How Elizabeth 1st Really Looked

How The Queen Looked

I am now able to show what Elizabeth looked like thanks to AI technology. This wonderful bit of tech, will correct the original artists impressions of the face of the Queen, based on their understanding of how faces should be drawn. Since nobody would really have faces like the way they were originally drawn. I can really say I have never seen a woman's face like the way Elizabethen women are drawn. Even actress, in modern films with the correct same style of clothing do not look like them. 

So my first image is one that I partially created manually to correct the loss of colour that the pictured suffered. The Armada Portrait of the Queen. But the face and hair have been transformed using the AI tech.

The next image was a pattern mask, but the AI has picked out the same face style as the above. Consitant with the date of the image. 

The next image shows the affects of age on her. 

The following image does the same. But the silver of the jewels shows up black. I have corrected the problem on the next image below it. 

More images to come. 

A top 100 based on total sales each week

 This has been transferred from the weekly section.

While doing the 1983 charts I came up with the idea of doing what the top 100 would look like if I just based it on the total sales of each record in the chart. So I did the chart for the 24 July like that, I also worked out what the previous week would have been like, and included that in the last week column. The weeks would be the same of course. I couldn't do the highest position one, because that would have required many weeks of charts to do. I am including the chart below to show you. Some notes of explanation are needed. The red pen lines show you what will drop out. As you can see they are all over the place, not just at the bottom of the chart! Such a chart would see records drop out from number one! New Order's record would have spent 2 weeks at the top. Sales with the same figures are placed in order of the same chart as presented. This chart is also a one off! 

I should point out that you could do this with any other charts if you know the weekly sales figures. Even those by the OCC. 

First off the 24 July chart without the adjustment and then the chart with.

 

Manor Training And Resource Centre (Matrec)

 I spent a great deal of time helping to develop this excellent training centre in Sheffield, rising at one time to become Chairperson of the project, all on a voluntary basis.  So I would like to show some of the memories and mementoes of the project. Which by the way is still running a providing courses still. 

It's where I learned my computer skills from by the way! 

First of a promo video done for the centre in the 1980's. It's a VHS copy by the way. It features me and many other people. Narrated by Carol Jenkinson, who is still involved with project. 

    Next up some photos of the Lord Mayors Parade Sheffield (1992). The new Mayor was a local Manor Councillor William Jordan, who sat on the board of Matrec, so that's why Matrec had a float! 

Above the float itself!

Outside Matrec. Alison Robinson, Carol Jenkinson, Dave Clarson, Liz Fox plus others. 

Again outside. Barbara Harrison, Alison, Gwen Schofield, Carol, Jenean Berry, Steve Fox, Larry and Kate Roberts.  

Steve Fox, Me and Sandra Jordan (no relation to William the Mayor). 

The next picture is me being presented with my South Yorkshire Open College pass by Bill Jordan at the Matrec presentation day at the Manor Community Centre on the 20 October 1988

It was common for Matrec to do certificate presentations at the Community Centre, since the Matrec buildings didn't have a room big enough to hold the vast numbers of students. End of term parties were also held there, with presentation first and then fun afterwards. The booze supplied by Wards! 

The reincarnation of the actress Carole Lombard

 A real life case of reincarnation, with a personal twist for me

Carole Lombard

Lots of people think that if you are famous in this life, than you were famous in the past, even down to the same skills. It's more likely a person who really was a famous person in a past life, more than likely doesn't know they were that person. Nor do they follow on from what they did. Though they might be using certain traits or talents that the famous person has without doing the same thing. A good example that I came across was of the reincarnation of the actress Carole Lombard. This person again doesn't know again that they were that Carole. When I first wrote this article, I decided it wasn't a good idea to reveal that person's real name. But due to recent events I have decided what the hell!  She is called Carolyn Leary. As you can see she has the same initials! She does have a middle name, but she doesn't use it. But I don't think she has done any real acting as such. But has made videos! Instead Carolyn has developed the charity side of the actress and developed a greater understanding of the role of women. One curious odd thing did strike me as odd. In one of Lombard's movies (Lady By Choice) she adopts a woman as her mother. The mother's fictional name was Patricia Patterson. When I first encountered Carolyn at the Shop Community Project on the Manor in Sheffield, her close friend and colleague was actually called Patricia Patterson. 

