no nurse=more work

I have been psyching myself up for this day for some weeks. Today I had to do the baby clinic without the assistance of my practice nurse, thereby increasing my workload by getting on for 70%. Thus, instead of finishing at 3.45 pm, it was more like 5.20 before I could go home, by which point I was too tired to take my car to the car wash to remove the thick layer of dust it had accumulated from the sandblasting going on next door. They might have advised me to move my car, at least...

COMMENT

A new phrase has apparently entered our language: "recreational rioting"- the term now used to describe the recrudescence of troubles in north Belfast. Children as young as 8 have been seen hurling stones at the police, while their older brothers have heaved heavier implements; petrol and blast bombs, as well as charging the police lines with huge iron bars. The term "recreational rioting" implies that the participants are there purely to have fun, but is not the truth that these disturbances followed on directly from Orangeman parades? They were deliberately routed through catholic areas, in a manner surely intended to provoke, to "rub their noses in it", as it were, and to remind the catholic minority (as if they needed any reminding) who is really still in charge, despite the power-sharing agreement.

All marches by one sectarian group through the heart of the other should have been banned long ago, and the fact they haven't underlines my assertion that the protestant community still pulls the important strings in Northern Ireland.