Thread 8 - TalkLair: “Brewing Russell's teapot”

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of previous threads (thread 7).

The new lair of JTT escapees is all cosy and homey; we have truly settled here. Outside, the garden is blooming with spring flowers. Inside, the hearth is glowing, pictures are up on the walls, rugs are down on the floors (and assorted pets curled up on them).

We just won’t mention the gnawed bones of our prey over there in the corner of the cave…

I had a tooth out last year because it wouldn’t support a crown any more so I now have an implant. There was a cyst on the root which my dentist rightly assumed I’d want to see!

Thank you for all the reassurances, it really helps. My gum isn't too bad now that the infection has gone but if I bite on that tooth it does feel a bit spongy. My teeth also have roots like bananas! I hope that doesn't complicate matters. This tooth has a gold on-lay and I'm wondering if I get to keep the gold, I paid for it after all.

@MouseMinge I also had extra teeth and spent seven years going back and forth to the Birmingham dental hospital every few months. Can't remember how many teeth had to come out, but it was a lot. At very appointment there would be a crowd of dental students around the chair and it took me years to realise I was a 'case'.

Dang! That's reminded me of an extraction I had at the very same hostipal, Tricy, back in 1971. They had a sort of long gallery with about 10 dentist chairs and they filed us in and sat us down. Then one bloke came along the row with the anaesthetic syringe, followed by the bloke with the pliers or whatever.

All I'd say is, never sit in the first chair, as I did, because the man with the plierfs is eager to get going and may not wait long enough for the patient to be numb.

We were going there at the same time, angelico. I went from the late 1960s to the mid 1970s. Never saw the long gallery which sounds ghastly. Who came up with that barbarity? Did you get to play on the Paternoster lifts?

I was always seen in the same room by a Mr Walpole-Day, plus all the students. He did great work, removing many of my teeth and moving the remaining ones about with the use of braces. Without him I'd have had a mouth like a piranha fish.

Most of the extractions were done at the dentist and the equipment was just like this, with glass fronted cabinets and cut glass door knobs and everything. When that man finally retired the new dentist kept the room as a sort of museum and there was a little hatch from the new surgery where you could look through at it.

I had mine done at what is now the Lanesborough Hotel but was then St George's Hyde Park Corner.

When, in the late 1980s, the health service decided to shut St George's Hospital, as the building then was, it was found that the former Duke of Westminster, who sold the building to the state, had inserted a clause in the original deal allowing his estate to buy it back at the same sale price.
The (then) Duke of Westminster duly paid the 19th-century price to buy back the £60m piece of prime central London real estate from the Government. The money he had to find was £6,000.

And that sort of forward planning, my friends, is why the Dukes of Westminster are so much wealthier than we will ever be.

Did you get to play on the Paternoster lifts?

I remember them but I don't think I tried them. I used the ones in the Library at Birmingham Uni, with some trepidation, over a six year period. That's gone now. One of my favourite places ever, rats.

Heh! My mother had been a nurse at the Dental Hospital in Leeds so felt that it would be helpful for it to provide her daughters as guinea pigs, to be practised on by the dental students. The equipment was old, and we were never given anaesthetic. I remember the long row of chairs as you describe.

Gonners, that story is shocking.

I loved the Paternoster lifts and once went all the way around the loop to see what happened, which was just that everything went dark and clanky for a while.

we were never given anaesthetic

I had anaesthetic for extractions, but didn't even know you could have them for fillings until I was 18 and a new dentist took over the surgery we used.

In completely random events news, a delivery company has just delivered this, addressed to me: https://society6.com/product/ouija-board-4ae_cutting-board?sku=s6-2150674p71a218v767

I didn't order it, so it's presumably a gift (my birthday is later this month) ... but there's absolutely no indication of who hates me enough to send it.

I was at Leicester uni and we had paternoster lifts in the Arts tower there. I think all of us went over the top and under the bottom at least once. My first job out of uni was at an advertising agency practically next door to what was then St George's Hospital before it became the Lanesborough Hotel. I actually went to their A&E once, though I can't remember why. This was in the days before advertising got lean and efficient and we all used to swan off to various places like Harrods in prolonged lunch hours. I left that job to go into teaching hi was the last year that graduated that was allowed to teach in secondary schools without doing a PGCE. I must have been mad.