Patricia Patterson (May Robson)
May Robson also died in 1942

Now I can't say if Patricia was the same actress in a past life as that of the film. Or if the name was chosen by the soul to make a strong connection with Carolyn in this life.  But you never know! I should mention that I did not do a test on Carolyn to determine who she was and even if I had at the time, I would not have recognised Carole Lombard. Instead I was given the name of who she was, when I asked about her. Only they didn't tell me the actress name. It was her real name, which was Jane Peters. And that she was a famous actress. So I had to find out who she was from the name given. There was no internet back then, so I went to the Central Library in Sheffield and looked for a book on film stars in the reference section. None of the listed in the index the real names of them. So I had to search through one that gave the real names.  And yes they name I was given was there and it was Carole Lombard's real name. I was really surprised the initials were the same! However there was little I could do with the information. I wasn't convinced to that she was Carole Lombard. She didn't really look like her from the pictures in the book. It was sometime later that I was convinced it was her. Carole Lombard films are not often shown on UK TV, so when I saw one advertised on Channel Four I watched it. It was Twentieth Century being shown. The way she acted didn't make me think she was anything like that, even anything like a modern woman would act. But then it all changed. John Barrymore's character threatens to leave her. And Carole goes into an emotional scene where she begs him to stay. The hairs on the back of my head stuck up! It was done in the same way Carolyn had spoken to me ages ago, just like the movie. What happened was that at the time I was working on a community newspaper at the time which was based in the Shop, called Manor Mercury. But circumstances got so bad I decided to quit, I was in her office at the time telling her, there was one witness to the event one Carol Jenkinson. But Carolyn broke down in the same way and begged me not to leave. I should point out that she was not connected to the Manor Mercury at all. So my leaving it would have made no difference to her job at all. I was shocked by her reaction and I didn't say anything, but I didn't quit at least for a while. It was like Carolyn had reverted back to the actress role. If I wasn't convinced by that I was a few years later when I saw the other movie with Patterson in it, I was absolutely convinced. 

Carolyn Leary or Carole Lombard

But this reincarnation turned out to be more extraordinary for me, as you will see.

I first got to know Carolyn in the 1980s, when she worked on the Manor in Sheffield. She was a very left wing feminist and many people even thought she was a lesbian! (a rumour that was associated with Lombard by the way). Keeping her middle name quiet too, "Margaret" because of Mrs Thatcher! On the other hand she was very friendly towards me. I developed feelings for her, but I was very shy back then and simply never said anything. Though overtime most people around me knew that I was in love with her. If she knew she never said anything to me. In fact at times she would ignore me or brush me off. Then at certain times she would say things such as "I like being with you". One day I even got to do her birth chart. This revealed Mars in Pisces in the 7th house, the house of marriage. Mars is a masculine planet, so would indicate a male presence in the house of relationships. This was not good news for me as I am not a male in Pisces guy. She was anti-marriage and said at times, that it was just a way to control women. Or that she did not want to become the possession of a man! She was always going on about sexism too. So I expected her to disagree with me and say that's rubbish. But when I told her she had a beaming smile on her face that to me she knew who I was talking about. I put this down to being a social worker, as that fits in with the sign and also she worked in the same department in Sheffield with them. 

One day she she said to me "we really get on well together". But this actually filled me with anger, though I did not show it. What was going through my head was that we never talk to each other. What happens is that she would say things to me and I would clam up. And the same when I said something to her! I felt like hitting her, it was then I realised that this relationship could never work. It was after all a platonic relationship and we never even kissed. I was based for a while in the same building as her, the Shop as it was called. One day she left for a meeting as I was chatting with some of the women in the project. After she had gone they started to slag her off in a very nasty way. They told me in 1979 she had got drunk at the department Christmas party and slept with someone and got pregnant. She then broke down in tears to them and explained she would get an abortion, because it interfered with her career. There was even more nastiness thrown at her. I was shock to say the least, but I quickly worked out that I could not continue at this place with those people. 

