Birthday parties, club committee meetings, hog roasts, cricket matches, fetes: you name it, I have missed them in the name of work. Even a wedding once, although I regret that now. On-calls were the ultimate reason for stepping aside from difficult, awkward or just unwanted commitments. No-one could reasonably object without appearing as if they wanted to deny succour to the sick and needy. It played on the consciences of others that they were luxuriating in roles, such as public relations, which paid well and gave them lots of time off but had no moral content. Our claim to be forced to stay and grimly help the diseased when they were free to break off from their apparently responsible professions each weekend, pricked …