Pills for the First Consultation

By John A B Lansdown

‘Pills for the First Consultation’ is the first of the Pills for the Hospital Ward series. A defining feature of this anthology is restless verse primed to divert sluggish thoughts away from pending medical appointments to refocus on the fabric of society. The hospital series features plays punctuated with original artwork, plays and poems by the author. While distracting patients is a theme throughout the series, each book may be read independently and in any order.
To express devotion to public concerns, various office holders have donated their images for public appraisal. This philanthropic gesture will no doubt be appreciated by convalescing readers. Hospital inmates may discover solace by respecting the tremendous burden of social responsibility these brave public representatives deal with routinely. Resolving the illness in society can be a cathartic process simultaneously recovering both the patient and society.
The opening play is a tribute to the venerable leader, Kim Jong Un during a triumphant tour of a North Korean psychiatric ward. Admiration is also reserved for western figure heads, politicians, gurus and businessmen. Plays, poems and fables are richly enhanced with candid images of upright characters from eugenics proponents to tabloid proprietors. Paintings by the author offer an interlude from the relentless tributes made to prominent administrators. In particular, an interned patient may relate to the fable ‘Bureaucratic Short Fuse’ for the accolade it pays to the fascinating maze of bureaucracy invariably thrust upon a patient when confronted with wads of unsigned documents published in small print legalise.
Also in the hospital series:
Book One - Pills for the First Consultation
Book Two - Pills for the First Night
Book Three - Pills for the First Day
Book Four - Pills for Visiting Hours
Book Five - Pills for the Homeward Bound
Due to popular demand, the series has been compiled into one book called Sweet Pills for the Hospital Ward.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John A B Lansdown
• Release date: Jun 16, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463758083

John A B Lansdown

Formative years in the scenic Lakelands of North West England shaped John A B Lansdown into an outside landscape painter. Making violins at the prestigious Newark School in Nottinghamshire garnered a discipline that rubbed off onto his fine art. Watercolours, sketches and oil paintings interweave his poems and plays. Selling paintings internationally, he exhibits in Bulgaria, Austria, France and England. His prime displacement activity is playing a hand-made cigar box guitar accompanied by a voice allegedly resembling a tormented alley cat.

Book preview

This book is the first in a series of related publications culminating into a compilation called Sweet Pills for the Hospital Ward. A defining feature of this series is restless verse primed to divert sluggish thoughts away from pending medical appointments by refocusing on the fabric of society. Words are cast in penetrating prose to analyse world dilemmas. You may be stuck in a ward but spare a chance for a meagre poet to diagnose an ailing society.

Hospital administration becomes such a bind when institutionalised doctors concur that the first thing a patient needs is a pen to push around on a sheet of multi-choice questions. A tirade of officialdom seems designed to confirm a patient’s new status as an article of trade - colloquially termed a ‘client’ in medical law jargon. If the red tape louts starring in this book get their way, the patient becomes a commodity statistic.

As an antidote to bureaucratic thoughts, the author prescribes these undemanding yet subtle poems. In particular, an interned patient may relate to the poem ‘Bureaucratic Short Fuse’. This poem is highlighted as it gives vent to exasperation invariably thrust upon a patient confronted with wads of unsigned documents published in small print legalise.

Book cover ‘Advice from Merkel’ 2019 JPEG (2059 x 2076 / 285KB)

C Ward

Despot Tour

A Play of One Act / Three Scenes

Cast:

Pil Pop the Mind Corrective Faculty Administrator - Pol Pot

Leva Side-slap - Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria

Replacement Chauffer - Ratko Mladich

Mr Rubberneck - Nicolae Ceausescu

Mrs Rubberneck - Elena Ceausescu

Sausage filling - Jang Song Thaek

Ward sister – Lyudmila Zhivkova

Laughing Chauffer - Karl Marx

Cuddly despot - Kim Jong-Un

A list of prominent doppelgangers appearing in the play illustrations can be found in appendix one

Act One / Scene One

A convoy of sleek cars are conveying top political elite on a triumphant tour of North Korean working facilities. We join this illustrious inspection team with Kim Jong-Un in the back seat of a black windowed limousine with trusted advisors at hand. Cars following behind are equipped with experienced nurses armed with loaded hypodermics on the off chance Kim Jong-Un breaks out of his drug induced hypnotic stupor. Kim Jong Un’s uncle Jang Song Thaek is conspicuously absent after their previous visit to a sausage making factory.

Kim Jong-Un:

To break up this journey I will ask a riddle;

How many western imperialists does it take

To change a light bulb?

Leva Side-slap:

Alas, I fear I will fail this test

‘Chief-fighter-against-capitalism’

Allow me to inflict appropriate self- punishment

This activated car cigarette lighter

Shall be stubbed firmly upon my ignorant tongue

Lest you honour me not with the answer

Kim Jong-Un:

None of them because their butlers have gone on strike!

(General guffaw among the advisors)

That sausage factory at the last inspection

Made some right tasty delicatessen

I must watch my weight

Leva Side-slap:

What nonsense, dear ‘Enlightened leader’

You’re emaciated enough for a catwalk

Where sadistic capitalists force-starve fashion models

Coercing hungered skeletons to strut their prancing

In flimsy designer rags

Kim Jong-Un:

It was very touching of those sausage-making shamans

To name their latest brand after a member of my family

Even though he was a rather naughty uncle

Leva Side-slap:

Oh yes, ‘First-among-the-deprived’, as I always say;

Hand me the man; I’ll show you the crime

Kim Jong-Un:

Though it was strange how they gathered around

With