So I quit. She could have contacted anytime, but she never did. I never even got a Xmas card or birthday card from her the entire time I was with her, even throughout the 1980s. Though she did send them out to other people I knew. I saw one in the office of another place and she had made an handmade card to them! So by 1990 she quit Manor for a better paid job, something she said to me she would never do. So I was disgusted with her for that too! The community organised a leaving party for her in July of 1990, but I just couldn't go. It was too painful for me. Something I do regret not doing. The result of what went down at the party must have been dramatic as I was ghosted by many people after that.  One thing I did pick up on from people is that she said a lot of times at the party " Is Graham coming". Nobody said anything to me after that about her. But several women in Matrec, where I was by that time, they would be a sudden change of subject, suddenly started to talk about babies while I was around, in the coffee bar area. At the time I put it down to the wife of another worker at Matrec who was having a child. But it wasn't. A few years later the conversation started again and this time some of the women mentioned a social worker having a baby. Then one woman I knew well (MW)

MW

walked in and said "I hear Carolyn Leary is having another baby!"  I was shocked. It was clear that the first time was about her. But nobody bothered to tell me. I then realised that I had no future at Matrec if that's how they were going to treat me! Even at that point MW never directed a question to me, but from her glaring face I knew it was for my benefit. Then came the clincher. They had no idea who the father was. MW even started going on about getting it out of a bottle. I suspected that they were speculating that I was the father. Anyway I did leave Matrec around 2000. 

I now have an idea of what was happening. Carolyn was seeing a man for a long time before 199o and so didn't want a relationship with me. This man was a Pisces and a doctor in Sheffield (APR). But here's the reason he was a secret. He was a married man with two children of his own. I was able to check this information. She obviously didn't want people to know. She obviously knew about me being in love with her, but knew if she told me about APR, that I would walk out of the project or as I was involved in community newspaper, tell everyone about it! She had kept secrets before from me. She never told me she was going to China for example. Anyway she did have at least a son (she must have got pregnant with him by October 1990 a few months after the leaving party) and a daughter with this guy, who took their mothers' surname, not the father. She wasn't living with him at the time of the birth of these kids. But moves in with him around 2003. Later they move to a housing co-op, a kind of commune with friends of her from a Socialist choir, where she lives now. But he left shortly afterwards and moved to Leeds, to a similar style project. The relationship over. Mars in the 7th house often indicates fights with the partner and Carolyn had hit ARP, even giving him a black eye once. Curiously enough the Shop project was really for women, but when some of them found out about my astrological knowledge they wanted the chart doing. Many of them were battered wives and yes lots of them had mars in the 7th house! I should point out that the shop was the only place we could have operated the newspaper, but it was far from ideal. At times I wasn't allowed in! Or I had to go around the back, to the room we had set up as a print room. We never had exclusive use of the room either! Me and another chap from the Mercury did some painting in the other rooms of the shop. My friend thought we should get some money for the work, which was worth some expenses money at least. So he asked Carolyn. She bit his head off, saying it's a charity project and you want to take money out of it! 

I have not seen her since she left in 1990, not to speak to anyway, but she hasn't changed much, just a lot older.  

Even if she wanted a relationship with me. She has no intention of contacting me, I don't think. I am certainly not going to contact her. I am nobodies' second choice and I certainly don't want to move into the middle class socialist clique she currently lives in. 

The anger issue was also present in Lombard. The first time she met Clark Gable she punched him and knocked him to the ground! By the way both of Lombard's husbands, William Powell and Clark, were still alive when the people in the story are around. So none of them are the reincarnation of anyone. It's interesting that Lombard kept her relationship secret with Clark, in the same way, as Clark was still married. Just like Leary did. Lombard couldn't have children, and Leary has reversed this in this life, being involved and working with children in a positive way as well as having her own. 

To many people Carolyn is a really good person, standing up for what she believes in. I doubt few people would have a bad word for her.

But not in my case! Carolyn destroyed my relationship with Matrec, never correcting them on the father of the children and turning my close female friends against me. 

She had the option to tell me along time ago that she was seeing somebody. She didn't have to say who. But she could have let me down easy. She didn't. 

I believe that Carolyn is actually my anti-soulmate. The exact reverse of a soulmate. only wrong for me of course! 

