Having had a bit of a fulminate last week about the difficulties put in the path of those trying to fill out needlessly complex official forms, I continue on my less-than-merry way rejoicing this week with a pop at the increasingly infamous Ninewells Hospital parking charges. It was bad enough when they went up to £2 a time but at least that was a nice, round figure and didn’t tend to leave you scrabbling about in the depths of your purse/wallet for the smallest of small change to make up the numbers.
Now, however, those in the driving seat have pushed the charge up to £2.10 which is truly a pain in the neck, posterior or any other part of your suffering anatomy that may already have been requiring treatment at our foremost teaching hospital. Which, of course, was why you were in its hallowed precincts in the first place.
It’s just really damned awkward and inconvenient, not to mention just plain greedy.
As you will not be surprised to hear, I had an appointment at Ninewells this week and found myself in the car park with you guessed it two nice shiny pound coins in my hand and not an iota of what my granny used to call “grush”.
Not that it would have helped my cause at all if I had had the aforementioned 10 pence in pennies or two pence pieces because the pigging machines don’t accept these sorry apologies for coin of the realm.
Neither have they got to the stage of high technology where they will accept credit or debit cards or even paper money. Although anyone who continually has their crumpled notes shot back at them from the wee slot in the “fast lane” checkouts of many a supermarket might be at pains to point out that this is not necessarily a disadvantage.
So hats off to the lovely man in front of me at the ticket machine who took pity on my hopeless and risingly aerated state and gave me the necessary spondula so that I didn’t have to trudge into the hospital, buy something I didn’t need to avail myself of the essential change and retrace my steps back to my parking space to find, no doubt and knowing my luck, a jobsworth in a peaked cap and hi-vis tabard gleefully filling out a wee electronic form and sticking it to my windscreen, as well as to me personally.
I thank him from the bottom of my heart and also any higher beings (if I believed in them) that I wasn’t going into the hospital to be treated for any kind of stress-related condition. At least I wasn’t before I arrived in the car park . . .
Knights of the road I have heard of. This Knight of the Holy X-Trail or whatever it was he was driving is now high on my list of those who restore your faith in human nature.
And your belief that the rest of the world is increasingly run by the kind of people who don’t actually give tuppence, let alone 10p, for the rest of us.
GIVE YOURSELF a treat next week and go to Dundee Rep on Thursday night to see the two-hander comedy, currently on tour across Britain, about Morecambe & Wise.
Called Eric & Little Ern, it’s a delightful, gentle and hugely entertaining trip down memory lane in the company of two actors, Ian Ashpitel and Jonty Stephens.
Ian Ashpitel is the spitting image of Little Ern you really can’t see the join! And Jonty Stephens has Eric’s mannerisms to a T the fiddling with the specs, the sudden lunging moves, the swooping voice, not to mention all the catchphrases you can cram into two halves of sheer enjoyment and happy nostalgia.
It may not be a play what Ern wrote and it doesn’t go for the stellar guest stars that used to make the Morecambe & Wise Show such a great highlight and festive season institution, even when repeated many years after the performances were originally broadcast.
But the two inhabit their characters so completely that their own ad libs are hardly distinguishable from the originals.
It’s like sitting watching the telly with your mum and dad in 1979, in a very, very good way. Sure, some of it is dated almost historic but it’s also classic, timeless comedy.
It starts with Ernie in old age, in hospital, with a ghostly but far from insubstantial Eric visiting and revisiting the good old days.
It’s quietly touching and a lovely introduction to the second half where Ashpitel and Stephens (or is it Morecambe & Wise?) do their thing in front of the red and gold curtain, a schtick that has never lost its freshness and lightness of touch even after all this time.
Thirty years after Eric’s untimely death (how did it get to be that long?), they’re still bringing us sunshine.