For those that are interested, one of the photos that was taken, and the Times article is up over here. I'm just glad that they didn't use the one of me using a laptop - I can see why they might use a "Here is the blogger updating his website..." photo. But the computer I was 'using' was the photographer's Mac.

Not that I have anything against Macs, but I don't think think that they are as wonderful as everyone makes out. I sometimes take a vaguely non-Mac role on IRC.

Of course I'm saving up for a Mac Mini because, at heart, I'm a computer geek.

I've now got a day or two off before returning to day shifts (depending on if I get granted the annual leave I asked for), but I have a project in the works... Another Ambulance employee has asked how they can start writing a blog (and not get sacked), so I'm going to write a bit about 'How not to get the sack for blogging', seeing as it's why I keep having these interviews, while written from my perspective, it might be useful for other people.

I've just gotten an email from Olav, the journalist who interviewed me earlier. The interview with me will be in the Public Agenda supplement of tomorrow's Times. Apparently there are two photographs - hopefully at least one of them won't make me look like an idiot...

I'll link to it later if it goes up online.

With Gordon McLean's recent bit in the Scottish Sunday Times (Not a very Blogger friendly article in my opinion), it seems that print journalism is becoming more and more interested in the popularity of Blogging.

Actually, I think I should write a reply to that article, but It's be hard not to make it sound like sour grapes

Not working in an office, I have no evidence for my following theory for perhaps some of the growth in popularity of blogs...

With more TV channels (satellite and cable), people aren't watching the same programmes anymore, there are no more "Who shot JR" type events. People no longer socialize around the water fountain, talking about 'must see TV'. Blogs can fill that hole, as they are pretty much an 'on demand' media, you type in an URI and there it is. You check out the blog that your friend this is a 'must read' and then talk about it with them over a coffee (or standing outside having a smoke break).

This is, I think, just a small reason for their popularity - although 'reality', 'truth', 'community' being perhaps much bigger reasons for why blogs have taken off so far.

The results of the 2005 Bloggies have been announced, and I didn't win a thing, actually with the exception of Tom Coates, Flickr and Boing Boing - I don't read/use any of the winners.

Does this mean I'm out of the blogging 'loop'?

And not that I'm bitter, but who exactly is this 'Dooce' person?

How can I best tell you about my night?

Shall I tell you about how I kept my cool when I found out that I had been waving my (ungloved) hand through my patient's vomit?

Instead should I write about the alcoholic couple who called for me because one of them had had piles (hemorrhoids) for the past couple of years - and then started arguing amongst themselves?

How about the despair I feel when I keep turning up to the same nursing home, for patients who are always given as 'not eating', yet when I turn up the patient is about as close to death as you can get? How the 'nursing' staff seem surprised that the patient has so 'suddenly' deteriorated? Or how the 'nurses' are so thick they can't tell I'm being angry/sarcastic at them?

How about being called to the family that are shouting at each other in some foreign language (I so hate being left out of an argument), while the son thinks he is having a heart attack, when he is actually just having a panic attack?

Should I divulge how I turned up to one of our (very) frequent callers, asked her if she wanted an ambulance to take her to hospital, and when she said yes - told her to stay in the phone box she was using to call us while I waited for the ambulance in the car?

What about my being sent to a job waaaay outside my area (1 year old with a belly ache), only to find an ambulance there first? Then needing to arrange for the mother to return from the party she is at to look after the other four children in the house? Perhaps I could mention that she didn't believe that it was the ambulance service that was phoning her at the party?

Or maybe, just maybe I should just write about being nearly in tears watching the poor people that Comic Relief is trying to help - people who would be blissfully happy to have half the chance of the idiots that I go to?

It's a bit embarrassing to start welling up when you are sitting in a messroom, surrounded by other ambulance crews

Stuart Moore found this little gem on the BBC website, essentially about GPs planning to dial 999 for non-emergency calls.

Ambulance bosses say a threat by GPs in Swansea to dial 999 for non-emergencies would bring the service to a standstill and risk peoples' lives.

Doctors say ambulances are over-stretched and non-emergency patients who need to be admitted to hospital are left to wait.

Ambulances have to respond quicker and within a guaranteed time to 999 calls.

GP’s are upset that ambulances spend their time stuck outside A&E with no beds at the hospital to offload their patients onto.

The Morgannwg Local Medical Committee, made up of doctors from the region, has put forward a motion to the Welsh LMC conference on Saturday calling for members to use the 999 system rather than pre-book vehicles.

Swansea based GP Dr Ian Millington, secretary of Morgannwg LMC, said: "It's really a way of using the system to guarantee that patients get appropriate care.

"What we are trying to arrive it is where we can guarantee a time for a patient to arrive at hospital. Increasingly that's becoming difficult if we use the normal control room number.

These non-emergency patients are the patients who can wait for an ambulance, as their condition isn’t immediately life threatening.  People who are believed to have a DVT, a chest infection, or a urine infection are the typical non-emergency calls we go on.

Stuart asked my thoughts on the subject, these are –

Short answer : “GAAAAHHHH!”

Longer, more sarcastic answer: “Don’t GP’s do that anyway?  Especially for the patients that they haven’t actually seen, just diagnosed over the phone”.

Sensible answer : “Why do GPs think that abusing a system will help patients?  If they carry out their threat then ORCON (Government target) will be hurt, the ambulance services involved will be slated for poor response times and will get less funding, this will result in a worse service.  This only leads to patients getting a worse deal than before.”

I’ll leave you with these comments, so you don’t just think it’s just us road crews who think it is a bad idea.

But Don Page, Chief Executive of the Welsh Ambulance Service NHS Trust, warned if the GPs carried out their threat it would have dire consequences.

"To undertake the threatened action will result in the emergency ambulance service coming to a complete standstill and unable to respond to real emergencies and life threatening calls," he said.

"It would be unprofessional and negligent of GPs to take such action which would clearly put the lives of people at risk.

"I understand the concerns of GPs but I would urge them to step back and consider the dangers that such action would cause."

So there I was, watching the local news and they have finally told people about the dodgy kebab shop that I blogged about here and here. The BBC have written about it on their website (and thanks to Emma for pointing it out to me).

I'd just like to have a bit of smugness about how a blogger broke the news before anyone else.

Shame no-one else really noticed.

(Nearly forgot about this, what with all the searching for people who mutilate their own genitals online)