I have also established that I wasn't any of the people in Carole Lombard's life. As I was a railway worker called Albert, who lived in England a died in 1940 in an airaid. He did have a family too. The only time he would have seen her is if he went to the pictures. 

There are some more curious connections between Carolyn and Carole. In the 1931 film Man of The World she plays Mary Kendall. Carolyn's father's mother's maiden name was Kendall!  

But Vigil in The Night has even more insights.

She plays a nurse, called Anne. Matthew Bowley is chairman of the board, a wealthy businessman at the hospital. Lombard, while in the gallery observing surgery on Bowley by Robert Prescott, a highly respected doctor at the hospital, she notices that Prescott left a swab inside the patient, and mentions it. She is reprimanded by her supervisor, Matron East, for her unprofessional behaviour, but Prescott checks and discovers she is right. Later, Anne and Matron East are in a bus accident; Dr. Prescott is the nearest physician, and he is impressed by her conduct. They become further acquainted. Meanwhile Anne is promoted. However, Bowley becomes attracted to her and offers her a position as his personal nurse, incurring the jealousy of his wife, who threatens to cause a public scandal if Anne is not dismissed. Matron East has no choice, but at least allows Anne to resign instead. 

As you will have spotted the link with a married man is there again. But Carolyn has also written a piece on Florence Nightingale, the very first real nurse! 

There might be loads more clues to this case in her movies, but I have only seen a few of them. 

I suppose that only Carolyn herself, would see connections, that I can't possibly know about her. 

Footnote: Carolyn lived for a while at Melrose Road Sheffield. Curiously the Paramount Studios in Hollywood is located on Melrose Avenue. Possibly a case of being drawn to names of places we are familiar with, even though the place itself is not. 

  

What the Current Chart would be like based on Retail Sales

 I have argued for some time that the current UK charts done by the Official Charts Company are manufactured to make the charts represent those based on the past, when a single copy sold had the power to effect the chart. But since the introduction of the 12 inch single that has ceased to represent the chart truly. The situation got worse with the introduction of the download and went off the scale with streaming. 

So what has changed. Well back in the early days records were priced all the same just about. So adding up the copies was the easiest way to measure popularity of the records.  But the 12 inch single was more expensive than the standard 7 inch. So the people who bought these was forking out more money than the other people buying 7 inch. When downloads came around the price went down to 99p. But by then 7 inch singles were nearly £4. So now the 7 inch was being underrepresented by the price difference. Even before this happened the price of 7 inch records was being reduced down to encourage high first week sales. With dealers offered deals on the price of records. They could sell so many at reduced price, if they sold so many at full price. This lead to some singles entering at the top of the charts when they were first issued. Due to a very low price. The download did the same. And when iTunes issued singles for just 59p instead, when the Real Chart ended in 2020 it was who was top of the cheap that week. 

Streaming created a bigger problem. To get a representation of the copies sold system, the OCC made it that so many streams equals one download sale. They have had to adjust this level from time to time to keep the same level of copies sold. They also made it impossible for anyone who streams records to actually have enough streams to make one copy or the equivalent download. Which meant if you download a record or purchase a single, you can influence the chart, but if you stream you can't, at least not on your own. The next problem with streaming is that once you have bought a record, you do not need to buy it again. But you never buy a streamed record, it's like renting. You constantly pay. But this means that streamed records sales only slowly die off. Till the public are fed up with it. So to get round this problem after so many weeks the OCC limits the streams of the records and put them at a much lower level. This adjustment generally takes out the record at number one. So very long runs at the top of the charts are reduced.  This adjustment can be reset if the record company request it. Or some special event happens.

There is of course another way to prevent these effects and return the chart to the public chart, not manufactured to fit a copy based system. And that is to count retail sales not copies.  

How: Well you count what the public pay for music. The more money you pay the higher the chart position.  

So a download would be 99p or 59p or whatever price the retailer sells them at.

A 7 inch single would be whatever the price is charged. Some of these can be much higher too. 

The same with the 12 inch single and the CD single etc. 

Streaming is more complex. Most sites charge around £10.99 a month for the service. Trying to work out how many people stream the records per month is complex, but the average family streams 2,000 tracks per month.  Of course the charts company would need to establish how much a typical stream for each site costs.  But based on the monthly cost and 2,000 streams it works out at £0.005495 per stream. Or £0.005p per stream.

