Valentine's Day: Of Donald Trump, Nurses, And Gorillas In Pathology Lectures

Ah, Valentine's Day. A day when undying love is declared, when girlfriends who normally berate their boyfriends for not buying them presents berate them FOR buying a Valentine's present, saying that their love did not need an overly-commercialised occasion to be celebrated on; a day when sad singles mope around in singles' bars listening to beatniks read poetry and chugging Bloody Marys trying to get drunk and bring on the sweet release of sleep a little earlier. (Not that I'd know anything about that. Hic. --Ed)

A day when people in Cambridge, eccentric as they are, become even MORE eccentric and do all sorts of weird things. I actually met one medic couple who told me, ensconced in each others' arms, that they were going to celebrate this sacred day by quizzing each other on Anatomy in the library. (Exactly HOW they were going to, uh, explore anatomy, they didn't say, but I'd rather not know. --Ed)

This morning's Pathology lecture saw our lecturer (who, by the way, is a self-confessed sex addict and who is a GOLDMINE for funny quotes--wait for another upcoming edition of a post like this one --Ed) being interrupted by a loud yell from the rear of the lecture hall, as a medic ran down the stairs followed by a large gorilla, and presented her with a bouquet of roses and a box of chocolates. (Okay, so the large gorilla was actually a RAG volunteer in a costume, but still. It's a GORILLA in a Pathology lecture. Spot the odd one out. --Ed)

The mystery in my previous post has been solved...NurseQuack WAS sent by HospitalPhoenix after all. He had dropped a pretty big hint in his Valentine's Day post, but I, uh, hadn't read it yet. Yeah, that's it. Donald Trump, who for a while now has been developing quite the crush on NurseQuack, was so overjoyed that he flew NurseQuack back to Trump Tower in New York to have a sumptuous seven-course Valentine's Day dinner.


HospitalPhoenix says here NurseQuack told her boyfriend she was on a nurse-prescribing course in Cambridge. She is. The medicine being prescribed to her is Donald Trump.

Happy Valentine's Day, folks!

Nurse Quacktitioner Arrives

Yesterday after supervision (a Cambridge term for tutorial; no, the University hasn't employed people to walk around us holding whips to make sure we study. Yet. --Ed) I was rummaging around in my pigeonhole, trying to get my supervisor's ringing voice out of my ear (if you must know, his exact words were something along the lines of "You NUMBSKULL! What do you mean, you DON'T know which lipoxins are formed by 15-lipoxygenase? How old are you, eight?!" --Ed) when my hands hit a rather fat envelope. It was suspiciously unmarked; I thought one of the surgeons offended by this post had finally sent me a bomb or a remnant from an anal fistulectomy or something.

So imagine my surprise when, fifteen minutes later, after I'd finished donning my HazMat suit and was carefully slicing open the envelope, this fell out:


This is, of course, one of Mattel's now-discontinued Nurse Quacktitioner dolls, made famous by HospitalPhoenix's blogging. And a lovely surprise it is, too.

But who is it from? The envelope was unmarked, except for a postcode which I will not disclose, and is it a gift, or a temporary loan? Is it a Valentine's Day hint from one of the hot nurses I met recently on my hospital rotations?

If it IS a gift, thanks to whoever sent it! It's lovely, and it made my day. Donald Trump is also overjoyed; he's been developing quite the crush on NurseQuack for some time now.

If it isn't a gift (or if it's filled with anthrax or E.Coli or gunpowder or something--Ed): Alright, who's the wise guy?

The Apprentice Los Angeles: Week 2

A Donald Trump Action Figure in Cambridge

Right, after being a very busy highly productive medical student (read: lazy bastard --Ed) for a few weeks, I'm back to posting mini-recaps for The Apprentice Season 6. Checking out the NBC website before writing this review, I realised that they've taken the liberty of giving each of the candidates a convenient little label, either for their own amusement or to enable what they must think are audiences with the mental capacity of a drunken hyena to see what role each candidate is expected to take. (Case in point: Martin, the first to be fired, is 'The Philosopher'. And indeed, just before he got fired, he spouted loads of random African sayings, which did make him seem philosohical. Unfortunately, his staggering intellect was not matched ny his bladder control and his taste in clothes, so he got his arse booted by The Donald. Full recap here. --Ed)

Unfortunately, the NBC dudes appear to have missed the mark with Heidi, who currently is the leading candidate and Project Manager on the show. Realising her good looks obviously mean she has no brains, the male chauvinist pigs over at NBC have gone and labelled her 'The Hottie'. Ooh. I smell a sexual discrimination lawsuit coming up.

"I'm not taking the rap for this one. This wasn't me, Women's Rights Watch! I love women!"

The Task: The two teams have to put on a beachwear fashion show, right from scratch. This means designing their own swimwear. Team Kinetic did okay, putting on a good show, except for Surya who, uhm, well. Take a look for yourself:

"Right, look straight up, holdstomachin holdstomachin it's almost over..."

They could afford all that, but not a wax for Surya? No wonder he's called 'The Hair' over on the NBC website.

The much-promised glimpse of Trump barefoot came when the billionaire walked down the beach, took off his socks, and threw them right onto Concubine #353.


