...I'm in The Guardian today, apparently a big piece that I haven't seen yet as I'm still lounging around in bed...

I've got the hump for reasons that I don't want to go into here - still, there is the light at the end of the tunnel that I have to look forward to. The previous sentence will only make sense to a couple of people.

Some injuries are like buses, you don't see any for ages and then two come along at once.

We were called to a young man with a cut foot. The trail of blood led up the garden path up to a small pool of the same blood underneath a rather annoyed young man. While walking in the street he had stepped on a broken bottle, the glass had sliced through the sole of his trainer and managed a fairly nasty cut to the sole of the foot. It was a simple job to wrap his foot in a bandage and then stare in awe at the lump of glass poking through the trainer. He was a nice enough lad who hopped to the ambulance, and who's friend's mum had already put on a pretty good dressing. He just needed an x-ray to exclude any glass being left in the wound and a couple of stitches.

Our last job was also a foot cut on some glass, this time it was a fifteen year old girl who lives in a pub, she'd been barefoot, and as is typical with the pubs around our way, there had been a nice sliver of glass on the floor. Cue much screaming and a rather huge amount of blood. Feet tend to bleed a lot, partly because there are plenty of blood vessels in them and partly because gravity tends to make the stuff leak out of you. I'd give the people in the pub a medal though, not only had they tried using a towel to stop the bleeding, but they'd also laid her on the floor and lifted her foot above her head. If only all out patients had such sense.
She still had the sliver of glass in her foot and while we aren't supposed to touch such 'foreign objects', I believe that have enough minor injuries experience to pull it out and better control the bleeding with pressure. It's a bit nasty to put pressure on a wound when there is a two inch lump of glass in it. Needless to say the patient managed to leak the red stuff all over the floor of the ambulance and my crewmate looked as if she had performed surgery on the patient. The bleeding was controlled, the patient was taken to hospital and everyone was happy.

A question now : In 'my day' working in A&E, we'd try to find an example of the glass that the patient had been injured with, then x-ray the wound *and* the glass. The reasoning behind this is that glass shows up on x-rays in different ways depending on the type of glass. If the example glass was invisible on the x-ray then we'd take more care to examine and wash out the wound, while if the example glass was easily visible then we could be more sure that there was none left in the wound. Do hospitals still do this, as the nurse in the local A&E looked a bit befuddled when I told her about this trick? (Although to be fair she was under some strain as the department was very busy).

My final glass story happened the night before last. We were called to a 'collapse behind locked doors', the relatives of a woman in her sixties had called us because they could see the woman laying on the sofa in her house but she wasn't answering the door or telephone. We arrived and the door was well locked - there was a deadbolt as well as the normal Yale, so neither I, not my martial arts master/built like a brick outhouse of a crewmate could kick the door down. At the relatives request I smashed the bedroom window and, after some backbreaking limbo work, climbed in.
Unfortunately the patient was deceased, it's never a nice thing to try an explain to relatives that their loved one is dead and that there is nothing we can do to help. I tried to explain that the patient looked very peaceful and that she had probably passed away in her sleep. We waited for the police and left them to look after the family - I had to have a quick run back to the hospital so I could wash the blood off the brand new cut I'd given myself on my hand. A minor injury that needs no treatment, and if it meant that the relatives thought we did all we could, then perhaps worth it.

Although I have spent the last two shifts picking glass dust out of my hair/clothes/boots.

I am now listening to 'Out Of The Blue' by E.L.O in order to cheer myself up. No posting on Tuesday as I'm out at 7:45am to do about seven regional radio programmes before sadly heading off to work.

I’ve mentioned it before, but I think that writing about it again would be worthwhile.

Blood, Sweat and Tea is (probably) the first book by a major European publisher to release a book under a Creative Commons license.  It has been released under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License. which means that you can…

…use copyright material in specific ways without affecting the author's overall copyright in the work.

Under the terms of this book's licence, you are free to make copies of all or part of this work for your own personal use and for other non-commercial use. You may annotate or edit the work in any way, and republish it online in any format, providing any annotated and edited version includes a link back to the source material at http://www.fridaybooks.co.uk/bst

You may also make derivative works (Flash animations, videos, images etc, etc) based on this text for online, non-commercial use only.