With these figures you can use all the streams for each site and add the sales up. Not the number of streams. Then you add on the price of each record, CD, download to the total. 

Such a system would have produced a new number one on the OCC chart this week 

28 February 2025 - 6 March 2025

(1) Kendrick Lamar ~ Not Like Us

36 Oasis ~ Whatever 

The above is the current chart for the OCC

However thanks to the figures supplied by Alan Jones, I can show that under the retail system the number one would change.

The Streams of Kendrick show 2,791,53 on Spotify for the week. Other sites do list them, but Spotify has the most.  The streams thus amount to £13,957.51p  

The OCC says he sold 777 downloads at 0.99p  = £769,23p

Now the Oasis record The OCC says it sold 11465 on 7 inch.  The price is not fixed but the average seems to be £15.95p  So £182,866.75p 

Plus 684 downloads at 99p £677.16p

So you can see that Oasis would have topped the chart instead of being 36! 

Unfortunately the OCC don't reveal the breakdown of the records and only Alan Jones tells you some times, but not all the time. 

Remember these are based on what the public pay. Not on what an artist get in terms of royalties. 

Update 23 March 2025

The Retail Sales system would have the biggest effect on the albums as there are many formats all with varying prices. I can't say for certain, on this week's OCC singles chart, but I don't think they have the correct number one there. I know for certain that the album chart number one would certainly not be top as it has only 89 digital downloads (putting the album at only 17 on the OCC chart) the rest being only streams.  Steven Wilson The Overview would be top for certain, as he sells more (OCC figures) on downloads, CD, Vinyl. Steven topping the vinyl chart with a price of £27. On the download albums, Steven is at two (£11.99). Playboi Carti Music (OCC No 1) might not even be in the top ten based on retail sales. The download sales amount to £978.11p.  The question, of course, is what would it cost to stream an album? My streaming figure for tracks is 0.005p. Would you count each track on an album at that figure?

Since Playboi Carti has 30 tracks, that is 0.15p per album. 21,577 (OCC figure) streams at 0.15p comes to £3,236.55p

Is that too much for streaming an album?  Three thousand pounds would soon be beat. 150 vinyl albums at £27 would gross £4,000 sales. 

Update 4 April 2025

Alan Jones OCC chart commentary:

With sales of 1,467 copies on CD and 2,907 on vinyl, Last Night I Dreamt I Fell In Love debuts atop the physical sales chart with an overall tally of 4,374 units for Brazilian DJ Alok and Kylie Minogue. It is also No.1 on the individual CD, 7-inch vinyl and overall vinyl charts. The track didn’t fare so well digitally, attracting just 66 downloads 

Thanks to Jones' sales figures I calculated Alex's figures on Spotify streams for the week at 0.005p together with the downloads at £23,007.12p.  He is top on the OCC top 10 chart. 

But it wouldn't be the top on Retail sales. For Alok and Kylie Minogue sold £65,540.34p. This does not include the streams, which didn't register on Spotify's 200 chart. 

CD Single £5.00 Vinyl Single £20.00 Download £0.99p - for Alok and Kylie. Position in OCC top 100 - not in! 

 Update 18 April 2025

With retails sales of over £161,578.95p on vinyl alone, Taylor Swift feat. Post Malone Fortnight [10,105 vinyl] would easily top the chart. With only retail sales of around £24K Alex wouldn't even make the number two. As that would go to Charli xcx & Billie Eilish Guess [5,616 vinyl] = £99,463.68p. 

 Update 25 April 2025

As the OCC figure for streams total of Alex is 6,411,100.(1) If you allow £0.005p per stream, that gives him £32,055.50p. (2) The downloads come to £1,877.04p. Nevertheless, the DC Fontains figure for vinyl at £14.99p comes to £37,744.82p, which would make them top of the chart. This figure does not include all of their sales, which might come from CD singles - total sales (5,804 sales). A big difference from No 89 to one!😲

(1) 100 streams per unit (2) Not taking into account add funded streams.    

