My grandmother kindly informed me that labour was quite boring and I should get a good book to read. Never having read "War and Peace" I thought this would be the perfect time to get to grips with it. Lying in Kings (for what turned out to be false labour) wired up and left alone was not the best time to read about a miscarriage!
If you were, eg, an officer in the Army and had to work out the best plan, you'd be pretty buggered if you didn't have the verbal skills to disseminate it.
As it happens, Mike Gatting is currently in Burgess Park. He ate all the scones at tea. That last bit was a lie but my brain can't think of anything amusing right now.