Any annotated, edited or derivative version must be made available under the same Creative Commons licence as the original material.

As a wiser man than I has said, “My problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity”.  It is also because this website is licensed under the same scheme and to change it now that a large amount of it is in a physical book seems like an unethical thing to do.  I love Creative Commons, it’s a great way of finding new music, writing and other art.  Sure – it’s a bit of a gamble, but I honestly believe that this brave step by my publishers is the best thing for this book.

I’ve got to admit that it was nerve-wracking in asking my publishers about this and I cannot commend them enough for listening to, and understanding, the thoughts behind Creative Commons.

So you can go to The Friday Project page and download the *whole* book in a variety of formats.  You can then fiddle around with it and do whatever you like to it then upload it back to The Friday Project just so long as you don’t try to sell it. 

Fun, yes?

I’m hoping, and it’s a bit of an ego thing here to be honest, that it might shake up publishing a bit in this country and provide a blast across the bows of those who would restrict what you can do with media that you ‘own’.

(You do realise that in the UK it is illegal to rip a CD to your iPod, even if it is for personal use?).

Lets see how things go…

Lets see…

Monday

08:05 Picked up by cab from my house (probably in a state of unconsciousness).

10:00 Live interview with BBC Radio Derbyshire.

10:30 Live interview with BBC Radio Jersey.

11:00 Interview with The Weekly News.

12:00 Interview with Ambulance Today.

13:30 Interview with BBC Radio Wiltshire.

14:20 Interview with Simon Mayo on Radio 5 Live.

15:20 Visit Apple store in Regent Street for new goodies for my Macbook

 

Tuesday

10:00 Pickup for Interview with The Guardian.

18:30 Phone interview with REM FM Spanish Radio.

 

Wednesday

18:00 Back to serving the people of East London.

 

The Devil makes work for idle hands…

I should be doing an interview on Talksport radio later this evening.  Then tomorrow I start at around 8am do a load of regional radio programmes from a studio in London, then get interviewed by the Guardian and The Weekly News and finally have a drink and give some quotes to an Ambulance magazine.  Then on Tuesday I do a phone in with a Spanish radio station ad something else that I can’t remember but is written down on my Mac – which is in my bedroom and I’m quite comfortable sitting here.

All a bit busy, all a bit fun and I’m glad that Rachael from the PR firm has it all organised for me.

I mention this in one big burst because of something I’ve been thinking about from before my holiday – that this ‘ambulance blog’ has been a bit short on ambulance posts for quite a while.  I feel the need to get back to basics as it were.  The problem that I have is that if I’m not working (for example taking two weeks leave for a holiday in the sun and a book launch) then I’m not getting much material and the reserves of material that I’ve built up are close to running dry.

Luckily I’m back to work on Wednesday or Thursday (Mac in other room again) so there should be plenty of material.  If people discover this blog from the book/radio/TV they’d be a bit disappointed at the moment.  So I’m going to make an effort to post every day, I feel that, for someone who is supposedly a writer, I haven’t actually been *writing* enough.

Time for that to change.

UPDATE: I've just come from the Talksport studio having recorded my bit for between 02:00 and 06:00 tonight/tomorrow morning. It was good fun, the host was a superb interviewer and I think it's my best interview yet. If you are in the UK this wiki page tells you how to listen to it.

Apparently there is a new book out today - you may have heard of it.

I hope you enjoy it.

(And if you ordered it from an internet shop, you may have received it already).

Lets see - time for a general catch up.

I feel like someone has punched me in the face. I'm actually waiting for the anaesthetic to wear off from having a filling done. I have a lovely dentist who doesn't hurt me at all.

So long as I pay promptly.

Yesterday on Amazon 'Da Book' peaked at #66 overall ranking and at #2 on the pre-release chart. My ego is coming along nicely.

Tomorrow I'm being picked up by a car from ITN News in order to do a TV interview. Yes - I am joyful. I just need to find something suitable to wear. If some bright spark could digitise it for me I would be eternally grateful. (Unless I make a prat of myself, in which case I'll find a cave to hide in).

