Crystal Balls and Moroccan Walls

by David Fletcher

  ‘Brian, you can’t do this. You’ve just said yourself that the NHS is a sacred cow. And it’s cherished, isn’t it? And often with good cause. It might have a few problems, but it does save people’s lives, and people just have this thing about it. They’re not bothered that it’s inefficient and greedy. They just want to see it prosper and thrive. And they certainly won’t want to see it ridiculed in a book. You’ve got to junk it. And this is the sounding-board speaking, and the sounding-board is right.’

  ‘Well, I’m not really ridiculing it. I’m more just extrapolating from where it is now. And particularly as regards how its pseudo-religious features turn into real religious features. And if you bear with me just a little while longer, I’ll explain what I mean.’

  ‘It won’t change my mind. But if you feel you must...’

  ‘Thank you. And I’ll try to be brief...’

  ‘Some hope...’

  ‘Yes. Well, you see, to start with, when the government went, so too did the Ministry of Health. The NHS was already powerful enough just to absorb it within itself. And most of its bureaucrats ended up as orderlies and hospital cleaners, with the dimmer ones being sent to the anatomy departments...’

  ‘Brian!’

  ‘Then, in its new, entirely independent state, it started to adapt its clinical training. So doctors were schooled not just in conventional medicine but also in the skills that were now needed to deal with the more pastoral and spiritual demands of their job. And they needed to be taught how to sermonise – on all those important teachings of their institution, on anything from the moral obligation to eat healthily, to take plenty of exercise and to abstain from all forms of un-prescribed substances – to the “holy duty” of living a long life, but preferably one that required frequent medical interventions, even beyond the point where living has been reduced to a mere existence...’

  ‘Brian. This cannot go in a book.’

  ‘So, anyway, to recognise this shift towards the spiritual – and to meet the public’s expectations by this stage – the next step was to re-title doctors, who overnight became “Ordained Practitioners”. Everybody understood this and welcomed it. And equally popular was the introduction into the NHS of a new and manifestly hierarchical structure, based on this new breed of “OPs”. So, at the very bottom, and doing all the hard work, were the Novice OPs. Above them were the slightly better-off Junior Ops, who, after several years in practice, would rise to become Senior OPs, and later on, if they were up to it, to Supervising OPs. Then there were the guys who ran whole hospitals, the Hospital OPs, and, above them, the real cream who ran entire regions of the NHS, the Regional OPs – otherwise known as the bish-OPs. And, of course, presiding over all these chaps, right at the very top, the No.1 guy, the Principal Ordained Practitioner, otherwise known as the POP...’

  ‘My god!’

  ‘And the POP was elected for life by a college of Regional OPs who would burn medical waste mixed with bromine in the incinerator at Guy’s Hospital – to inform the waiting public that a new POP had been chosen...’

  ‘Brian. You can’t say all this stuff. You’ll not only upset all the NHS supporters, but you’ll upset the Catholics as well. It’s just crazy.’

  ‘I can upset them some more.’

  ‘I’m sure you can.’

  ‘You see, I can talk about how this new breed of medics takes over all the usual rituals of religion. And I mean things like christenings, which now become “nationalisations”. And in these ceremonies – conducted in redundant churches – they bathe the baby’s head not in water but in surgical spirit, to symbolise his or her entry into the true spirituality of the NHS. And, at the same time, they recite official Health Service chants, calling for a long and prosperous life – but one that isn’t completely immune from the needs of the Service itself. Indeed, for one that needs more than the odd injection and the odd packet of pills.’

  ‘Stop it. This is ridiculous. In fact, it’s far worse than ridiculous.’

  ‘Does that mean you don’t want me to tell you about their marriage services, which, of course, also include a full check-up and even a shoot-up if required? Or their funeral services, where you don’t ask where the body goes...?’

  ‘Yes, it does mean that. How can you be so insensitive – and so... stupid?’

  ‘I don’t know. It just seems to happen. And I’ll tell you something else that just seems to happen, and that’s how an institution that has accumulated far too much power starts to abuse this power. And the NHS was no exception. All its OPs – at every level – and all its nursing staff and managers... well, they started to look after themselves in a way that puts some of the current settlements with the medical profession into the shade. Salaries went up, pensions went up – and hours worked went down. And it was even worse than this. Subsidised housing, free travel, free implants and, for the POP, a real palace. Yes, they gave him the Palace of Westminster as his official residence – as it was now empty. And then there was another sort of abuse. You know, the growth in an official intolerance of other religions, and even the establishment of a “Vanish Inquisition”, which tracked down holders of social security numbers who had vanished from the health system, people who were blessed with very good health and who hadn’t appeared in a surgery or a hospital for years. And when they were caught...’

  ‘I don’t want to know what happened to them when they were caught, but what I want to know is whether you really are using me as a sounding-board for a forthcoming work of literary genius or whether you’re having me on. Because, from what I’ve just heard, I think you’re having me on. Nobody would slag off the NHS like that and want to put it in print.’

