Day 4 in the house of chocolate. Been too busy to blog, catching up on working, busy trying to hold fat people's heads and oxygenate them. I am ashamed to admit, as I am only used to mannequins until now, I never realised how difficult it is to stabilise someone's head in place with one hand, whilst holding an oxygen mask and trying to bag them at the same time.

So first things first, since I last blogged, a bag of maltesers, a minty aero, can of full fat coke and sticky toffee pudding with brandy cream (I'll justify this later). So all in all not a bad 3 days for me when we consider my normal sugar intake, but it didn't stop me tasting my morning mid-stream urine to see if it tasted sugary, hence if I had developed diabetes yet.

This is getting ridiculous, and slightly disgusting so I am joining a gym later on today. The time spent going to the gym/showering/gymming will leave me with less time to contemplate which Hummingbird cake I'm going to go for next.

However what also needs to stop is my love of fine food. This may not be too difficult though after an outing to Gordon Ramsay's gastropub "The Narrow" http://www.gordonramsay.com/thenarrow/ last night. Very disappointed. With the food. Had an offer on the lovely toptable, 3 courses for £22. The venue was nice, on the Limehouse end of the Thames, view was lovely, if a little too quiet for my liking as it always is downstream from the Southbank end. We (the boy, a girlfriend and myself) got there for 7.45 on a Thursday evening and it was empty-ish and got a lovely reception from the door staff as we were taken to our seats.

The waiter although nice, was not fully understanding our requests and couldn't recommend a decent beer for the boy, lumping for a Peroni recommendation when there was actually quite a large beer selection (though I didn't get to see what was actually on tap at the bar). I made a trip to the toilet, having consumed a litre bottle of water to try and scare a constipated stool out of my body before leaving (sorry too much detail but my bowels are the bane of my life, so just deal with it, its my blog I'll cry if I want to).

The toilets were clean, though I have to confess a pet hate for restaurants/bars whatever that don't have paper towels to dry your hands as this was - I hate using hand driers, especially unhygenic ones that aren't automatically activated - defeating the purpose of washing your hands.

So after taking a wizz returned to find gladly the crowd had picked up slightly which added to the ambience. So we settled down to choose from our set menus because of the offer, of 4 starters/4 mains. The boy and girlfriend plumped for rabbit terrine with quince jelly, whilst I opted for garlic mushrooms on toast. All in all for me a pleasing bite, the mushrooms were the bouncy and the right side of juicy but the terrine was in my opinion quite flavourless and looked sad, the quince jelly was definitely needed in addition. other offers for starters were pumpkin soup and salmon fishcakes.

To mains we go, where I had Hake, mussels and clams in Suffolk cider with chive mash and the other two had game pie and mash which didn't all come at the same time, boy was waiting for a while before his came. I'm seeing some kind of conspiracy here, but glad to say it worked it in my favour as my dish once again trumped theirs. They liked the consistency of the pastry, flaky without being too oily but weren't sold on the flavour. I on the other hand decided to demonstrate my delight for my fishy brothy which arrived in the cutest little crock pot by doing what my friend does and sing to my food. It began as tastefully tangy, but about four spoons in the cidery-vinegar-lemon taste became a bit too much and there was nothing to take of the edge, even with a huge dollop of what felt like instant mash with a few dried herbs thrown in for good measure. I personally like mash with skin on but I guess I can't expect that at restaurants.

We had a delightful time contemplating whether we could be as demanding as the customers that had been on a recent show of F word where they had local restaurants competing about food, but decided we didn't have the cojones to do this. However our collective cojones were forced to grow when after our desserts (me and the boy sticky toffee pud, nice with a bitter bite and friend having Treacle tart with blood orange syrup and vanilla ice cream - she was disappointed, the tart was too dry and the syrup ice cream mixture was not sufficient to hydrate the dessert) we waited 25 mins for a green tea and americano. We had to ask two separate waiters twice for the items but to their credit, the manager didn't charge us for these and also took off the service charge and apologised, explaining that they were short staffed and didn't expect so much custom.

