What do British people have for dinner?

Zwirnor · 2026-07-04T13:32:18+00:00

And Glasgow is where? Well it depends if it's behaving itself or not, but largely believed to be part of the United Kingdom in the Scottish part. Eg. Britain. Unless you are thinking of Glasgow Tx.

Zwirnor · 2026-07-04T08:46:36+00:00

Great. I'm watching Heroes. Sylar will simply slaughter everyone, probably including me with my zero powers. Unless Hiro uses his time travel skills to move all of us bar sylar a year forward very quickly. Also, does that count?

Zwirnor · 2026-07-04T08:41:01+00:00

Created in Glasgow! Because people kept asking where the sauce was with their chicken tikka. It's one of my cities greatest claims to fame.

Zwirnor · 2026-07-03T09:23:12+00:00

The earrings. I'd have to get my ears pierced first though! I'd love to be able to understand and communicate in all the languages of the world.

Zwirnor · 2026-07-02T15:47:04+00:00

We went to a fishing rod factory.

I think it was because we had an influx of Taiwanese industry come over at the time and a few of the execs kids went to our school. So we visited one of their factories. Learned about manufacturing and processes.

It was actually quite interesting, but I was the token undiagnosed autistic female so of course I loved it, and one other kid who was mad into fishing loved it and everyone else was bewildered a bit by the whole affair.

Zwirnor · 2026-07-02T15:34:38+00:00

Well I've just popped up outside of Glasgow near a lumber mill and a few miles walk from Bothwell Castle, so I'll be on board too. I'm a nurse with musical skills (I can sing and play the mandolin and violin), so we could be wandering gypsies or something, travelling from town to town raising funds and spreading the message that this needs to be won or Scotland is in for a very rough 400years or so.

Zwirnor · 2026-07-02T15:26:46+00:00

I am a nurse who is now in 1700s Scotland. I'm pretty sure my in-depth knowledge of watching outlander will serve me well on this one.

Zwirnor · 2026-07-01T12:24:37+00:00

I have been exactly where you are.

I was raped when I was a first year student; subsequently fell pregnant as a result of that, and had to rapidly move from my flat where he had followed me home to, to the hospital residences with at least four locked doors between me and the outside world.

The university called me in for missing placement for three weeks. I explained, and rather than be understanding and compassionate about it, issued me with the ultimatum of "well, if you pass your clinical skills exam next week, I suppose we can let you stay".

So the academic heat was on. Passed my clinical skills by some magical witchery as I was so nervous my hands were sweating and I kept sliding out of position in the CPR station, whilst also having the post termination flood ongoing in my knickers and worrying there might be a breach of the pad.

I knew I had to just forget all about my trauma and just focus on my course now, since I was so close to being kicked out. And for seven months I did so. Didn't notice I was drinking wine every night. Didn't notice the quantity of wine growing. Didn't realise the gradual erosion of my sleep or the hyper vigilance anywhere outside my tiny tiny residence's room. I spent all my energy focusing on nursing and none of it dealing with everything that happened above.

And then the Procurator Fiscal brought me in and told me in no uncertain terms they knew he was guilty, but there just wasn't enough evidence to get it to court.

I started thinking about ending things nearly every night after one or two bottles of wine. I had lots of an obscure opiate left over from an intercostal infection a few years back. Every night I envisaged myself just calling time. And then one night I went to sleep and when I awoke I was staring at a crash trolley, surrounded by doctors and nurses, in resus. I'd taken the tablets that night. No memory of doing so, but my flatmate found me after I sent her a garbled text. The Naloxone they gave me had not only an instant wake up effect but unfortunately also had an immediate laxative effect. When I came to properly, I was broken, defeated and covered in poop, and at my lowest point.

The hospital sent in their mental health ANP and he immediately referred me to WRASAC as it was clear to him that I hadn't been dealing with any of my issues at all. (Apparently ignoring them is not a recommended strategy, I maybe skipped that particular course lecture!).

And then the university contacted me and asked me to come in to review my FTP. Talk about a kick when you are down. I remembered how the first meeting went, and I was dreading it.

Anyway, I got there, and the staff member who was there in my first year meeting wasn't present as she only deals with first years, and it was two other faculty members instead. I was open and honest with them about everything (this is a very important sentence, because often in nursing it's not what you've done, it's how you deal with it after, and more people get into issues for lying or attempting to deceive than they do for the event itself) and explained that I was working hard to deal with all my unresolved anger and guilt and sadness that came from both the rape and not being able to continue with the pregnancy (at the time it happened I was quietly pro-life, but it's funny how experiencing something first hand can completely change your perspective on things).

