May I wish all of you who have stumbled across my ramblings this year a Merry Christmas. Unfortunately, I could not find a pharmacy-inspired Christmas photograph. This was the best I could do which seems to show Santa and some Drug reps. I hope he has enough Post-it notes.
There is a seasonal competition going on over at Pharmacy Hotties
I do not recognise anybody yet. Then again, I'm not sure I would mention it if I did.
Poor Pharmacy God. He is suffering at work.
I feel your pain pharmacy god. A few years back I used to work for a well known UK High-Street chain. From November on we got back-to-back The Pogues, Wizzard, and generic Christmassy jingles. Funnily enough Gary Glitter's Christmas classics were deleted from the system shortly after he was convicted of possessing 4000 indecent photographs of children.
A locum and I worked out that the store radio was not linked via satellite, or network. Therefore, the "music" must arrive on a CDRom. A plan was hatched. Once a month a disk arrived. This was fed into a monitorless PC. where the mp3s were copied over and the disk spat back out. Perusing this CD led us to discover that it was simply a disk of mp3s with numbers as titles. Presumably the PC had a playlist that worked through the list in some numerical order. It seemed to play high-energy songs in the morning and late in the afternoon, so perhaps there was some psychology behind the choices.
Anyway, to cut a long, nerdy story short we ripped a copy of CrashTestDummies singing Christmas Hits, changed the filenames to make them identical to the ones on the disk we intercepted, and loaded the disk. A tense few seconds as the playlist restarted and then Brad Roberts sang out.........success. Simple things please simple minds- I doubt anybody else even noticed the change.
So, if you are now working in a store where the Christmas selection is a little strange, then that is probably my fault, sorry about that. It was a very quiet store in terms of prescription volume, we were very bored. and we had asked for the music to be turned down previously. (Have you ever tried talking to a doctor about a medication change when "We Three Kings", played by a Mariachi band, is playing in the background? Professional it sounds not.) Unfortunately, I left the company before I could copy over my whole mp3 collection and make the store radio my personal mp3 player.
Keep your chin up Pharmacy God, only one more week to go.
An interesting post from Cal regarding Dr Crippen
Someone, purporting to be a partner at Dr Crippen's practice, has reported his death. I'm not too sure whether it is a hoax, a ruse to flush Dr Crippen into posting again, or the truth. I am guessing the truth will out soon enough because Dr Crippen had a large readership. Someone, somewhere is going to realise that Dr X, their GP, died in circumstances not dissimilar to those mentioned and put two and two together. There cannot be that many GPs of similar age, and similar demographic profile, who have died that way recently.
Dr Crippen has been quiet for a while and I've just assumed he has been a busy chap. I am hoping that he will pop up and squash the rumour soon.
From Iain Dale:- For those of us who will not miss £10. Plus, anybody who works in a pharmacy will have at least part of the kit the recipients enjoy at arm's length already!
Surprise Supplies is a scheme which aims to send parcels to every single member of the Armed Forces currently serving in operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. A lot of them receive little in the way of support parcels from home and they really do make all the difference. We are all aware of the disagreeable circumstances these soldiers are working in and this is a small way of our acknowledging what they do on our behalf.
The scheme is very simple and all you need to do is to put together a small parcel containing a few goodies and then send it in the post addressed to one of the addresses below. It will mean such a lot to these wonderful men and women serving so far away from home to know that people are thinking about them and that we value and appreciate the sacrifices that they are making.
It would make even more of a difference if you could organise for a group of people (your friends, colleagues or staff for example) to put together as many parcels as you can. Please forward this blogpost to all your friends and family and ask them to do the same. There are over 14,000 servicemen and women serving overseas in Afghanistan and the Middle East so the more parcels that we can send out the better.
How does it work?
All you need to do is to put together a parcel (or parcels) containing a few ‘goodies’ with a value of not more than £10, address the package to one of the addresses at the end of this post and then take it to the post office/put it in the post.
Royal Mail will deliver the parcel free of charge to the British Forces Posting Office who will then ship it on to the relevant BFPO number.
Padded jiffy bags and old shoe boxes are the best for packing things in but any kind of old cardboard box or packet will do. Use tissue paper, newspaper, bubble wrap and anything light to stuff the package and stop things rolling around.
Postage is only free of charge if the parcel weighs less than 2kg and they are very strict about this so we recommend that you weigh your parcels before taking them to the post office.
There are lots of women serving out there too so although the mailing labels says ‘a Serviceman’ if you would like to put a parcel together for a woman please just amend the label accordingly and it will be given to a female.
What do I put inside?
One of the main elements of this scheme is to provide a bit of variety. Therefore if you can, use your imagination to the full and think of a cross between Christmas stockings and tuck boxes and you will be on the right track. It is very hot in Afghanistan so please do not send things that melt such as chocolate. Alcohol (and pornography!) are forbidden but this still leaves plenty of goodies such as:
Biscuits, cake - homemade wonderful but bought wonderful too – but think long life like fruitcake, gingerbread or malt loaf. Anything in a tube, vacuum pack or tin to perk up their rather basic rations is great - toffee sauce, (M&S does a good range of savoury and sweet sauces in tubes) condensed milk, salsa dip and cheese straws, cream cheese, fish paste, chutneys, chorizo sausage, dried fruit and nuts, mint imperials, chewing gum and everyone loves Jelly Babies.
Sudoku books and magazines – Nuts, Zoo and FHM we are reliably informed are the most popular but also the Week for current affairs and any kind of magazine will be very welcome, the more varied the better as there is lots of time for reading and magazines get swapped and shared around.
Candles (for illumination, not scent), lip salve, moisturiser, medicated talc, deodorant, toothpaste and cotton socks (M&S do a great range of cotton socks that are v. popular – black and olive green are good colours). They also have to drink vast quantities of water so any powder flavourings in a package like Berocca, Vitamin C sachets etc. would be both light and immensely appreciated. Finally old fashioned pick ‘n mix sweets are particularly recommended but please keep the contents within £10 for the sake of equality.
Who will get my parcel?
Your parcel is being sent to one of two addresses in either Iraq or Afghanistan. From there they will be distributed throughout theatre. You won’t know who has received your parcel but you can be sure that a deserving soldier will be very grateful. Please do write an encouraging message inside your card for your soldier but please sign with your Christian name only and do not give your address as we do not want the soldiers to feel obliged to write thank you letters.
What is Surprise Supplies?
Surprise Supplies came about because of an idea Lexi Douglas had whilst her son was serving in Afghanistan in 2007. She regularly sent him parcels stuffed full of cakes and other nice things and when Charlie wrote home he said how appreciated they were but that not all of the boys received parcels from home so he would share his out with them. Lexi told her friends and they volunteered to send parcels and the idea grew from there. You can read more about it HERE
A British Soldier
c/o Capt. S Beattie MBE
HQ Task Force Helmand
Lashkar Gah
BFPO 715
A British Soldier
c/o Capt. S Beattie MBE
HQ Task Force Helmand
Lashkar Gah
BFPO 715
A British Soldier
c/o JI Branch
HQ MND (SE)
Op Telic
BFPO 641
A British Soldier
c/o JI Branch
HQ MND (SE)
Op Telic
BFPO 641
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