I was seen by the dental clinic part of the Royal London. I also had loads of students swarming around me because I was unusual. They didn't do the extraction there because they found the hidden teeth. At the time the Mildmay Mission hospital was an annex of the Royal London so that was where I had the operation. The Mildmay Mission went on to become the major AIDS hospital. Terance Higgins?

One thing I remember about those visits to the dental hospital was how x-rays were done then. I'd be stood in front of a glass window looking into a room with the equipment in and a big lead cape would be draped around my shoulders, then everyone ran off and someone pushed a button or something.

Going out to a funeral shortly and faffing about on here. Came across this:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4846507-food-thats-not-worth-the-effort

I can't think of any food that's not worth the effort. To me, everything tastes better when it's made at home as you know exactly what's gone into it. Then again, I like cooking and am quite good at it, so am biased.

Thanks, angelico!

I couldn't do the monitoring last night, as the sleeve was too small. I went to borrow one from the doctor, when I walked the dog, but forgot, as the dog ran off to see my neighbour.

We got chatting, then I went home and remembered.... so went and got one.

2 readings: 90 over 151 and 88 over 148. To repeat tonight.

Or is it the big number over the small?

Nothing like the 110 over 200 on Saturday... similar to what the doc found yesterday.

Big number (systolic blood pressure) first, Sinner. It is a bit high. At least your diastolic (lower number) isn’t over 90.

My friend had to go to A&E last night. 111 told her to go to A&E in our neighbouring town, 9 miles away as it was so busy at the city hospital. She arrived and said it was packed. She found out there were 68 people ahead of her with only 5 doctors. Then apparently they closed A&E in our city hospital so all those patients would have to go to the neighbouring town hospital. She got a text 11 hours later telling her they could see her now, but she’d left hours earlier.

I can only imagine the stress involved for the doctors. I’m glad I chose not to study medicine in the end but I’m starting to have serious doubts about continuing with my current clinical scientist pathway.

Blimey, Cyan - that's just awful. Is she OK?

She’s got an urgent GP appointment today but I was really worried about her last night. She’s been suffering for quite a while now but has been bounced around and is at the mercy of waiting lists. Fortunately she has a scan tomorrow so hopefully that will get things moving. I worry about all the people who must walk away from such long A&E waiting times, when they really need to be seen.

Yes, that is certainly a worry. Last time I had my daughter at A&E, there was a posted waiting time of 90 minutes. Several people brought kids in, saw the wait, complained and left.

Were in and out in an hour.

Crikey, complaining about a 90 minute wait?! I’d be thrilled.

The last time I went, only last summer, I was seen very quickly. To be fair I would’ve been prioritised as my GP arranged an ambulance when I lost normal function of my legs and they wanted to rule out stroke. While waiting on various test results they stuck me in the ‘fit to sit’ room with recliners, aircon, drinks and TV. Which was nice.

More recently, I was building a cat tree for Kasper and had propped up a heavy base post. He sauntered in and casually knocked it over with his paw, straight onto my foot. It swelled up massively and the following day (a Sunday) I still couldn’t bear weight on it. 111 told me to go to A&E but I couldn’t face it so they gave me an OOH appointment instead, where the (very attractive) doctor told me he didn’t think it was broken but to go for an X-ray if it didn’t improve in a couple of days, and thankfully it did. I was in and out within 20 minutes. I really do dread the thought of having to go to A&E.

Macman has just got his date for cataract surgery - next weekend! I cannot believe how fast it has all been - one area where subcontracting private companies to do NHS work is working well. Of course cataract surgery is quick, cheap, easy, and relatively risk-free, very attractive to profit-making companies.

One eye at a time? I had one done, then a 4-6 week wait until the second.

His other eye is fine, apparently!

Ah, that's a lot simpler!

I have just realised, for the first time in our nearly-30 years together, that back in the good old days, he and I would BOTH have been getting our state pensions this year! Cataracts and old-age pensions, blimey. We aren’t middle-aged any more.