Picture the scene: It’s a Wednesday morning. My week thus far can probably best be described as acceptably mediocre. I don’t think I can ever quite be called bright eyed or bushy tailed in the morning, but this morning at least I’ve tried to give myself a mini pep talk to convince myself that today is not just going to be mediocre. No. Today we strive for okay.

Immediately on entering the ward I’m made aware that there are two separate ambulance crews hovering in the corridor, both unable to take their patients home because I have not yet finished the discharge paperwork thanks to being deluged the day before.

Mildly stressed, I assure the nurse that the situation is in hand, and that this won’t take me more than 5 minutes to complete. I realise my mistake very very quickly when it turns out that all of the IT software has taken this precise moment to just.. stop working. And I mean cease working entirely. All of it.

And at this point the fire alarm goes off. This adds a wonderfully appropriate background siren to my rapidly building stress level. It’s apparently not actually for a fire (who am I to know), but for reasons unbeknownst to man the powers that be can’t find anyone who actually knows how to turn it off.

And so begins my day: the better part of the local ambulance service queuing in my ward, with no functioning computers and a fire alarm that no one can switch off.

Oh, and the pods are down.