I think that I have been meaning to say for some time that - in my small town and village world at least - a carer who didn't care would stand out - and probably wouldn't last long. There's only a handful; we know them, and they know us. The day carers are usually the ones who discover the frac NOFs, Colles', CVAs etc when they make their first visits. They are often the only people their clients recognise and trust, and that, coupled with first aid skills gained the hard way, can make a huge difference to us and to the patient. Re "fell on a bus" - in rural Scotland, we tend not to suffer the language difficulties common in the major English cities, but you may be interested by this tale of people separated by a common tongue. The incident was a 999 call to a badly injured 13-year old whom we found lying in the main street; he was being tended by a number of practical first-aiders. His jaw was broken (in two places, it transpired); he had lost several teeth; query tib/fib; query Colles; query pneumothorax (and that was just what we found on the primary survey!). A bus had halted nearby, and a heated discussion was going on between the driver and a gent who turned out to be the caller. The driver was Doonhamer born and bred; the caller was a kebab-shop owner of Turkish birth whose English, it had to be said, was impeccable. The caller was insisting that the boy had fallen off the bus; the driver was insisting that he hadn't, and that - furthermore - the child had never been on the bus in the first place. The caller was becoming increasingly indignant, insisting that he HAD seen the boy on the bus, and that he had witnessed him falling off; the driver - equally insistently - kept telling the caller he was talking nonsensense. We, meanwhile, had discovered the extent of the boy's injuries, and could not equate them to falling off a bus; they were more consistent with having been HIT by a bus. The argument (now being refereed by a policeman) was reaching stalemate when the boy's distraught mother (who had been summoned by phone) calmed down sufficiently to say that the boy was simply returning from school, and had no reason to be on a bus at all. The driver pointed out that that was exactly what he had been saying; the caller - now becoming quite distressed - said again that he had seen it happen, and did everyone think that he was a liar? An old lady had walked up slowly to the scene in the same direction of travel as the bus; it took her some little time to come up to speed, but - to her eternal credit - she sorted it in a second as soon as she had her breath, her wits about her, and the PC's attention. Oh, yes, the boy had fallen OFF the bus all right; he had been showing off to his pals by jumping on to the rear bumper and riding up the street ON the back of the bus. The Turkish gentleman, however, did not know the quirk of English usage whereby - despite the fact that we are IN a bus - we say that we are ON it. He merely saw a boy ON a bus, who then fell OFF it. My colleague and I later discussed the fact that, were we to fall OUT OF a stationary bus, we would say that we fell OFF it. "English as she is spoke." Somewhere in your book, Tom, you remark on the number of languages commonly spoken in the Metropolis. Better you than me, mate; explaining "Pair shilpit wee bauchle" to an elegant lady doctor who speaks perfect English, but whose primary domestic language is Bengali, is enough to be going on with!!