£400 quid anyone??

I had decided to embrace technology furhter and take it to a new level (for me anyway) by buying two i phones. (one for Mrs M. She wouldn't have it if I was waving it under her nose and poo pooing (is this a word?) her dodgy Motorolla)
Now in this current economic climate, I suspected that I would be man handled by sales staff spotting my "willing to buy" body language. A guaranteed sale, ney, two sales and presumably twice the comission for half the time. Simples!
As I entered the o2 shop my "indifferent sales staff" antenae were starting to twitch. Female assistant reluctant to make eye contact, begrudgingly says "Hi". Silence.....
Ok I get it, it's the low pressure, soft sell technique. I can live with that.
"I would like to buy two (smug expression) business rate i phones please"
"Have you got a bank statement, headed paper and credit card"
" Yes but not the headed paper, is that a problem"
"yes, you can't have them then" Silence, awkward smiling.....tumbleweed swirls by...
That would have been it. Had it not been for the fact that I really wanted one and I have no choice other than the o2 shop for the business tariff, that assistant would have delivered the "computer says no" moment and waved me off to "fones4nufink" or one of their competitors.
The moral of the story being unless you have a service that people desperately want (which by the way doesnt apply to dentistry-surprise, surprise) beware the assassins within your midsts.

Baaaaah Humbug

As a grumpy old git I constantly bemoan the ludicrous number of signs on the roads these days. With my ever shrinking number of braincells I have to negotiate signs for roadworks, speed, directions, warnings, etc.. in the space of a millisecond. Not forgetting of course that I should be looking at the road and trying not cause a mass pile up because I missed the "narrow lanes in 10 miles" sign. Well here I was in Wales on my family holiday, on the side of a mountain (in Wales) where there are lots (and I mean lots) of animals in the fields (in Wales!!) Do you see where I'm going with this...Well just in case I failed to notice, some kind council after 3 yrs deliberation 45 meetings and 25 sub committe meetings at a cost of £99000 to the tax payer, have decided that I need to be alerted to something I may otherwise have overlooked.........

Open Day

10am. The banners are up, the balloons have been blown up by the girls. The goody backs are lined up in an orderly fashion. I'm even wearing a suit (No tie of course)
No-one, Zip, Zilch! Just us and the tumbleweed. My bottom lip is quivering and the dummy is close to being spat out. "Cup of tea ?" asks Julie again.
"whose stupid idea was this open day?" I grumble.
"Yours!" comes the unanimous reply.
12 noon. A nice lady pops her head around the door. She is instantly pounced upon (metaphorically) and given "The Tour". Chris from Coffee Costes http://www.coffeecostes.com/ across the road pops over with a tray of smoothies to tempt in the punters. One turns into two turns into three... The girls are out on the street giving away freebies and the lunchtime curious are coming in thick and fast. For two and half hours we are rammed. Person after person. I can't quite fathom where everyone is coming from. It's the hottest day of the year and following huge financial investment in aircon, how happy am I to hear "Wow it's so cool in hear"


This was one of my happiest days in dental business and I didn't even pick up a drill or fix a dodgy molar. 15 new bookings have been taken (They have all since joined us as members) and 60 business cards have been left in our raffle. The ripple effect has since brought more patients to our practice. It is an honour to think that our patients will return to their place of work and make a recommendation for others to come and see us. I never take this for granted and I see it as a reflection of our fantastic team and their commitment to the practice. I am very lucky that I work in an environment that energises me with people I really like and I have the best job in the world.

It's time for a clinical blog

I thought that my blogs would be filled with pearls of dental wisdom and handy hints about tooth brushing. All well and good, but when it comes to it, other things seem to come more to mind like sport, sport and music (more on my musical musings to come I fear). However I must confess that the time has come to enthuse about something clinical. Not dentistry but Facial Aesthetics/Rejuvenation - Call it what you will. I got talking with one of my patients a few months back on the use of Botox and Fillers. It transpired that she was working for fantastic company called Dermis Deep http://www.ddassist.com/ who run courses on what people are calling non surgical face lifts. To cut a long story short, a few weeks later I'm placing Botox into my wife's beautifully furrowed brow and although she couldn't possibly look more beautiful, she was delighted with the natural smoothing around her eyes and brow. (Did I get away with that)

What struck me most was how much easier it is to inject outside of the mouth in a dry environment with perfect lighting. I have continued with training in the use of fillers and I really enjoyed doing some lip augmentation. The good thing about these products is that they are not permanent and basically plump out the desired area by attracting water in the skin.

Well now I'm really loving this and on Sunday we hosted the Advanced Course in my practice. I couldn't believe that in minutes you can give a brow lift, cheek augmentation, chin augmentation and soften wrinkles around the eyes. Non Surgically! This is why I believe that Dentistry lends itself well to these procedures. ...and my wife hasn't frowned at me for weeks...

Cycling is the new rock and roll. Well it is for 41 yr olds who play guitar badly. I first got into cycling in 2003 when I decided to get fit again after 25 yrs of playing rugby. I entered a triathlon (swim, bike and run in that order) and got sucked into the whole multisport thing. There is a problem with triathlon however. It is a sport designed for compulsive obsessives as you need to do six training sessions a week to get up to proper fitness. Compound that with having three children ,a wife who would like to see you occasionally, a job, the British weather and an arthritic knee and you can see that something has to give. In my case it was the swimming - booo, and the running - hooray.
I 've regularly cycled into work since then and really enjoy the ride home especially in Summer along the canals. No cars, few people, water and the odd barge. How good is that for the middle of a big city? When motivated I've joined up with a Saturday morning road ride from Birmingham City Cycles birminghamcitycycles.co.uk . That's at 7am on a Saturday! but boy do I deserve (and not feel guilty about) a full English upon my return.
Of course yesterday Alister from the shop put a load of new kit on my steed and had it primed and ready for my dawn attack on the peleton. Nothing was going to stop me. Except this mornings downpour and how comfy my bed feels at 6.30am on a Saturday. Muesli it is this morning..

First Timer not Twitter

I love it when I feel that I've mastered something. Especially if it's clever and techy. Unfortunately I set my standards very low and I have to confess that I'm all excited just for having followed 4 pages of idiot proof instructions to get my blog page "live" (as I believe IT people would say)
I promise that I won't Twitterize this space....
.....currently promising not to twitterize my blog...
You see it's dull and inane isn't it! Instead I will have a random ramble in true grumpy old man style. So beware MP's, traffic wardens, my kids and reality shows, my venom knows no bounds. Grrrr not Tweet