Simon and Garfunkel were just playing in the car which reminded me of the rudest doctor I ever had. I can’t remember his name but it was 2003 and he was a middle-aged Brit who seemed a little bored. I’d finally got a job as a library officer after graduating from my BA into unemployment and I had to do a medical. It was my first appointment with him and he remarked, ‘Has anyone ever said you look like a chubby Art Garfunkel?’ No, actually, no-one had ever said that but years later when I told my wife, she thought that was hilarious and sometimes she has been known to call me ‘chubby Art Garfunkel’. This is mostly a compliment in her lexicon, as she likes Art Garfunkel and he was surely on the skinny side in his heyday. (Or this is what I tell myself.) He said working in a library wasn’t a very good job and I should be aiming higher. I wouldn’t be very busy and I could use my spare time to study for a real job. I am still studying, I told him, studying to be a librarian. As it turned out, working the front desk at one of WA’s busiest libraries did not give me any spare time at all.

That medical practice, still going today with one of the worst Google ratings in the city, was run really badly. It charged a fortune, had a rude receptionist and always kept people waiting inordinately. I usually saw another doctor, a delightful Polish fellow. He was jolly and I think he was good at his job, but he was always running about an hour behind. I would get so frustrated waiting and ready to tell him I was never coming back, but then he would be apologetic and funny and I would come back the next time right up until I moved away.