What is life really like for the consultant faced with the clamour of consulters, engineers, scientists, business managers, doctors, each of whom believes that his is the only problem in the world worthy of your attention? Can you always muster the humour, the assiduity, the indominatability, and the extra ten hours a day that you need to cope with it all? I admit it's difficult and, just as you all have your tales to expose these untutored needs of the job, here are some of mine, linked with the odd word or two of advice. Some of them originate from my time in industry, others from teaching hospitals, but the characters and attitudes are ubiquitous.

It was a lovely day. Clouds bustled billowingly white in the warm summer breeze under the bright blue sky. Too good to be indoors sweating over a hot computer, I thought, as I locked my car and strode towards the office building.

‘Ah, just the man,’ came an Ulster evangelical bellow. It was a consultant. No, not one of us, but one of them. Genuflecting slightly, I tried to excuse myself, but too late.

‘I just want to ask you a quick question,’ he said, and spread a file of papers over the nearest car bonnet. The wind grabbed a handful and distributed them among a dozen wheels. The boy scout in me raced around retrievingly and then I realised he had me.