John Gibson: You’ve got an armful of my blood!

SOME people go down the pub. Me, I go down the Western. The Western General Hospital. Two blood samples in as many weeks, the first got lost in the system.

“You must be joking,” I said, recalling a memorable Tony Hancock sketch. ‘‘You’ve got a whole armful there.’’ To be fair, the spanking new building built to cater exclusively to ageing veterans (of the wars in the Crimea and Rorke’s Drift) had been open only a week or two.

The doctors stifled a laugh and remained stubbornly non-commital when, trying to introduce a touch of levity, I asked “tell me, doc, how long have I got?”

Wiser to write something nice about the medics and staff down there. There’s a welcoming cup of coffee and a digestive and the old bones seem to be responding reluctantly to the physio

Silvers pieces

Mysteriously and probably mischievously, The Oldie, a monthly mag, lands on my desk. A recent edition (not in braille, smartass) reveals that Bob from East Lothian called the shots at a public auction at Epsom Races.

An impressive array of goods appeared under his hammer, among them an original Paul McCartney guitar.

An autographed publicity still of Phil Silvers as Sergeant Bilko, right, fetched £600. Got me wondering what my personally-signed photograph of Hollywood superstar Bette Davis is worth.

When we met in Edinburgh that day for a blether Bette looked like a million dollars, every inch the universally-acclaimed film star.