked, ‘Is there any good news?’ Had a really good look; couldn’t find any.

Top story on Sky was of a British tourist who is under investigation for indecent behaviour in Malaysia as one of a group who stripped off on top of a sacred mountain. If there was ever a definition of a slow news day, that is it.

Okay, I stayed with The Interceptor to the end. Paul Kaye’s gone, but Trevor Eve as the bad guy is worth sticking with. However I wish the producers would remember that not everyone finds it easy to following t he mumbling of Londoners.

Watching ‘The Interceptor’. Only saving grace so far, Paul Kaye.

Whatever the Spanish say about June 23 being the official date, summer has begun. The Bells are ringing in L’Escala.