It was Thursday night and we were left a little disappointed. The portions were a good size and the service though at times slow was made up for by the lovely manager. Flavoursome it was not but cos its Gordon, I want to give it another try perhaps not with the top table offer and see if there's any difference.

Will post again, perhaps something medical related, until then adios...

the imminent threat of type 2 diabetes, London GP receptionists.

In a vain bid to lose weight and avoid almost unavoidable risk of contracting diabetes I begin this blog in hope that exposing my self to the harsh virtual world I can get some perspective on my addictive personality and beat the choc attack. Of course I possess a myriad of other problems which I won't divulge now that may well affect my clarity and lack of judgement when it comes to sugar. But I thought rather than make this a boring health/weight based blog I'll just blog about what I do best, being bitter. Rita is bitter. About everything.  Almost.

So already this morning before 12.00 I consumed a belgian chocolate cornflake square and a slice of Sainsbury's hot fudge cake. I justified the cornflake square by replying "yes" when the starbucks barista asked if that caramel macchiato was to be skinny. Skinny my arse. Anyhow it gave me a glimmer of hope that I could consume my drug of choice without guilt.

But of course, life as Rita doesn't allow justification for chocolate through a simple interaction with skilled baristas deskilled in the art of personability. No, Rita had already this morning had an altercation. London is full of shitty shitty people. I was feeling particularly uneasy and ill this morning and decided to go to the Doctors having not visited them or even registered as I hadn't needed to and besides about to qualify as one myself I feel licensed to deal with my own problems. So after NOT abusing the service and NOT taking advantage of it even though I have in the space of 3 months had serious back pain, sprained my ankle, required physio etc etc I decided to perform the "simple" task of calling the GP to find out how to register.

I received in reply a bark that said "Grufffff wooof come anytime between 9.30-12.30, register, maybe we make appointment same day grrrufff wooof.click brr".

I trundle along the paths laden with black ice, performing some kind of precarious invalid ice dance having just argued with boyfriend about his direction in life behind me. not waiting to catch me if I fall but just keeping out of my way. Get to surgery and stride to reception eagerly hoping the NHS is not going to fail me. How wrong could I be. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE WITHOUT YOUR NHS NUMBER OR PROOF OF ADDRESS? WHAT AM I GOING TO DO WITHOUT THIS" says Barky McNasty.

I explained that it would have been nice to have been told on the phone the items to bring, to which Barky bark's "ARE YOU TELLING ME I DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO SAY ON THE PHONE I SAY IT EVERY MORNING", I in return say that it is quite possible that people make mistakes not everyone's perfect.

I trundle back, falling twice for good measure and return where Barky reads my rent contract (I'm a student. at halls. I don't get fucking bills) "OHHH E1 that's not our catchment".

Short of punching this motherfucker in the face I calmly point out that she's reading the wrong part. And finally after 2 hours DTN (that's door to needle time) I am registered. A process that should have taken 20mins given that there were no queues when I arrived at 9am.  If Barky McNasty could do the right thing.

Why are such evil people the gatekeeper's to the GP? I don't want to tar everyone with the same brush but how often have you had to divulge your personal affairs to the receptionist under duress in order to get an appointment the same day - "I have been bleeding out of my bumhole for 72 hours and I don't know why".   In clear earshot of all in the waiting room.  London GP reception areas definitely don't cater for privacy.

Sure I understand that they can't possibly fit everyone in but there have been countless times when I have said I prefer to tell the GP about this but they insist that its on a need to know basis, and they need to know...

Just as graduate medical students are "handpicked for their personalities" (Read obnoxious, type A, ball busting bitches (with exceptions)) is this how GP receptionist's are picked? To date there has only been one practice where I have found that the receptionists adopt a people friendly approach to, well, people. This may be because they're in the midst of one of the most notorious estates in East London and the likelihood of tipping these people over the edge is high, or it could be because the Practice Manager had a customer focused approach to training the front desk?

Whatever it is I just wish that more receptionists had people skills. I don't think its a lot to ask but I just wonder if its an unwritten rule that GPs must employ Barky McNasties? Is it a phenomenon local to London and other inner city areas? What are the receptionists like in leafy suburbs? I am interested in your thoughts.