  Brian grinned. Then, as he responded to his wife, he attempted to look at least marginally serious.

  ‘Maybe I’ve been rumbled,’ he started. ‘But you can’t deny that, however wonderful the NHS is... and it really is – and it’s already helped both of us – well, the point remains that it’s still so huge within British life that I sometimes wonder whether Britain isn’t just part of the NHS and not the other way round. I mean, we now have to do things – and behave ourselves in certain ways – because, if we don’t, it will cost the NHS so many billions of pounds. And, as we can’t opt out of this thing or out of paying taxes to fund it, we can’t opt out of this obligatory behaviour. And if you do, you’re seen as some sort of pariah. You know, smoke yourself to death in the Nineteenth Century and that was entirely your affair. Smoke now and you’re a potential burden on the NHS – even though you might actually be saving them money by konking out early, and not being around for another twenty years, consuming twenty years of unaffordable geriatric care. But, whatever the sums, there are always sums, and they all concern how we should best live our lives for the benefit of the bloody NHS. Which just feels like it’s the wrong way round to me. Especially when the sums are often specious, when the NHS can never hope to keep pace with the demands made on it – however people live – and when the NHS can sometimes seem like an institution that exists more for its employees than it does for its patients. And all I was trying to do – in my own “light-hearted” way – was to take that view to the level of ad absurdum. You know how I am.’

  ‘So it won’t go in the book?’

  ‘No. Probably not.’

  ‘Just “probably not”?’

  ‘Well, no. Just “no”.’

  ‘Good. Well, in that case, I think we’ve got some work to do. Hang on while I get a pen – and we can both have a go.’

  Brian was taken aback. And then, when Sandra told him what she wanted to do, he was taken so far back that, just for a moment, he thought he was back at Hotel Cardboard. Because what she wanted them both to do was to compile a list of the new Ten Commandments in 2050 – and maybe even a prayer... just as long as it was for private consumption and not for publication in a book. Hell, that wouldn’t be just insensitive, it would be near sacrilegious. And it certainly wouldn’t help either of them the next time they foun
d themselves in A&E.

  Anyway, they first decided to tackle a prayer, and came up with what they thought was a very fitting invocation for the 2050 NHS – with appropriate apologies to the original subject. And this was as follows:

  Our Service which art in Britain

  Hallowed be thy name

  Thy time has come

  Thine will be done

  In Rutland as it is in Devon

  Give us this day our daily scrip

  And forgive us our ailments

  As we forgive those with really contagious diseases

  Lead us not into indulgence

  But deliver us from sickness

  For thine is the bandage, the splint and the trolley

  For ever and ever

  Amen and Awomen

  Then, not content with this degree of irreverence, they came up with their new Ten Commandments, which were:

  Thou shalt have no other health provider before the NHS – and certainly not any private ones.

  Thou shalt not take unto thee any idea of resorting to unlicensed medicine of any sort, including homeopathic remedies, healing crystals and indeed anything that does not involve an NHS intervention.

  Thou shalt not take the name of the National Health Service in vain – ever.

  Remember your prescribed medicine – and always complete the course.

  Honour thy surgeon and thy consultant.

  Thou shalt not smoke.

  Thou shalt not commit to a Mississippi Mud Pie – or any other after-dinner dessert containing in excess of one hundred calories.

  Thou shalt not drink – more than three units per week.

  Thou shalt not ignore the early symptoms of any disease or ailment – and shalt report these to the appropriate NHS practitioner at the earliest opportunity.

  Thou shalt not covet thy doctor’s salary, his benefits in kind, his index-linked pension or his statutory holiday entitlement.

  This was a good, albeit blasphemous, end to the evening, and had certainly underlined Sandra’s enhanced role in Brian’s book preparation. In fact, it was just a pity that he wouldn’t be able to use the results of their joint efforts in his new work, although it would be an even bigger pity if he threw them away. Maybe he should keep them – just to remind himself – of how, each morning, he had such a wonderful wife to wake up to...

  6.

  It was barrage time again. The Nature-seekers had checked out of their hotel but, before checking out of Ouarzazate, they were paying a final visit to where yesterday they had seen so much birdlife. And it was still around, albeit most of it was somewhat distant and all of it was under a leaden sky; a leaden sky that soon provided both the birds and the birders with an early-morning shower. And then another one and then another. Brian thought this rather inconsiderate of the weather gods, as apparently, back in England, it was dry, bright and the temperatures were in the twenties. It was essentially summer there – in April. And if these gods could manage that in the north of Europe, why couldn’t they manage something rather better than “wet, chilly and overcast” in the north of Africa? One might even begin to suspect that the weather gods didn’t exist. Or, if they did, that they were punishing someone for his scurrilous treatment of a venerable institution back in Britain that deserved only praise.

