Over spilt coffee

I spilt my coffee over the newspaper at breakfast this morning while cutting out news items of medical interest—which I obsessively save but rarely use. I now have in front of me newspaper clippings as crisp as potato chips, as embrowned as Thomas Hardy's Egdon Heath in November, but not half as exciting as shutting down the government, pursuing Whitewater and Travelgate, or following the Chicago Bulls or New Hampshire primaries.

The first item, of particular interest to anyone struggling with Cerberus-like gatekeepers in Canadian emergency rooms (see my Soundings of 30 September 1995), is about a group of doctors in New Brunswick setting up a public telephone …