I'm on annual leave for the next two weeks and a week of that will be spent sunning myself by the pool in the Dominican Republic. Therefore blogging may be a bit few and far between depending on any access I have out there. I think I'll need the holiday so I can deal with the book launch the day after I come back.

I'm also doing an email interview with Time Out, and various radio and print bits are planned for after I come back. I am _loving_ whoring myself for publicity and I'm extremely glad that I chose the Friday Project as my publishers. I chose them for exactly this reason, that it would be *fun*.

The Mac is coming along lovely, especially now it has a battery that works (and no, it's not a 'Pro').

Now I just need to run around like a loon getting everything sorted before I fly off for my anticipated relaxing week.

UPDATE: The interview will take place between 12.45 and 1.30pm on 'London Today', ITV1. It will be live. I will be nervous. I won't see it unless someone tapes it for me. This may be for the best.

Blogging is built around reputation and I don't want to get known as someone who is conning people into buying his book. So here comes the sell/anti-sell that will let you make up your mind as to whether to buy the book or not.

Reasons Not To Buy The Book.

1) Almost all of the material is taken from this blog. If you look back into the archives it's pretty much all there. There are 'commentaries' on some of the posts but If you've read the archives, then you've read almost all of the book (and probably any sequel).

2) The book will be freely available for download under a Creative Commons license. It is, as far as we know, the first CC licensed book from a British author/major publisher. So you can read it on your computer screen for free, or even print it out for taking down the beach.

3) You don't think you should be encouraging my ego to grow any more than it already has.

Reasons To Buy The Book.

1) It's a good way to get your non-blog reader friends and family to read my stuff.

2) Lots of people prefer reading a book rather than reading something off a computer screen.

3) It has already passed a few 'mum' tests, where it has been given to someone's mother and they've loved it - so it will make a nice gift.

4) It physically looks lovely. The design of the cover and inside the book is really top notch. It's a good-looking book.

5) You'd like something to read on the train and are frightened of being mugged for your PDA. Also you will look dead sexy reading it.

6) You can read the stuff from here, only with better grammar and less spelling mistakes. Also you get the 'DVD Extras' of the commentaries on individual posts.

7) It's cheap, it lasts longer than a film and costs less so you get more 'bang for your buck'.

8) You love me and want to give me your money. Or you want it to rocket to the top of the charts so that I can go to all the top parties and write about it here. Or you like The Friday Project and would like them to make lots of money and lots more great books.

As an author I get some complimentary copies of my book. As a pretty basic way of saying 'thank you' to the London Ambulance Service for letting me write this in the first place I am auctioning off one of my copies.

All the proceeds will go to the London Ambulance Service Benevolent fund, a charity that looks after sick and injured ambulance workers. They do good work and survive on donations that many of us make directly from our pay packets each month.

So if you would like a signed, first edition/first printing copy of the book, go here on eBay and bid away. The money goes to a good cause.

And it will send you good karma.

Because I say so.

UPDATE:Tim Worstall has added his 'Blogged 2005' to the auction, so now you are getting two books for the price of one. And can I just say *Gahh!* at the price it is already at...

I've just spent an hour or so at my Station during my day off having pictures taken of me by a photographer for the Mail on Sunday. I'm going to be a 'feature' this Sunday. There is, I believe, a special offer on the book. I was told not to smile for the photos.

Actually there was a bit of angst involved in this as the Mail wanted photos of myself in my uniform playing around with an ambulance. The thing is, the book is very much 'unofficial', so I didn't know if LAS management were going to be happy to have pictures of me looking like an 'official spokesperson'.

A couple of phone calls passed between myself, the LAS press office and the Mail on Sunday resulting in our press office asking me not to say anything too stupid and giving the go ahead for the photographs. I am very thankful to our press office as I'm enjoying being a media whore, its fun and it might make my bank manager happy.

So the Mail on Sunday has some stern looking pictures of me, extracts of the book written up and hopefully I'll sell loads more books making me, and my publishers buckets of money.

I live in hope.

I would like to apologise for the constant mentioning of the book, but I thought that you may be interested in the fun I'm having over it. Don't worry, my fifteen minutes of fame will soon be up.