  This thought occurred to Brian as they were driving back into Ouarzazate to pick up their journey further west. But it was soon overtaken by another thought, and this was that, as well as playing host to the Moroccan film industry, Ouarzazate also housed a very active car industry. Not that they made cars here, but they did make them go – as in go on and on forever. Because as well as the normal display of Calor Gas sellers and window grille manufacturers at the side of the road, there were countless “garages” here, filthy oil-stained workshops surrounded by vehicles, many of which were technically scrap. Indeed, on show here was every stage in the decay of an automobile, from the just decrepit to the virtually bare carcass. But whatever stage of decay they were in, they were certainly not scrap, but just cars and vans waiting patiently to be revived. With a bit of welding, a bit of hammering and a whole lot of tinkering, they would one day be back on the road again, not as pristine motors but at least as moving machines that would move, albeit slowly and possibly dangerously, under their own steam. And for one or two of them, that might literally be steam. They looked as old as they looked knackered.

  Brian was quite impressed. Here was recycling and reuse taken to a new level. And it provided local employment as well. Not a bad thing in a town where, judging by the number of punters in the coffee shops, male economic inactivity (as well as just plain physical inactivity) was more than rife. Perhaps the next step was to get them to recycle some of that rubbish out of town. Or for Brian to give his jaundiced views a rest for a while. After all, there was another stretch of Morocco to take in when they left Ouarzazate, and even the promise of a spell of bird-watching in some “agricultural fields”, which would be a first on this expedition, as, so far, agricultural fields had been in rather short supply.

  They still were for the first two hours of the trip. But then, on cue, they appeared: a string of allotment-sized plots by the side of a river, in which, between ridges, the locals appeared to be growing principally grass. There must have been something else here, but, apart from a distinct patch of lucerne (for donkey feed?), it was difficult to discern what it was. However, this was of little concern to the Nature-seekers. They were here not to study crop selection but to find a few birds. And they did – including such treats as a diminutive wryneck. But as well as the birds, there were also some “jirds”. And how often does a spot of bird-watching turn into just a dash of jird-spotting? Well, for Brian and Sandra, very rarely indeed, as they had never before seen even a single jird. But here there were dozens of them, poking their gerbil-like noses out of holes in a bank. For that is what a jird is, a close relative of the gerbil – with a bushy tail and no apparent desire to use a treadmill in a cage. They are far more content to live out their lives in rural Morocco, and occasionally entertain passing bird-watchers, some of whom might already be thinking about their lunch. Yes, Brian was losing interest in wildlife again because he’d heard a rumour that the picnic today would consist of the usual chopped-up salad bits, but that it would also, for the very first time, include some cheese! And how could anybody concentrate even on uncommon endemics, let alone gerbil lookalikes, when there was the prospect of some dairy delight in the not too distant future?

  And there it was: a whole plate of it, inevitably cut up into cubes but now available for consumption. Because the Nature-seekers had long ago left those agricultural fields to the jirds and had stopped at another run-down cafe in another run-down village, and its owner was now letting them eat in his establishment. This was not an act of altruism on his part, but an act of salesmanship, because his tiny establishment had a house speciality for sale; something that he weighed out using a small pair of brass scales and that he then tucked into a plain brown envelope before sealing it tight. And surely at least a few of his lunch-time guests would succumb to the product on offer, which was far cheaper here than on the streets back in Britain, and definitely “the real stuff”. Yes, it was grown locally and harvested by the local women, and the source of this magic stuff wasn’t poppies – of course – but crocuses. For the house speciality here was saffron, those golden threads of delight that can transform a meal. Sandra bought a whole pile of the stuff and ended up with a bulge in her envelope almost as large as the hole that had appeared in Brian’s wallet. But she assured him that it was really good value here, and that, by spending so much of his money, she had saved a veritable fortune. Although, unlike most government ministers, who also spent Brian’s money, she did use the word “spend” rather than “invest”. So that, at least, was to her credit.

  Then it was time to hit the road again, and eventually to enter “argan” country. This is a large stretch of southwest Morocco that is home to an endemic plant that grow
s nowhere else: the argan tree. Here it grows in such numbers that it forms an argan forest. Not a dense spread of vegetation as in a conventional forest, but a large collection of individual trees, thinly spread across an otherwise barren landscape – like some gigantic olive grove (a tree to which argan is distantly related). This is an important place and, as long ago as 1998, it was declared a “Biosphere Reserve” by UNESCO. Unfortunately, this hasn’t guaranteed the safety of this organic jewel as, in the first place, the argan forest is particularly susceptible to the impact of climate change and is already in retreat in certain areas. And, in the second place, there are people here... For centuries, apparently, they have valued the trees for their oil and their timber and have harvested these products sustainably. But now “more aggressive harvesting techniques” (in response to an increased demand for argan oil) and too many tree-climbing, leaf-grazing goats (purchased with money earned from increased oil production) is seeing that sustainability being lost. As with mankind in general and so many of our natural resources around the world, the local representatives of our species here in southwest Morocco now seem intent on buggering up this one as well, just in case climate change can’t quite manage it on its own. And it was raining again as well.