Who Got Fired And Why: Carey, 'The Perfectionist', got axed because he designed a men's bathing suit that bordered on the obscene and that would only appeal to gay men. (And possibly because Carey's gay himself, but that's a topic I'm not touching with a ten foot pole. --Ed)

Overall, The Apprentice didn't do too well with this episode, even with a trip to the Playboy Mansion as a reward for the winning team (featuring the real Hugh Hefner and his three plastic Barbie-doll girlfriends!) and Trump brandishing Carey's bathing suit in the boardroom, but I'm told the third episode was the charm. Stay tuned for the next recaplet coming up real soon, folks. In the meantime, I leave you again with the exit interview, simplified to a single picture:

Donald Trump Does Patricia Hewitt

The Trump Hump

(Not like THAT, you perverts. Who do you think Trump is, Professor Scrub? --Editor)

The other day, during one of my many tea-and-crumpets familiarisation sessions with Mr Trump, he told me that before he came to Cambridge, he did quite a bit of firing. Much like State Secretary for Health Patricia Hewitt, actually. He also gave me an exclusive glimpse into his past life when he was laying people off.

This one time, Mr Trump was looking for a new cleaner for Trump Tower, as the upper levels were getting a little dusty, and being the efficiency freak he is, he found a rather large ape who claimed to have previous experience with tall New York buildings. Unfortunately this ape also had trouble showing up for work, and Trump had to fire him. It did not go down well.

From the annals of Donald Trump's history, I give you Trump vs Kong!

The Apprentice Los Angeles: Week 1

A Donald Trump Action Figure in Cambridge

And so The Apprentice moves to Los Angeles! As if to reinforce to us that this is a great idea, the show opens with Trump in his limo in rainy New York speaking to Barbi--uhm, I mean Melania on the phone. Trump then arrives in sunny happy LA, and starts the new look off by loudly proclaiming "I love LA!"


The season opener is a bit slow, and opinions range from good (mostly from Apprentice fans unfazed by The Donald's recent Rosie roasting) to just plain horrible (mostly from Rosie fans turned off by the whole advertisement-of-the-Trump-family business). This episode DOES see quite a bit of Trump family preening, as this picture from the TVgasm.com recap shows:

The candidates show up and introduce themselves. A walking picnic table called Martin pipes up and asks Mr Trump if he can go to the bathroom (which we all know means "Fire me now, Mr Trump!" in Apprenticespeak. --Editor) and so the episode premise is outlined: Trump introduces a few twists to boost his flagging ratings; the winning team gets to live in the mansion next to his (in a single bedroom, no doubt to creater happy-camper team camaraderie as well as to encourage coitus so the show can live up to its promise of, uh, goings-on in the trailer --Ed) and the losing team gets to sleep outside in tents (and no sex, of course. --Ed). The winning project manager STAYS project manager and gets to sit in on boardroom meetings (cos George is too old to walk without looking like an 80-year old House, and Donald Trump Jr's a bit busy making money to be in this episode. --Ed).

Irritating Idiot of the Week Award: James (the Webhead) was a close contender for this one, due to his overconfident smack-me-in-the-face-go-ahead-you-know-you-wanna expression and demeanour, but he featured too little in this episode to win. The winner is undoubtedly Frank, who as the reviewer for the Trump blog (who mysteriously isn't Donald Trump himself but some unknown bum who suddenly became a Vice-President --Ed) says, "staged a sickening grab for power" and made such a nuisance of himself that the other candidates decided to give the baby his bottle and made him project manager.

All in all, an interesting episode, but Trump's going to need to hook viewers fast if he wants to keep his show afloat. The new episode's out, and another review should be up shortly. In the meantime, I leave you with the exit interview, simplified to a single picture:

Donald Trump Arrives In Cambridge

People sometimes say that being a medical student predisposes one to brain damage. That we work so hard, and operate under so much stress, that somewhere up in our heads things sometimes get so hot that a few neurons decide to take a vacation, pack their bags and head down Spinal Cord Valley to get a well-earned rest in the tropics of Gluteus Maximasia. I disagree, however. I think we students at Cambridge may get a little weird sometimes, and do things to amuse ourselves, but on the whole our quirks are well within normalcy. The last time we medics were down at the local park dancing naked around a bonfire of labcoats, we didn't even get reprimanded by the police. (We didn't even get visits from Mental Health Services in the morning this time. Probably because Patsy's closed them down, but still. --Editor)

And so it is that, in my latest brilliant gimmick to waste time and procrastinate, I've decided to take a cue from HospitalPhoenix's Nurse Quacktitioner Adventures and create my own tribute to the former blogger. With HospitalPhoenix's blessings (and a good solid eBay account) I proudly introduce: The Adventures Of Donald Trump.

This not only allows me to give my views regarding the new season of The Apprentice in the US, but also allows m--uh, Donald to give economic views regarding the NHS. (I can hear Wat Tyler cocking his gun and buying a train ticket to Cambridge. --Editor) And of course, pay tribute to good ol' HospitalPhoenix.

The Trump helicopter arrives in Jesus College

Stay tuned for Mr Trump's review of the first episode of The Apprentice that aired last Sunday. The next episode airs tomorrow.

And of course, if you're walking around Cambridge and see a medic trying to snap a picture of some oddity with a Donald Trump action figure perched somewhere in the picture, keep walking. Everything's normal.