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THE MUSIC MAKER

The needle and the homage done

The vaccination process at the humungous congress centre was magnificently organised, the whole thing. Hats off to all concerned

Peter Edgerton

Friday, 28 May 2021, 10:28

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In normal circumstances, getting off the bus and walking into El Corte Inglés by mistake isn't the end of the world. In fact, it gives a chap the chance to gaze upon racks of televisions the size of Kazakhstan and then spend the rest of the day wondering who actually buys one.

Anyway, these weren't normal circumstances; no, this was quite literally a matter of life and death - I was cutting it a bit fine for my Covid vaccination appointment. The vast banks of female lingerie on display had given me a fair indication that I wasn't in the right place, so I hotfooted it to an even bigger building on the other side of the road, the Palacio de Ferias y Congresos. This was more like it. Here I joined a long, fast-moving, socially distanced queue and, in record time, reached the entrance where our temperature was to be taken on a thermometer thingy standing at about waist height. This would have been fine if the required part of the anatomy to be used weren't the forehead. It meant that the poor chap in front of me, whose stature was somewhat akin to that of the Eiffel Tower, needed various attempts to complete the required manoeuvre successfully, all the while offering a splendid impression of a wading bird at feeding time.

The comedy antics didn't end there. As we stepped into the humungous Palacio structure, a disembodied voice boomed through the speakers in order to ask if anyone had an appointment before 12.42pm (they were running ahead of time). There was no way of replying to the owner of the voice, which resulted in The Wading Bird and I waving our arms about and spinning in ungainly circles to try to attract someone's attention. Luckily - and before we were able to lose any more dignity - we were ushered discretely through a nearby doorway by a nice fellow who could, quite understandably, barely keep himself from laughing.

A very patient woman then took our details, gave us an appointment for the second jab and pointed to the final, hallowed doorway with her biro. Cunningly, and in order to ensure that no blokes would make any fuss, they'd stationed some very pretty nurses behind the screens to perform the vaccinations. Consequently, we all wore the stoic look of middle-aged men that says, "Don't worry about me, love. I fought in six world wars." The nurses all wore the stoic look of young women that says "I bet he holds his stomach in at the beach."

And that was that. Job done. A fifteen-minute wait in case you keeled over from all that stoicism and stuff, and back into town to celebrate with a tapa and a pint of beer, not necessarily in that order.

Magnificently organised, the whole thing. Hats off to all concerned.

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