Update 2 May 2025

(55) Oasis - 7,620 at £13.99p = £106,603.80p

(1) Alex - streams = £33,551.50p + Downloads = £2,118.60p

However, the cat amongst the pigeons might be (2) Pink Pony Club, as this is also on Vinyl at between £11.99 and £24.99. Jones doesn't say what the breakdown of the 37,923 units is. But at 24 in the physical chart it must be less than 7,000.

1000 singles at £24.99p would put sales of £24,990.00p. With downloads at 0.99p added it could put her ahead of Alex, though neither would beat the Oasis sale.

DC Fontains would not drop out of the 100 as the did on the OCC chart, as it was number 2 on the physical chart of the OCC.       

Update 13 June 2025

 Sabrina Carpenter Retail Sales total: £87,830.17p.  The breakdown thus:

7 Inch £12.99 - 4,501 = £58,467.99p

Downloads - £0.99p - 992 = £972.18p

Streams Total 5,688,000 - £0.005p = £28,440.0p = based on 100 premium streams only! 

Update 28 September 2025

There would be a new number one this week, for Lewis Capaldi Something In The Heavens

Sales breakdown -  £53,039.63p or  £127,922.63p. The second figure based on £3.99 for CD singles, though most seemed to be for sale at £0.99p. = CD 24,961, 7-inch 1,126 sales, download sales of 2,944 units, sales-equivalent streams of 20,647. 

Huntr/x (KPop Demon Hunters Cast) Golden 

Sales breakdown - £35,202.34p = 24 CDs, 1,892 digital downloads, 65,939 sales-equivalent streams

Update 21 November 2025

RAYE - WHERE IS MY HUSBAND! Would top the sales chart this week I believe based on the following figures:

Vinyl sales at £5 = £11,380

Rest of the sales = 46,924 - 2,276 = 44,648 sales at 0,005p per stream = £22,324 + £11,380 = £33,704

Taylor Swift = Downloads £1,740.42p Streams £25,880 = £27,620.42p 

Raye's total would of course be higher if it contains downloads in the 44,648 figure. As this figure is not broken down by Jones.    

Christmas Number One 2025

Retail sales for Kylie - XMAS 

CD £4.99 = £15,568.80p
7 £12.99 = £33,851.94p
12 £19.99 = £43,278.35p
Download £0.59p = £6, 068.74p
3,773900 streams £0.005p = £18,869.50p

Figures for Kylie - From Alan Jones

3,130 CD Singles, 2,606 7 inch singles, 2,165 12 inch singles, 10,286 downloads 

The streaming is based on 100 streams equalling 1 purchase of which there are 37,739.

The OCC have a 600 to 1 stream ratio for advertisement funded streams, but the breakdown of the two types is not given. 

Wham - Last Christmas had the highest streams, but was adjusted due to ACR. Even with this removed it is unlikely that it would outsell Kylie, especially as it is likely that many of Wham's streams would be add funded. Having said that Wham did have some physical copies for sales as well as downloads. But neither of these would be sufficient to make it top. 

I would like to add that I don't believe add funded streams should even be included in the listings.  

Together For Palestine was only a download and stream. The download brought in £29,580.21p 

Update 04 January 2026

Raye - Where's My Husband would be top this week.

Breakdown of sales: 

7 inch 478 copies at £14.99p = £7,165.22p

12 inch 2,225 copies at £26 = £57,850.00p 

Downloads 1,581 at 59p = £932.79p

Streams 3,962,500 at £0.005p = £19,812.50p

Total sales: £85,760.51p

It should be pointed out that the pricing figures are not spot on. Since stores sell products at different prices. Streaming figures might also included advertisement funded streams, which should not really be included. But some streaming sites do have higher prices. The figure quoted is based on £10.99p a month with an average stream of 2,000 per household.  

Update 27 March 2026

Based on Retail sales BTS Swim would bet top.  Sales £34,322.63p

Sam Fender & Olivia Dean Rein Me In would have sales of £21,146.03p 

Breakdown BTS 

CD at £1.99p - 4,866 = £9,683.34p

Downloads at 0.59p - 30,014 = £17,708.26p

Streams Spotify only at 0.005p - 1,386,206 = £6,931.03p

Breakdown Sam Fender & Olivia Dean  

7 Vinyl at £14.99 -11 = £164.89p

Downloads at 99p - 698 = £691.02p

Streams Spotify only at 0.005p - 4,058,024 = £20,290.12p 

Update 26 April 2026

Taylor Swift Elizabeth Taylor would be number one today. It's 15,202 vinyl sales with a price around £21.99 would give it sales of £334,291.98p alone without any streaming or download figures, which were not given. 

