YOU know what it’s like — it’s happened to all of us. Hasn’t it?

You’re sitting in a bar, pretexting (pretending to text a friend so you look busy and not sad, stood up or alcoholic) while deep down you’re quietly simmering with fury.

You know they’re always late, so you out-manoeuvred them, or so you thought, and were also late.

And yet they’re still later than you.

So all those things you could have done — the dishes, called your mum, put some laundry in, cleaned the bathroom, watched the end of the latest instalment of wotsit on the telly — have gone undone and meanwhile, you are stuck in a bar, waiting. Just waiting... a little more waiting.

Let’s face it. It’s annoying, inconvenient and downright arrogant. Your friend doesn’t value your time at all — they’re cracking on with whatever is keeping them while you, you fool, have forsaken the other things you could have been doing in order to wait for them.

Would you put up with that? Or are you the one who would be doing the letting down?

I like to think not. Not without a good reason, profuse apologies and a conviction to make up for it.

But this is just socialising. In the scheme of things, it matters not a jot.

What does matter is the fact that GPs are experiencing much the same.

If I said to you that there were 15,000 occasions on which a Swindon GP was stood up by a pal, that would probably make you raise an eyebrow.

If I told you that was in the last three months alone, you’d probably raise both.

In my fairly average civilian life, I’d say the time spent waiting for latecomers probably adds up to no more than half a day a year.

According to our recent report on GP appointments, the no-show ‘patients’ are wasting 516 days of doctors’ time. And that’s in just three months.

At a time when the NHS is on the brink of collapse, we really shouldn’t be playing fast and loose with any of its services.

Every time you make an appointment and fail to turn up without prior notice, you are stealing an appointment from another patient.

Every time you make an appointment and fail to turn up without prior notice, you are putting our already over-stretched surgeries under even more pressure.

Every time you make an appointment and fail to turn up without prior notice, you are helping the whole set-up fall apart. Bit by bit, missed appointment by missed appointment.

If you value the NHS, if you want to keep it, if you value the doctors and nurses and administrative staff who work their socks off to keep it going, don’t abuse it.

Because if you’re ever really, genuinely sick, if you ever find yourself frightened and fighting for your life, you will thank your lucky stars for Aneurin Bevan, and the National Health Service he helped to found. And all the men and women who have cared for it and kept it going ever since.

Let’s hope their passion and commitment is contagious.

Carve them with pride

SO then. It’s Halloween on Monday.

As far as I can remember (and for context, I’m 45) we’ve had Halloween all my life, and probably for quite some time before that.

But in recent years, there are cries of horror every October that it’s become an American thing. And in this situation, an American thing is definitely a Bad Thing.

I know we hear horror stories of Trick or Treating getting out of hand. But those instances are actually few and far between. Most people either have fun and participate, or don’t bother and have a quiet night. And nobody seems to be any the worse for it.

What I find a little peculiar (although I’m aware it’s probably just an excuse for some publicity) is that a leading supermarket is offering jack-o-lantern lessons for the ‘two thirds of parents spooked by the fear of pumpkin carving and put under pressure from their children’.

Really? I admit, I’m rubbish at pumpkin carving. But going along to a session at a supermarket to learn how to do it strikes me as ridiculous. Surely the whole point of a festival such as Halloween is to bring families together. So wouldn’t it be more fun to get stuck in and learn together with your kids?