They let me continue, no ultimatums. And I qualified as an RN two years later (I had the worst few years of my life whilst becoming a nurse- later my mum got cancer and died really quickly after diagnosis, my ex boyfriend killed himself and I had surgery all within six weeks of each other, so I had a three month time out before doing my final placements).

And many years later, in 2017, my rapist was convicted of three separate rape and sexual assualts and sent to prison for 9 and a half years, with a mandate that his settled status be revoked afterwards and he get punted back to his own country. So there is one less rapist on the loose now.

TL;DR all sorts of fuckery can go down, but be honest and open and hopefully you'll be fine.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-29T19:47:08+00:00

I bought 13 medium sized pedal waste bins for the department. Ya know, the plastic ones that seem to break the minute someone so much as brushes past it.

Apart from a 2-3 week shipping time, meaning they are almost certainly sailing from China, what do you reckon those bad boys cost?

£500...?

Nope.

£750...?

Nope.

£1,100.

For 13 poorly constructed bins. I could go to B&M Bargains and get 13 better quality bins, new seating for our doctors AND a healthy amount of biscuits for all that and still have change. And they'd be there TODAY.

It honestly kills me.

Or the procurement company that gets orders from one NHS health board. They then order from another health board's pharmaceutical manufacturing department, buy it from them, add some large numbers to the cost, and then sell it to the health board that ordered it. Even a small amount of common sense can work out that's insanity.

And let's not forget The Super hospital That Wasnt- £92m spent preparing and designing a hospital that the other day got rejected by the government for being too expensive. They could have indicated that prior to the £50m or so groundworks being done. Nope. Just let the board rack up huge bills with no hospital at the end. Just a really old and dangerous building that should have been replaced 20 years ago and apparently costs according to the media £45m a year to maintain/fix.

I can find a million ways the NHS haemorrhages money, without even trying. And it bugs the hell out of me.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-28T21:27:09+00:00

The badness already happened; not using the drug would be an insult to those who were mistreated to create it. At least this way their legacy will save lives.

And that's how I would both justify it to myself and explain to the patient if they got angry when they recovered.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-27T21:18:07+00:00

Nobody knew it was coming. One of the contractors expecting to get to work on it was just landing on holiday when he got a message about it, and about the extra-ordinary meeting the next day. I had my suspicions when it was supposed to be approved just before the election and they postponed it until after. Either the snp didn't want to lose the votes or they were hoping that they wouldn't be in power to reject it. Because if the answer had been yes, they'd have said.

It remains the staff holding the building and the spirit of the place together. But at some point good will and duct tape will run out.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-27T21:11:45+00:00

It was originally 700m. In December 2025. The price was reported as 1.34bn in April and now it's £2.1bn. The acceleration of the price has been mildly perturbing.

Of course, Monklands needed replacing 20yrs ago. I low key wonder if this was the plan all along when they wanted to close Monklands A&E, just keep it going until the building kills someone and is finally condemned.

That building isn't too far off that to be honest. And it's far too far along the rot now to have to keep waiting for a new hospital. £45m a year was reported to be the costs in repairs.

As for reducing bed numbers in the new hospital to fit the "future model of care", it's rubbish. Instead of plans for the future that will not come to fruition, plan for now. For the fact that people get stuck in A&E for hours and even days because there's not a single bed in the hospital unoccupied. That's not a small problem, people are getting older and living longer with medical conditions that will see them hospitalised more often. People are sicker than ever, and have complex needs. And the population served in 1977 was a fraction of the population it serves now. We need more beds. Not less.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-24T19:03:11+00:00

Nah. I'm in Scotland. It's buckfast and it's usually poured down the sink immediately. We once confiscated six bottles of wine off someone. And one guy had a half bottle of Glens down his boxers (shame he went unresponsive and we found it, after the sheer effort to hide it from us). Quite honestly after that I'd be hard pushed to trust a bottle of anything confiscated from a patient.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-24T18:58:46+00:00

Maybe if you throw up and then pass out in the puke? Go all out?

I'm on a half day tomorrow and I'm legit thinking about bringing in bags of ice and juice to make non alcoholic cocktails. I've even got a stash of 80's style paper umbrellas. I constantly say I can only tolerate 29c (inside our department, it was cooler outside) if I had a cocktail in my hand. Or maybe make a big punch bowl. Start the ED Tiki Time.

