First published in March 2021 for paid subscribers.
“Today’s all about the chilling. I’m here in the park, chatting to you, just chilling. And that’s what today’s all about. The chilling. I’m a chill guy.”
Something about that voice saw me slow down what unusually for me was a Saturday morning run. Saturday is the one day of the week where I do not exercise. I call it ‘Sloth Saturday’. Now don’t get the impression I’m a fitness nut. I’m not. Far from it. It’s just I think I’m the kind of guy who needs that discipline because at heart, at least physically, I think I’m a loafer, so I put myself through the pain barrier six times a week, cursing pretty much every moment of the effort exerted. Truth be told though, I value the mental health side of it, particularly during the last year of isolating alone, more than the fitness, though the latter of course is welcomed.
Back to the chiller though. The constant references to ‘chilling’ made me certain I’d heard the voice before. It was a softly spoken tone, pleasant to hear, the ‘chilling’ aside, and the long, elided vowel sounds told me he was from this south side of the river. I glanced back a couple of times in the voice’s direction, tracking it to a bench, and noting the clipped Jeremy Beadle beard, grown either deliberately because he misguidedly thought that was a good look, or simply because at this still early stage of his life, he couldn’t get his beard to grow beyond the jawline, I was almost certain I’d seen this young man before. It was Dr Chill.
Let me tell you about Dr Chill.
One Friday evening in January 2020, some eight weeks before the UK went into its very late lockdown (and four weeks before the stockpilers cleared our supermarkets of loo roll and hand gel), a halcyon time when for me my biggest stress was avoiding incurring any library fines and editing my podcast, I was on the upper deck of a 345 bus heading from Camberwell to Clapham Junction (or as the media frequently call it, ‘Clapham’ – it’s not), when I found myself sat behind what I soon learned were two young medical students, a guy and a woman. The guy was smartly turned out, decent looking, perhaps more than that if he lost the very clipped beard which I’d noted on ascending to the upper deck, and also could’ve done with losing what was a curious Ian Rush-mid ‘80s borderline BOUFFANT. That aforementioned voice also struck me pretty quickly. As a podcaster/broadcaster, the former long before everyone in this country started doing them, I always pick up on a good voice.
As he and his fellow medical student chatted, on hearing that she was single, he suggested she join some Sugar Daddy website. ‘They got money,’ he began. ‘They can house you, you can chill out with them. Get on that Sugar Daddy website, have them verify your ID and all you’ve got to do is chill and have dinner with your Sugar Daddy before they die.’
I had by then already noticed the guy said ‘chill’ a lot. And he wasn’t done with the ‘chilling’.
On talking of his plans for that evening, he told his fellow medical student, ‘I’m going to chill with my mum and sister first and then I’m going to go out and chill with some non-medical friends, and tomorrow I’m just going to chill at home’.
There was a lot of chilling from Dr Chill.
Ideally, I thought to myself, he’ll drop the ‘chilling’ from his vocabulary before he becomes a Doctor. I don’t know about you but for me, it’d be unsettling being seen by a GP who’s using the word ‘chill’ as he perhaps examines you for early signs of whatever illness will eventually claim you. You’re having some invasive procedure, worst case scenario a rectal examination say, and the young GP is telling you, “Just chill.”
I know younger doctors will have their own way of doing things and making their mark on the job, but I don’t think the word ‘chill’, except in its physical ailment sense, has any place inside a GP’s surgery.
Moving on from Dr Chill for a paragraph or two, a couple of months previous to that first encounter with the chilled one, we’re talking 4 months before the Covid Era kicked in, I’d been seen by a young female GP, new to the surgery, who’d opened with the line, ‘What are we going to talk about today?’
I had no problem with her thinking up some different way of opening with her patients, but that line struck me as too American.
Cheesy.
Like something out of 'Friends'.
Also, I was worried patients in the waiting room would hear her saying to me ‘What are we going to talk about today?’ and get the impression that she’d gone with that as her opening line because I’m a hypochondriac. I mean, I am (a hypochondriac), and I would’ve accepted that line from my lifelong GP (who I’ve been phasing out in recent years) because he knows I’m a hypochondriac, but I didn’t welcome it from a GP that had never seen me before.
As for Dr Chill, or the future Dr Chill – he may not have graduated yet – if he somehow ended up at my surgery in the years to come, and who knows, if he stays in south London, he might well show up there at some point, given the frequency with which I turn up with some imaginary ailment, he’ll struggle to stay chilled. In fact, I’m pretty confident I’d test his chill.
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