What an hilarious morning I've just had. My deadbeat brother (age 27), who doesn't work or do very much at all other than watch movies on his 42- inch plasma TV, cut himself washing his glass coin saving jar. It was a tiny gash, not even bloody, but apparently he reckoned he could see bone. So he dialled 999...but it gets worse. The operator on the phone told him to get a bus to casualty. So he said: "I can't. I'm on medication and I can't catch buses". So she sorts him out an ambulance to come to him. Then he says "How am I going to get home. I need transport home as well. Can I have that?" So she reluctantly sorts that out for him. But then it gets even worse. He actually rings his deadbeat friend up and asks him if he'd like to go to hospital with him - like it's some kind of day trip and says to the EMTs, while they're putting a little bandage round his cut, "can my mate come too?".
It's a times like this you realise why the NHS is as overstretched as it is.