Meanwhile the breakdown of the current OCC number one from Oliva stands thus:

2,470 CD at £3.99p = £9,855.30p.  1,902 7 inch at £12.99p = £24,706.98p. 232 Cassettes at £8,99 = £2,085.68p. 3,121 Downloads at £0.99p = £3,089.79p. Spotify only streams 3,412,463 at £0.005p = £17,062.31p.

Grand total sales: £56,800.06p

Special update 28 May 2026

I have recently found out that chart compilers already receive user IDs, unique listener counts and active/passive stream data, from the streaming sites. 

If this is true. It would be possible to then extract the amount of streamed records per month from each user, then using the charge per month for the user the actual cost of each stream. You wouldn't just get a round estimate of the price, but the actual price of the stream. A user doing loads of streams each week, would probably contribute a fraction of the cost of estimated stream. Which I put at £0.005p at £10.99p a month. Anyone streaming more than 2,000 tracks a month the price would drop like a stone, the more streams they did.
One thing it would do is eliminate anyone flooding the market with streams. As the price of the streams would be so low they would have a job catching up to 100 downloads at £0.99p! 99,000 streams to be precise!

Sam Fender's number one on Spotify with say a streaming cost of just £0.001p would only amount to: Three thousand and fifty-two pounds and sixty-nine pence only. Not that an impressive figure for over 3 million streams!    

 

Update 31 May 2026

Olivia Rodrigo The Cure would be top of the chart.

Breakdown of sales: 1,791 7-inch vinyls at £12.99 = £25,343.49p 

371 Cassettes at £8.99p = £3,335.29p

447 Downloads at £0.99p = £442.53p

2,886,277 at £0.002p = £5,732.25p

I estimate that Charli XCX SS26 would be at number two. But I do not have any streaming figures for this so I can't be certain. However a 7-inch vinyl was issued and sold 493 copies at £14.99p so had sales of £7,390.07p alone. The OCC had other sales of over 10,000 units. Which most be streams and downloads not listed. The Spotify chart did not have it in the top 200 streams of the week. 

So at three Olivia Dean and Same Fender - the OCC number one

Breakdown of sales: 663 Downloads at £0.59p = £391.17p

Streams (Spotify) 3,347,708 at £0.002p = £6,695.41p

The streaming figures price has been adjusted from £0.005p to £0.002p as the Compilers have said this is more or less the average streaming price for the UK. 

Free streams would need to be eliminated of course. But in a recent survey done by the Entertaiment Retailers Asscoiation, they showed that free streams were much lower than what you would think. With only 19% of the streaming market last year. 

Making a Model Railway Catch Point in OO

 Making a Catch Point from an Old Point in OO Gauge 

First what is a Catch Point?  Well in real life railways they are a point or switch to derail. You might be thinking that the whole purpose of a railway is to keep the rolling stock on the track. But before wagons were fully braked, they could run down the track and block or hit another train. So Catch Points were added to the start of the siding before it joined the main line, so that any rolling stock running away, could be derailed before it hit the main line. 

In Model railway terms not many companies make them and they are not cheap to buy. The one featured in the following picture is made by Peco. Typically priced between £10 to £15 online, but that does not include postage!  

This one is set not to derail.  They do look better if you weather them, remember the rail to nowhere would be covered in rust, even on the top! Loco's will loose power on the painted rail, but it's going to fall off anyway! See below:

However looking at the real things I discovered that most do NOT have the wooden ramp! 

So how do you make one?  You need a damaged or old point. Needless to say you must have a switch blade of the point that can still be moved. Plus it must be the side of the deflection line. 

You then go to work with a track cutting tool.  The picture below shows you were to cut the track with the cutters using the arrows as a guide. I find the best tool are "snips" which will cut through anything. 

