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By Peter Murchie
Contact the author via Chris Johnstone by e-mail at christopher.johnstone@ntlworld.com

For the first time in many years I had cause to abandon my traditional literary diet of sports biographies and lurid American crime thrillers with truly enlightening results. It all started late one Thursday afternoon in March as I reposed in my front room, weary from the battle. As I added the final flourishes to the night's TV schedule the front door rattled several times before opening and banging loudly shut. This betokened one of two things - either my good lady wife had arrived home or I was about to be visited by Marley's ghost. Moments later, the living door room flew upon as though commanded by the final blast, and she, for it was the former, strode into the room. With mounting alarm I spied the glint in her eye and noted the time. Earlier than usual, meaning ju-jitsu training had been foregone and untold reserves of energy remained unspent. Like a Kansas twister, she was headed my way. She halted abruptly and brandished a yellow envelope. “Get packed,” she snapped. “We're going away for a long weekend.”

And so it was, that 40 minutes later we were crossing the Cabrach, bound for a Speyside country house weekend. I peered out at the drizzle and mist, casting eerie shadows on the bleak moorland. I shivered, contemplating the tartan carpets, countryside walks, and craft shops that lay ahead. I sat back consoling myself with what few compensations I could muster. There would be a few whiskies and it was certain that me, Richard Briers, Julian Fellowes and a bob-sled would achieve conjunction at some stage of the proceedings.

Next day, the yomp to Stanley concluded and my tormentor ensconced in the spa, I found myself with blisters like Belgium and an idle hour before our next platter of 12 bore slaughtered flesh. Wandering aimlessly, I found myself in a pleasant drawing room lined by bookcases of well-thumbed paperbacks. Having left Frank McAvennie's seminal text - Scoring: An Expert's Guide - at home, I began to browse. Initially, these tomes seemed an uninspiring collection, tea ringed Titchmarsh's, a couple of Cooksons and more Jeffrey Archers than you could shake a shitty book at. Then I happened upon one entitled The Scottish Enlightenment - The Scot's Invention of the Modern World by Arthur Herman. I began to read. And read. And read. I read of Kames, Hutcheson, Hume, Smith, Boswell. Of art, science, philosophy, invention, enlightened religion, architecture, of learning and elegance. This estimable work became my constant companion for the rest of the weekend.

When I escaped briefly the next afternoon to take in an Elgin City match I took it. As the game ebbed and flowed I read on, oblivious to the samba music around me. At half time I observed Kames four stages of civilization at the pie stand. Back at the hotel I read in the whisky bar. I read at dinner as the waiter performed the Heimlich manoeuvre to eject some shotty game from my windpipe. I read in bed. I read at breakfast. By Sunday morning I had finished.

The beginning of the next week found me a discontented man. Gone was my usual Monday morning dynamism. A prosaic week, of paperwork, URTIs and unfulfilled dreams lay ahead. I contemplated the dull grind and thought ruefully that I would never publish in the Edinburgh Review or go touring with a fat pedantic Englishman. I looked at my surgery list, I thought about QOF, appraisal. Ahhhh….if ever anything needed enlightenment it was general practice, I thought as I leapt from my chair and ran post haste to our local periwig, frock coat and britches shop. If I was going to start an enlightenment I had to look the part.

Two hours later, suitably attired and refreshed with a surfeit of claret and oysters I returned to the surgery. I cut quite a figure as I strutted through the waiting room. The senior receptionist looked at me somewhat askance but, with the flourish of a frilly cuff, I offered that I had lately returned from the Queensferry turn post. I further added that I was retiring to my journals in the practice library and was not to be disturbed until the prick o' noon. That seemed to do the trick.

First some reading, I thought. Uncorking a bottle of port, I scanned the library shelves. I was unable to find the Edinburgh Review. I rested my hand on a globe, gazed into the middle distance, and limply dangled a pair of dividers for a moment and then decided instead to start with science. I reached for the BJGP. I scanned the original papers but was battered back by a volley of methodology and a welter of statistics. Best to flounce tentatively before I strut arrogantly I thought and settled instead upon the back pages. It was with growing dismay that I fell upon paragraphs on Kafka, on Sikh gurus, on Don Quixote and Denis Diderot. I'd heard of this last - he played centre half for Chelsea but apparently he was a philosopher too! I felt considerably deflated. In each case the relevance to general practice was so ingeniously concealed that I was unable to spot it. Was it the port? I feared not - my feeble intellect was the problem. I felt as miserable as small boy with severe laryngitis watching the emperor bounce his bare bollocks along the boulevard. I wasn't up to this I thought glumly. I couldn't make any sense of these articles at all - they must be very, very clever indeed.

Dismayed, I went abroad to sport with the ladies of the Port of Leith. Invigorated, I recovered my britches from the ceiling lamp and went on my way. Shortly however, I was inclined once more to dip in deeply, but this time I satisfied myself with the volume that had begun this whole misadventure. I perceived the further tickly stirrings of my recovery as I read of the acute medical observations of Dr Cleghorn of the parish of Crammond. Perhaps, I did still have something to offer, I mused.

For reasons that I will not dwell on here, I was unable to dine graciously that evening at the table of my good Lord Monboddo. Instead my peregrinations took me firstly to the local Somerfield store, the bookmakers and the Railway Tavern, before my return home. Having observed several of my patients in different environments and my attire having rendered me somewhat unrecognisable, I was able to make several fascinating and acute observations. Armed with these, I withdrew to my study and worked late into the night. As a result I will shortly board the London stage, take the high road to our Nation's capital, and deliver two papers at the Royal Society.

Firstly, Sick Building Syndrome - The Tendency of General Practitioner's Premises to Exacerbate Musculoskeletal Symptoms in Benefit Claimants.

Secondly “Vanished on the bus” a well recognised but unlisted pharmaceutical property exclusive to diazepam, methadone and dihydrocodeine.

And so to bed.

Other hoolet online articles by Peter Murchie can be found at:
hoolet edition 49 - Sandyjim Saves the Day
hoolet edition 48 - And The Winner Is...
hoolet edition 47 - A Christmas Caper
hoolet edition 46 - The Edinburgh Festival
hoolet edition 45 - Struck By Enlightenment
hoolet edition 44 - The Pendleton Code
hoolet edition 43 - Christmas Eve at The Pole
hoolet edition 42 - An Unexpected Reunion
hoolet edition 41 - The Complementary Garage
hoolet edition 40- Up General Practice!!
hoolet edition 39- Ten Years From Now
hoolet edition 38 - Finlay and the Contract Summit
hoolet edition 37 - Johnny the Bow and the New Contract
hoolet edition 36 - Science For Football's Sake
hoolet edition 35 - Evidence-Based Golfing
hoolet edition 34 - Dr. Marlowe

hoolet is the magazine of RCGP Scotland. It is supported intellectually, financially and emotionally by RCGP Scotland.

This issue maintained by Robert Hallam.