Life on the list

Most people measure their successes through conventional social barometers: a pay rise, say, or aesthetically pleasing children. Not me - no no. To define myself in such staid, traditional terms would expose me as severely lacking anyway. This is not to say I have not achieved: this week, for instance, I finished watching the entire series of "ER". It has taken me months, it has been boring at times, but on Friday, I did it. All fifteen series of it. I would never have managed such an impressive feat had it not been for dialysis. How else would I have found twelve hours per week to devote to DVD watching? Work or socialising or other such superfluous nuisances would have gotten in the way if I didn't have to be at the hospital. The element of sadism involved in watching a hospital drama whilst in hospital has not escaped me, but there is schadenfreude in watching someone have an arm ripped off in a horrific tractor accident whilst sitting snugly in a south London NHS