Cycle of life

Trial time. When the assessing doctor says how is your walking? I say fine. When he then says...can you walk for a half a mile? I say yes again. And that is where we leave it normally. It's a mutual trust thing... Can you walk half a mile? Yes. You don't expect him to say...prove it. Let's go. And so there we were walking down Whitechapel half way to Liverpool Street and back. I refused to answer the erectile function question.

This was the six month test. This was boot camp. This would sort out the men from the ms. It was all change at Clinical Research. NeuroBond was gone. Either eliminated by Sean Bean or "retired" by his own operatives. Maybe his license to interpret MRI's had been revoked. We weren't told. Nurse MoneyPenny was "on annual leave". Suspicious eh? Nurse Blofeld remained, needle in one hand, paperwork in the other....whatever had happened, Clinical Research had changed. It's usual European efficiency was over. Replacing it was the unmistakable whiff of Monty Python. Clinical Research had gone comedy. EU doctors with preposterous accents were out and well spoken public school alumni with preposterous accents were in.

Dr. Miles wore a red bow-tie. Hi he said these neuological tests can be a bit humiliating so I find it helps if I join in. When I ask you to hop, I shall hop with you...and so he did. We hopped together, walked on heels together, tip-toed together...we walked down corridors together. We gazed at eye charts and added sums together....it was a love in of neurological proportions.

By the time we got back from our walk to Liverpool Street it was time for New Nurse. New Nurse was under instruction from Blofeld. With Blofeld's record of spilling my blood this could have been worrying but New Nurse broke all records. She was the best blood taker. Subtle, underplayed needle invasion followed by excellent casual chit chat while she secured the requisite eight test tubes of blood from me. Terrific needle exit was followed by perfect plaster placement. This nurse knew her shit. This was English efficiency. This was a system we could trust in.

Blofeld came in to check the paperwork. Did you mean to put his date of birth in the 'last menstrual cycle' box?