Androgynous? Moi?
This embarrassing escapade may necessitate a brief description of my appearance. Despite having a thick mane of long, dark hair - at least, longer than is currently socially acceptable for men (fuck you, Waitrose*) - I am a gangly 6'2" or so, with a distinctly non-feminine gait and a large, unsightly corvine nose (hence the screen name).

A couple of years ago, my flatmate came home looking very ill, describing nausea and a sharp pain in his lower abdomen. He elected to lie down, but after half an hour or so he had vomited twice, and the pain was not subsiding. I, fearing appendicitis, decided to take him to hospital.

We only lived five minutes' walk from Charing Cross Hospital, so I made him walk.

So at reception, because he wasn't registered with this particular hospital, and because the NHS seem to be completely unable to share information across their network, I have to stand at the desk and watch him sweat and wince as he gives the unsympathetic receptionist the details of his parents, their home address, their contact numbers, names of any pets and their medical history, the consistency of his semen, stools and blood and for what it's worth his opinion on the death of Princess fucking Diana, and eventually he is told to sit down and wait for a doctor.

We take a seat at the far end of the waiting room. Eventually a doctor calls for him. He staggers over to this chap's office and is examined. Eventually the doctor says
"We'll have to keep you in overnight. Does your girlfriend want to come through?"
My flatmate is a little confused...
"Oh...him? That's not my girlfriend, mate, that's my flatmate."
"Oh, that's fine, she can come through."
"You mean, he can come through."

It apparently took my friend a lot of effort (in spite of his swollen appendix) to convince this doctor that I was, in fact, male.

And even when I was beckoned over to this guy's office, he had the nerve to say to me
"I'm very sorry, I thought you were female."

This, b3tans, is the state of the NHS: we now have doctors who cannot distinguish male from female.

I hope he cringed for days afterwards. I was somehow simultaneously embarrassed and flabbergasted. (Just to put this one back on-topic.)

Length? Evidently he wanted proof...

*_{Shortest job interview I ever had}
(LongJohnBaldry, Fri 28 Nov 2008, 12:27, Reply)