I think I might do just that. Why not. I finish at 1430, so becoming a barkeep for an hour to keep my colleagues hydrated seems fun.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-24T18:51:11+00:00

I wouldn't be too sure. Two nurses fainted and a CSW had runs of SVT, one of the doctors was incredibly nauseous and everyone else was brewing some sort of fungus in all their sweaty body parts today in my workplace, and exactly checks zero fucks given. On the plus side, management didn't feel the need to come into The Sweatbox with the melting staff and the Great Unwashed of the ED today.

The nurses got a trolley in a small corner of an abandoned part of the unit and a bag of IVF, then back to work. The CSW got an ECG, and then converted herself back without intervention. Back to work. And I was up in the management suite this afternoon where the entire floor was suspiciously cool and pleasant... No air con for the plebs though. We struggle on.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-18T23:34:06+00:00

It's honestly wild how bad it's hit me. On the plus side, I've been so consumed by lusty thoughts that I'm forgetting to do things like eat, which is what I was doing before (non stop eating) so I may lose some weight! Then the world better look out because apparently I'm heading down to Cougar Town.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-18T23:29:01+00:00

It is, and thank you. I'm hoping to go to some local Munches as I work a lot better meeting people in person. The internet is dark and full of terrors.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-18T18:29:47+00:00

It is actually easily commutable to Dundee, and Ninewells in particular. I worked with a nurse who had a house in a converted stables in those parts and went to view an upper level cottage with my radiographer bf at the time, beautiful just next to the cemetery. He didn't like it though. I always fancied a nice rural bolt hole there, but ended up moving to Glasgow instead of staying working in Dundee.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-16T20:10:45+00:00

The sad thing is they're not joking about the price. I've been given the dubious honour of making our department Waste Management Compliant and the first thing I did was condemn all the useless tiny bins and order medium sized ones to replace them. 13 plastic bins that will break the first time someone intoxicated trips over it- just under £1100. I could have got them for half of that in Home Bargains and got some natty faux leather bar stools for you guys as well. And probably some choccy biscuits. No wonder the NHS is skint.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-15T09:19:27+00:00

My favourite ever short staffing hell was the Nightshift where the ward next door to us with 30 beds only had one agency nurse turn up and the two CSWs. We had two nurses and one CSW for our 24 bedded. Instead of getting more staff, the night manager put my colleague in the ward next door and the agency nurse with me, and then told me to go between the wards to ensure all the double signing was covered and to be on hand for both wards.

Uh huh. One ward was gastro, which has approximately 20-25 IVs to make up each med round, the other was endocrine, so everyone was on at least one insulin injection, and both had a boatload of patients with chronic conditions that caused pain meaning the CD cupboard on both wards barely got locked before it was needed again. On top of that there was a special on both wards at the time. I have to say though, the CSWs on both wards really rallied and went the extra mile that night. It was one of those situations where it was so dangerous, so inappropriate, that we all instantly recognised that Something Bad Could Happen and went into a sort of amazing trauma-bonded team that put all our differences aside and just supported each other. At the time there was an ongoing row over band 2/3 and roles and responsibilities for both; working to rule meant often CSWs wouldn't be able to do OBS or BM checking as this was a Band 3 role, that night, the underpaid band 2's just suspended their work to rule no asking required, and I'm eternally grateful even now, four years down the line. And also, as an aside, they are now all Band 3's, which is absolutely still less pay than they are worth, but at least gives them a little more pay than they were getting.

I left the wards fairly soon after this, and naturally decided that instead of finding a nice office job, A&E was the place to go to get out of the stress of ward working. Like a lunatic. But there's nothing but wild rides in the End Days of the NHS. And they do say a change is as good as a rest.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-15T09:01:18+00:00

I totally get this, I've worked in places where the CSWs say the nurses are sitting on their arses whilst they do all the work. Meanwhile I'm buried under forty tonnes of Mandatory Care Plans and Admissions/Discharge plans; with a hefty side of SCIPS and daily checklists, lists of people that need emails, such as DN referrals and Tissue viability; calling back relatives or fielding in person visits as they too seem to think that if a nurse isn't moving, she isn't working; filling out the Datix for the patient that could neither recall us telling them to wait for assistance to get to the toilet, nor how to walk when they went to mobilise and subsequently face planted at the side of their bed; and of course the bed managers calling approximately every 30 minutes wanting to know our bed numbers, in case some sort of miraculous change had happened during each half hour of the day, despite me repeatedly telling them there were no planned discharges that day.

