When I'm working on a Friday night it really can seem that everyone else is having much more fun than me. Especially when we cruise down Old street watching the metrosexuals in their film school glasses and tight brown cardigans.

Not so much when dealing with a drug inspired stabbing just down the road. Or the extended immigrant family living in a one room flat, hotbedding the mattresses on the floor and sharing their infections.

I don't think that I've ever seen a copy of my employment contract.

I do so love my Sony e-reader, it's small, it's tough and the text display is very much like paper. With it I can sling it in my bag and have a large chunk of my library with me at any one time.

For a while it was only available in America which is where I bought mine. I then waited what seemed like an eternity for it to be released over here in the UK.

In America there is a lovely big library of books you can download electronically and until Waterstones fired up their version of the e-book library over here in the UK the only books I could (legally) read on my reader were those either in the Public Domain, or licensed under the Creative Commons license.

So I was hoping for big things from the Waterstones launch.

The Waterstones website is not as slick or intuitive as the Sony's American ebook library. To search for specific e-books as opposed to paperback or hardback formats, you need to hit the 'advanced search' button. The ebook minisite's search bar will, by default, search the whole of the site.

For an example, if you go to the Waterstones ebook site and search for 'Devil May Care', the first four results are in non-ebook formats.

But here is the main problem. I really like the works of Neal Stephenson and I've been looking forward to reading his new book 'Anathem'. I'm making an effort to buy as many new books in e-book format because they take up less space in my flat, are more portable and with the Sony e-reader, there is little difference between that screen and the printed page.

Also, downloading an ebook really does tickle the part of the monkey brain that desires instant gratification. Now waiting for the postman to drop an Amazon package through my letterbox and no need to go hunting for a copy (that may not be in stock) in physical bookshops.

But of course, 'Anathem' is not in the Waterstones e-book store.

If I were an American I could buy it from the Sony library with no problems, but because of what I assume is licensing concerns it's not available in the UK. Actually there is very little in the Waterstones library that I am interested in reading, it has quite a limited selection and as mentioned earlier the search mechanism discourages browsing.

At least I assume that it's the licensing that is the problem - It is possible that Waterstones could be purposefully limiting the number of ebooks that they 'stock' in order to determine demand. Or perhaps, for some reason, they want the e-reader to fail.

So they have a lost sale. If I weren't such a rabid fan of Stephenson's books I wouldn't now go and buy the physical object, I'd just not bother.

I quite fancied reading 'Apache', but it's not available as an e-book and I don't desire to read it enough to buy it in hardback.

One lost sale right there.

Electronic bits after all do not respect boundaries - It's how I've seen, loved and evangelised 'Burn Notice' before it's show on UK TV. It's why I make my book (and forthcoming sequel) available for download. Everyone who enjoys a book gets to appreciate the author and so will be more likely to buy other books by them.

By limiting the amount of readable material you are cutting your market. Can someone tell me how that makes sense?

It's no wonder the torrent sites are doing a fine business, to take traffic away from them the legitimate companies need to concentrate on making the user experience of getting the content as easy and painless as possible. It's the reason why I download my music from iTunes rather than bittorrent it, pure convenience and the satisfaction that comes from doing the right thing

Anyway, I've sent Waterstones an email, so I'll be interested in their reply.

A patient held up an ambulance at gunpoint and threatened to kill its crew before taking the emergency vehicle and crashing it into five cars, the Standard has learned.
The man allegedly pulled a gun on the terrified crew before crashing the ambulance into the cars, one of which was shunted into the front of a house.
It is thought the trouble may have been sparked by the patient's unhappiness at the choice of hospital.

This is near where I live.

I hope the crew involved is alright.

I just goes to show some of the dangers all emergency services staff face on a daily basis. I'd bet that the criminal who did this won't be forced to pay for the damage that he did to the ambulance, let alone the private cars.

Now... what's the tariff for threatening someone with a firearm?

Sometimes it is better to not blog about something that makes you angry on the same day it occurred.

I've had a crappy day and I get home to find a couple of people have sent this story to me. (And thanks to all those people, I would have missed it otherwise).

A paramedic has been criticised for not cutting short a break to help a woman who had suffered a heart attack.
Catherine Cowie, 50, died two days after collapsing in Fraserburgh.
An ambulance technician was on the scene within four minutes, but a paramedic did not attend with him because he was on a lunch break.
Some cardiac drugs can only be administered by a paramedic. The Scottish Ambulance Service said staff could not be disturbed during breaks.
However, it said staff could choose whether or not to attend calls during break periods.

Well.

Can someone please explain how 'staff could not be disturbed during breaks.' and 'staff could choose whether or not to attend calls during break periods.' can both be in effect?

In London it's quite simple if you get a break* then the first part of it is sacrosanct, with a 45 minute break that's the first half an hour. Then the last third of the break is interruptible. If a high priority call comes in during this time then Control can choose to end your break early. Unless Control chose to do this, the crew having the break have no idea that a call is waiting for them.

There is a lot of other weird stuff in this story that just doesn't sound correct - but then, few people understand the bizarre workings of an ambulance trust, and that includes some of the staff**

And of course I'd like to see the person who wrote this article work without a break for twelve hours while dealing with some of the awful things we have to do. And that means no cups of tea and no hot meals, or if you are lucky then you can get a dodgy takeaway while dodging Control. And having to use the toilets at hospital that patients with infectious diarrhoea have been using. And doing that every day of your working life.

If this story were really as written then I suspect that the Paramedic involved would be thrown to the wolves for 'denying a member of the public an ambulance'.

What next? 'My relative died because Paramedic was off duty'?

Remember people - if you are picked up by an ambulance and die two days afterwards while in hospital then it's all the fault of the ambulance service...

I'm sadly getting used to this attitude that ambulance staff aren't actually human.

*And really, I'm not convinced that the LAS aren't breaking the law by not enforcing break periods, instead paying us an extra £10 if we don't get a break.

**...And all the managers...

It's funny how, when you are used to working twelve hours (without a break), a run of eight hour shifts feels like a holiday.

Eight hours, that's like a 9-5 work day, even if you do start at 6:30am.

I do like going home at 14:30.

It's great to see the discussion going on in the comment section of the last post. I love the fact that people here can disagree politely.

This story is a little segment from the LAS internal 'magazine' that I've scanned in direct. IT just highlights the sorts of jobs that we can find ourselves going on. I've written before about my call to a dead dog.

Finally, and perhaps a little cryptically, 'Moab Is My Washpot', thank you very much.