Grief - a Saturday night alone on the FRU makes for a not very happy Tom.

So I'm just snuggling down for a little kip on station, it's about 3am in the morning and all seems quiet, the temperature outside is somewhere around freezing so laying on the sofa wrapped in my fleece is looking like a really good idea.

Obviously the activation phone decides to ring and I soon find myself speeding far out of my area to a 'life status questionable'.

His life status wasn't questionable, his sobriety was. One of our friends from Europe, he had been drinking and decided to have a sleep in the doorway of a shop. Granted if I hadn't gone and woken him up he may had frozen to death, as he was a nice enough bloke I couldn't be too angry. It also put me very close to 'The Log Cabin' which meant I could go and have a hot, filling 'Gob Job' before trying to catch forty winks.

Of course, halfway through the cooking of this gastronomic delight I get another job. I could tell what sort of job it was going to be - someone had dialled '999', said 'Hello', then hung up. For some reason (maybe one to ask Nee Naw), this was coded as another 'Life status questionable'.

"I'll be back in a minute", I said to the domestic goddess cooking my burger.

I dutifully screamed through the streets of Whipps Cross to find, to my utter surprise, an empty phone box.

"Hello Control", I called up on my radio, "I have a lack of any dead or dying people here, please cancel the ambulance, I'm calling it as a hoax".

It was then a quick drive back to collect and eat my burger.

The drive would have been quicker had some drunk not tried to jump into the car so I could, "just take me up the road". When I refused I was sworn at, but that didn't bother me much as I had a nice hot burger waiting for me.

The jobs I did that night were...

2 hoaxes
1 painful knee
1 hot child
1 drunk ...
and an alcoholic with liver failure.

This is not good when you need inspiration.