Health: Did you hear about the speculum and the strawberry?

"DO you think drug reps are any good?"

"In what sense?"

"Well, do you think they make a difference?"

"For most GPs, probably not. But I'm sure a few are susceptible. For example ..."

"Hang on. Remember this chap writes for The Independent."

"Oh bollocks to that. We've got a doctor in our practice who dishes out antibiotics like Smarties. One minute he's mad about Azithromycin, the next it's Grepafloxacin. There just didn't seem to be any rationale to it."

"Except they're all new, expensive wonder drugs."

"Precisely. So we looked in his diary and saw when the drug reps were calling."

"And?"

"He sees loads of them. But the fascinating thing is, he only takes notice of some of them."

"Which ones?"

"The pretty ones with big Charlies."

"That's disgusting."

"No it's not. It's good sales technique. The pharmaceutical company has a product to sell to a largely sceptical and burn-out group of customers. So why not sweeten the message with a bit of lust? Excuse me while I bend over to open my briefcase, doctor."

THE toughest decision for any after-dinner speaker is deciding whether to do the dinner. Miss it and come over as offish and ungracious? Or try to be funny after limp chicken and leaden pudding? And then there's the conversation. Will it give you a valuable insight into your audience, or just bore the Charlies off you? Most of my audiences are medical, and, on a good night, sitting through dinner is a great way of topping up your anecdotes ...

"OUR senior partner used to dress up as a woman."

"You'd be surprised how many doctors are transvestites."

"Oh no, he wasn't a transvestite. He had a drug problem."

"Eh?"

"When his bag was empty and he needed some more morphine, he'd disguise himself as a woman, write a prescription for a female patient who didn't exist and redeem it at the local pharmacy."

"Didn't anyone recognise him?"

"I'm sure they did. It wasn't a terribly good disguise. But I guess they thought he's a doctor, he must know what he's doing."

"And what did the other doctors think?"

"We weren't terribly amused. But he was the senior partner and they carried a lot of clout in those days. But eventually we had to let him go."

"And he stopped doing it?"

"Oh no. He moved to Halifax and set up on his own."

(Pause for wine.)

"I worked in Halifax."

"You poor sod."

"The patients were great. But the branch surgery didn't have a chair for them."

"You're kidding. When was this?"

"In 1981. There wasn't a couch either. The patients would come in expecting very little and go out with even less."

"We had a surgeon doing locums in our practice who wouldn't let the patients sit down. He used to wedge his foot under their chair so when they tried to pull it out, they couldn't."

"In my practice, they all get a seat."

"Yeah, but they can't get out of them. You should see his waiting room. Bloody great bucket seats that all the oldies get stuck in 'cause their hips are lower than their knees. They never get near a doctor."

"Rubbish."

"It's not rubbish. Tell me this, right. Why did you relocate your surgery up Barton Hill?"

"For the view."

"Bollocks. It's so all the really sick patients collapse half-way up and never make it to the front door."

(More wine.)

"So did you see the snooker?"

"In parts. I was on call. The first three houses had it on but the last had Moll Flanders."

"I hate it when that happens. Did you ask them to switch over?"

"Didn't need to. When Moll started shagging, they got all embarrassed."

"What, they don't want their doctor to know they watch Songs of Praise and soft porn on a Sunday?"

"Exactly. So on came John and Ken."

"Dr Kerwin saw it live."

"Moll Flanders?"

"No, the snooker. She's potty about it. Followed Higgins through every round."

"Is she still single?"

"Yeah. It might be something to do with the fact she keeps her uterus in a pot in the garage. It puts men off."

"I should imagine so."

(Even more wine.)

"Hey, you'll never guess what happened to our practice nurse."

"What?"

"She was doing a smear the other day, popped the speculum in and a strawberry fell out."

"You're kidding. What did she do?"

"Ignored it."

"That's amazing. I'd have pissed myself. Was it ripe?"

"Does it matter?"

"No. I guess in those situations you've just got to roll with it."