YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST

I met a very interesting man in one of my second-home bars the other day. Even though we talked for hours (which I'm always more than happy to do with a fellow Aquarian) I'm still not entirely sure quite what he did other than write lots of books and head up a company that appeared to do lots of things, none of which I particularly understood (he was very bright and I was very thirsty). Last week he was running a conference (amongst other things, like drinking with me), on disruptive innovations in healthcare, whatever that means, and we got talking about medical tourism.

I'm not sure which one of us pointed it out first, but clearly I am doing it the wrong way round. I have had more medical appointments since being in this country than I've had in about the last 20 years. And I'm PAYING for them. What kind of total loser am I?

But so it continues, because Saturday morning found me at 'urgent care' with the worst earache I have ever had, and total deafness to the point where if it wasn't for the earache keeping me awake, I would have been able to sleep right through the night for the first time in months on account of not being able to even remotely hear the TH snoring.

The 'urgent care' doctor (read strict, hassled, impatient, not wanting to be at work on a saturday) was strict, hassled and impatient and clearly didn't want to be at work. She stared in despair into my ear, proclaimed it infected and full of 'gunk', which is a medical term I am not totally familiar with, threw a prescription for some antibiotics at me and said she was referring me to see an ear specialist at the hospital on Monday. Blimey. This immediately prompted me to check in the mirror that my ear was still actually in place on the side of my head, as to get referred to a specialist within a day in the UK you have to be on your deathbed.
Hell, no, you have to be dead.

Approximately 154 painkillers later (thanks travellers - that's the real medical tourism....) and I'm sitting next to a very sweet ear specialist (in yet another co-pay situation ) whose real specialism is the inability to give a straight answer to any question. 'Well I could say that MAY be true, but I won't, incase it turns out NOT to be true, and then I'd have been wrong'. Uh?

Anyway, he managed to hoover my ear. Yes hoover. Which was one of those pleasurable pain type things, which I won't go into right now because that's just not today's topic.
The 'gunk' turned out to be a Telegraph Machine (of course) and about 2,300 really bad jazz demos which have clearly collected over a period of many years. And I now have hearing back, which is just lovely. And the antibiotics have kicked in nicely so I will be back to not sleeping through the night for the right reasons again tonight.

However, all of this recent medical activity in my life has led me to a rather disturbing conclusion.
Call me paranoid, but I think I'm being used in a Truman Show way as an unknowing victim of an Extreme Undercover TV show doing an expose into the American Medical profession.
You heard it here first......