Tom's got a new book out!Friday: Found myself on shift without a partner tonight, so back on the FRU car. Control called in with another job "man being ill" which could cover a multitude of sins, got there in less than five minutes for once.That was, you will be pleased to hear, not an extract from Tom Reynolds' new paperback More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea. And a bloody good thing, too. For one, I'd certainly know better than be sick inna hedge on his patch. I don't think his part of East London even has hedges.
Arrived to find a well-known C-List blogger bowking rich brown vomit inna hedge, the result of an unexpected and unnerving encounter with a voluminous pair of bosoms. "Oh, it's you," I said, getting back into the car and finding myself a patient that was properly ill.
I've got a soft spot for work bloggers, probably because the all-action world of online journalism doesn't quite lend itself to the medium, but mostly because Reynolds is invariably elbows deep in the sort of job that I'd run a thousand miles to avoid.
The number of dead bodies I've seen in my life is still in the low single figures, and I intend to keep it that way. Tom sees death, illness, drunks, violence, general unpleasantness and NHS managers on a daily basis, but is able to write about it with tact, intelligence and a great deal of humour.
The fact that this is the second book gleaned from his excellent Random Acts of Reality blog, but still manages to be fresh speaks volumes about the author's ability. For it's not just car accident after car accident – there are touching scenes as he attends the lonely or the dying, as well as the odd bit of slapstick.
More Blood, More Sweat and Another Cup of Tea is available in old fashioned paper-and-ink HERE, or, if you're a complete skinflint, an official free-to-download Electronic version HERE (provide your own paper).
I'm going to push the boat out with the Scaryduckworth-Lewis Method of Rating Things for Excellence (the internet's number one method of rating things for excellence) and mark this:
18/20. Julia Bradbury soaked and windswept after a long wet walk up a mountain, met by Tom Reynolds with a space blanket and a good rub down
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