A Bunch Of Croutons

‘BRAIN surgeons have a pretty untarnished reputation. Like rocket scientists, they are held up as the paragons of human endeavour.

Where there’s life, there’s Hope

You tell yourself that you can assemble flat-packed furniture because it is not ‘brain surgery’. Brain surgery is the benchmark of excellence.

Or it was until we read today’s Telegraph and caught a glimpse of what a brain surgeon looks like.

There he is on the paper’s Page 3. His name’s Terence Hope and he’s just been sent home on gardening leave by his employers at the Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham.

Mr Hope has been removed from his post at said hospital following what a spokeswoman for the hospital calls ‘allegations about his personal conduct’.

These allegations centre on a debate over whether or not Mr Hope intended to refill his soup bowl in the staff canteen without paying or had simply approached the tureen intent on grabbing a fistful of croutons.

The spokeswoman for the hospital confirms, via the Guardian, that ‘the dispute is about soup and croutons’ and that 57-year-old Mr Hope has been suspended.

Back in the Telegraph Mr Hope has donned a large shaggy ginger wig of the type favoured by followers of Scotland football teams, a large greenish coloured woollen hat, a blue apron and placed a pipe between his lips.

This is, apparently, a disguise, but since most of us have never met a brain surgeon or shared a bowl of soup with one, we cannot be so sure.’

Posted: 23rd, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink