The Donoughtson Diaries - Week 1

Sir Liam Donoughtson, Chief Medical Officer, yesterday.

'The Secret Diary of Sir Liam Donoughtson - CMO of Cloud Cuckoo Land'

Trouble at Home- Week 1

I’m a pretty busy chap at the moment; work has been especially busy recently, the shiny pamphlet factory is reportedly publishing at its highest rate ever while my attempts to take over the medical world are gathering apace. I’ve even heard that some rather overpaid, arrogant and impudent doctors are refusing to go along with my plans of making the country a safer and better place for us all to live in. It really is a rather typical act of selfishness from a profession that cares only for itself, and if they choose to ignore my brilliance then they will have blood on their hands; just to add that if they did get blood on their hands, then doctors wouldn’t bother washing them and there would be the potential for some patient safety issues there (God, I’m just so switched on to patient safety these days, hard to think of me as a doctor, isn’t it). That makes me think - I must get cracking on that new legislation which aims to lock up all doctors before they get the chance to murder their patients, just think how this brilliant pre-emptive action will make patients safe for ever! Anyway I didn’t want to chatter on about work, I have a more pressing problem a bit closer to home.

The wife, Mrs Donoughtson, has been spending far too much money on the shopping for quite some time. After some hard deliberation I thought of the perfect soltion: one of my colleagues at work has given us our best year ever by using some rather clever thinking, and I have applied this at home to give the perfect solution. I have now hired a few managers who form a network of command that plans and organises my wife’s daily activities, including her cash spending. The new management structure is guaranteed to help my wife work towards greater shopping efficiency. I have also hired a new ‘safer shopper’ who does the shopping instead of the wife, she is however under my wife’s direct command; of course there are checks in place to monitor the content of my wife’s orders (just in case you know, can’t trust anyone these days). The idea behind this is that the ‘safer shopper’ will not get tempted by luxury items at the supermarket, such as extra soft quilted toilet paper and hair dying treatments, hence the spending will be kept to budget. The ‘spending safety’ (lovely title isn’t it) scheme has only been up and running for a few weeks so far, so inevitably there have been some minor teething problems. Initially there were so many different management agencies in place that I couldn’t afford to fund them all for their invaluable work; but having re-mortgaged the house, this problem no longer exists. These financial problems did also mean that the entire family Donoughtson had to go without food and mineral water for two entire weeks; luckily I managed to smuggle plenty of supplies home (from the canteen at work), but unfortunately this was not quite enough to save the family hamster. There was also a slight problem in that none of the management agencies knew who was in charge, so no decisions were being made as to when the shopping should be done; I don’t wish to speak more of this other than saying that this has since been remedied.

Comedian Jim Davidson yesterday

Anyway, there were bound to be troubles with such a complicated and brilliant plan, there always are, people always try to resist genius reform; but I am convinced that this structural reform is the only way forward and we must persevere, we really must, if we are to solve this spending problem. The wife has not been keen with the plan either, especially when the FSDP (final shopping decision panel) gave her only 3 pence for her first week’s budget; but I have assured her that things can only get better (as my favourite D:REAM song goes!). In fact the wife packed her bags and threatened to leave me the other day; I responded by appointing a new management committee to oversee the chaining of the wife to the kitchen sink and as the sink is a safe distance from the phone, there is currently no chance of her scuppering my masterplan for ‘spending safety’. Sometimes a price must be paid for progress, and unfortunately for the wife it is she that must pay the price by sacrificing both her freedom and dignity for the good of the family. I will keep you posted, but sorry have to go now, just got a call saying that my expertise is needed for a certain independent review; when duty calls I always try to ensure that my strategic brilliance gets spread around fairly evenly, the wife may indeed be upset.