I’ve learnt a few things this week:

• Emergency medical care in London under the NHS is awesome as well as free;
• despite being very worried about it at the time, I didn’t need to worry about my passport, Medicare card, health insurance, etc;
• I should have taken more reading material, teeth cleaning stuff and slippers;
• calling your Mum from a clean, safe, excellent hospital after a minor accident does NOT make her any more confident you’re OK; and
• even in hospital you can get your five cups of tea a day here.

So what happened? (Kate, skip this paragraph) In short, I fell over at home and cracked open the bridge of my nose, loosing blood and flesh (sorry Damo, I know you’d just done the mopping) in the wee hours. I rode in an ambulance to University College Hospital London, and then was seen by an awesome Maxillofacial surgeon and then spent the night up on wards while they decided that I was OK in the head injury department. 4 stitches inside and 6 on the outside.

I refused to pay for TV in hospital, but got through two days of the Guardian cover to cover. I caught up on sleep, was treated so kindly and professionally and all without payment or any questions about my status in the UK as an immigrant/visitor. They sent me home, four meals heavier, with a bevvy of medication, toiletries and some treatment materials. Winner.

After stressing my Mum out (despite playing it mostly tough/cool, I was wishing she was closer) a bit, I am just now laying low, vowing to blog more often and missing work a lot. Very bored at home and frustrated that all this sleep is hidden by grotesque bruising on my face – will post photos when I look more normal (and less like a Star Trek extra…)

No prizes for working out which 5-day BBC Weather Forecast is for Istanbul and which is for London, hosting a range of outdoor events while I’m away! Very pumped about needing sunscreen, being warm and being on holidays for the next 10 days.

Apologies for not elaborating on any of my own headings from my previous post – I am not sure if I will have time to post to this blog much between the eating, sunshine, relaxing, etc to catch up in Turkey. Lots happening here in all departments, with a raft of new arrivals, festivals, travel, etc on the horizon!

Quite excited about needing sunscreen – Happy Birthday Mum for today, and Rose for tomorrow!

On Sunday morning I am off to Turkey with Alex for a much-needed 10-day break, so in the meantime I am going to ambitiously attempt to jump down off the no-blogging wagon by updating the following areas:

• Travel (or Cat Empire in Paris and the Durham Open)
• Work (or the box truss and other pressures)
• Homesickness (or the £2.50 Twisties and the worst mango ever)
• Interesting Ideas (or Facebook is for snobs and The Grand Tour)
• Politics (or voting in the UK and depressing news from home)
• Visitors (or Alex and Lauryn, and soon Christina, Nic and Alex)
• Random Stuff (Pommy engineer’s happiness and clothes sent from home)

Clearly the above  gives away most of it – but promise to try and embellish when I post tomorrow and Saturday, while completing mammoth lists of work, packing and socialising!

The NSW RTA (Roads and Traffic Authority)’s newest ad campaign to tackle speeding, “Speeding. No-one Thinks Big of You“, has been reported by both the BBC (here) and Jezebel (here), my newest favourite source of trashy news. [As an aside, Jezebel's 'Snap Judgment' posts are gold.] I was surprised to learn that the little finger wagging it features was not an international sign of male inadequacy, with both outlets feeling the need to explain it. I guess it is a rather Australian way to tackle issues of speeding, something we’ve been doing for a long time. (If anyone can get proud about being the world leader in traffic ads, it’d be us…)

(American) Jezebel was pretty openly surprised:

“apparently, insulting an Aussie’s manhood is a more effective way to shame him into slowing down than images of death and dismemberment.”

Getting people to slow down is about as hard as getting them to drive less – though perhaps cheaper and easier . The RTA has said elsewhere that shock tactics aren’t working, so hopefully a fresh approach will have some impact.