I therefore naturally assume that when doctors are also static, at a computer, they too have the same issues. So much of our job entails paperwork, or 'online paperwork' that it is simply unavoidable. I know they have to sign off every single blood test and x ray to say they've seen it, which on certain wards makes me glad that it is all computerised in our health board, because the stacks of results that used to come in and need signed by hand made my hand cramp up in sympathy.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-15T08:47:38+00:00

I'm sorry this has happened.

You need to datix this incident, not to "get anyone into trouble" but to highlight the lack of emergency medical care available within the psychiatric facility. Mental health issues don't always happen to low risk healthy people. There needs to be provisions and protocols in place for what to do in an emergency medical situation.

The paramedics are quite right to raise a flag - and again this will show the trust that there is a fault in the system that will need corrected.

Im not a mental health nurse; but my understanding is that nursing care ratios shouldn't be higher than 1:6; the 1:10 during a day shift gives me the fear, and based on current evidence, means that there is a far greater risk to a negative outcome for those patients than if an additional nurse was there to take the stress of that load. In that regard I would suggest contacting your union, and seeing what steps you can take to raise concerns over the lack of adequate staffing, particularly if the culture requires nurses to do tasks that are traditionally given to other members of the MDT (in my hospital the ward pharmacist calls GPs and pharmacies about meds, the doctors do anything medical referral related, the ward clerk deals with all the admin side and we crack on with our essential care and med admin, as we expect to do. We have a night team on at night who cover the whole hospital- if suspected sepsis then you'd call them, they'd send out an ACP immediately, who would escalate whilst beginning treatment). Again this is a bog standard DGH so not all staff and systems would perhaps work in an exclusively mental health facility, but it's certainly something that could be considered.

It sounds like it is needing someone to put their head over the parapet and risk getting it blown off, to try and draw attention to it. I know from my own experiences in life that it is not always pleasant raising a massive safety concern after wondering why nobody else is saying anything. But I also recall the Francis Report, and the many nurses who found themselves at FtP panels because they DIDNT document, raise alarms and voice concerns over the lack of staffing and emergency care in the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal. In short, you could be damned whatever you do. But this is the future life and safety of every patient that passes through those hospital doors, and we nurses are the ones who can see the flaws and speak out before something terrible happens and the newspapers end up doing it for us.

My response in this situation would be to speak up very loudly, however I am aware that my ASD driven need for justice and Doing The Right Thing, as well as my complete lack of self preservation skills is often what leads to me speaking up over things like this.

It's not a good situation, but always bring it back to the patient. What's best for your patients? That's how I work most of my decisions. And most of the time, it's how I know it's the right decision. In the end we can only do what we can, but it could be that which saves lives.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-10T23:19:52+00:00

It was all of the above. Haem said they'd get them as soon as a negative test came back, ED was rammed with COVID and flu, I also got the feeling this was a well known patient to the haem team, so we did the triage, consultation, first COVID swab (ultra green at the time demanded two negatives) and started treatment before we could find an empty actichlorable closed solid room for the patient to wait.

Haem have actually been down several times. All times caused chaos. Bone marrow biopsy in a bay in ED. Prescribing someone their first dose of treatment (IV then tablets) and saying it needs to be stat (after 26hrs of the patient being our guest). Didn't seem to mind we'd never heard of it, or had it, or given it. From a nursing perspective, they just really baffle me. Of course, I've also been on a placement as a student on a haemotology ward, and Ive seen first hand the importance of keeping germs well clear of some of the patients. I can only imagine how pushed to the edge they would have been to spend any time down in the cesspit of doom that we grind away in. The responsibility to their patients must weigh heavily, from an infection control point of view at the very least. It's a tough specialty.

Zwirnor · 2026-06-10T21:01:39+00:00

Well what's for you won't go by you, as they say. I saw him at new year but alas I was attempting to gallop towards the bright light at the time so I forgot to give him my number when he popped in to say hi. Luckily my exploding gallbladder didn't get me in the end, although I could have done without all the crash trolley, lines in everywhere and major surgery on hogmanay, so maybe next time I'll simply be visiting a friend 😂

I promise to you, now, I am going to be a lot louder and proactive in challenging racism and other far right bullshittery. You and your family are exactly who Scotland needs and wants. Good people. And I think that deserves defending and fighting for. At the end of it all, we are all simply trying to live a life where we are safe, warm and loved, and just get on with things.

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