You must also remove the unused point switch blade, plus the remaining rail that takes it to the other track. File away or cut away the where this rail lay. In the case of the completed point (seen below) I have not completely lost the scarring of the sleepers. As this looks it might have indeed been used once, or more, causing the wheels of a wagon to damage the sleepers. Metal on Wood! 

You can also do this to a Hornby point.  I have started on the one below. Hornby point blades do have a circular clip that holds them on, but you can cover this up with a thin balsa piece. I have yet to remove the unused point switch and cut away the remains of where the rail layed. 

Switching from Windows 7 to Windows 10

 My computer system was getting a bit old and so I was looking at building a new system. If you are building a computer up from scratch I have found an excellent site called PCPartPicker. This allows you to select the various parts and shows you what is compatible with any parts you select. It also compares the parts prices on websites. It can be used by anyone around the World as it will select the supplies in your region of the World. It's free to join and doesn't cost you anything. There's even a forum that you post questions about your build.  

PC Part Picker

Everything is purchased for the build.  I have gone with an ASUS Z690-A motherboard. The test was carried out, but I hit a problem with the memory modules. I went with the Corsair Vengeance DDR5 32GB. It comes in two 16GB sticks. But the yellow light on the computer board came on, indicating a problem with these. I tried them all in each of the four slots, both together and alone, but no result. Checking around the web showed this was a problem with them and that motherboard. So I purchased two Kingston Fury Beast and fitted them in the suggested slots. Still no result! So I removed one and it worked!! It still wouldn't boot! This time the light came on for a problem with the hard drives. It doesn't tell you which. I suspected one or more of the SATA cables. Four altogether! So I order some more, these came in threes so I ordered two packets. These came during the heatwave. So I wasn't going to mess around with the computer in that! So the operation was put on hold till the following week.  When I made some progress with the device. I did replace the cables, but it made no difference! Looking on-line I found a helpful result. Apparently the green/yellow LED also tells you if you have no operating system installed as it can't boot from that! Also that the direct HDMI connector to the Monitor doesn't show the motherboard system. So I used an adaptor which had the multi pin and one horizontal flat pin to an HDMI connector. And the screen came to life! I quickly was able to establish that all the Hard Drives were working, but it seems some of the fans were in the wrong sockets! So I changed them over. It's not clear which sockets are for fans as some are listed for both the fan and water cooling devices! I was also able to fit the other Kingston in the first black socket and got that to work. 

You can see the new computer in the following photos:

 

The first photo shows the side window with the workings. On the bottom the big box is the Power Supply with all the thick white cables coming from it. Just above you can see the graphics card with the metal cooling on it. Above that with the two white cables can be see the cooling fan of the CPU. To the right is the holder for the disc drive and one of the hard drives. The other two being in a case to the right of the power supply.

The second picture shows the unit in place. The old black computer at the side powered on. The black keyboard is for the old computer, the new one behind is the same type with a dust cover on it. The power bank on the wall has the two supplies for the monitors resting on it. The one to the left is for the new one. At the side of the keyboard is the large calculator I use for adding up sales. Then the A3 scanner with the A4 scanner and some setting up tools sat on top.  

Ongoing.... 

When the brand new Windows 10 Pro DVD was tried, the disc worked and took me to the language selection and then started. Only to be greeted with the message of missing drivers! Searching the net produced little solutions especially from the Microsoft site. There are a couple of YouTube ones, but I had no success with any of them. One video tells you to go to the intel site for a file, but then in the comments points out it has been removed. The chap placed it on Google Drive, but gives no instructions as to what to do next with it. I tried the file anyway and it did nothing! Next I bought a flash drive, costing £18, which supposedly fixes Windows 10 problems. I tried it and still got the same missing driver screen. I tried the repair part of the disc. But the computer hung up. So I had to remove the drive. When I tried it again it didn't do anything! I tried it on my old machine and that treated it as blank storage device! So something must have erased or corrupted the USB stick. So I have finished up with an expensive USB stick! I went to the ASUS website and downloaded any drivers and files from them. I did try them last Sunday and it worked!  So I began the adding of the software that came on discs to the new computer. I had a very old Microsoft Works Suite from 2004, which on the Windows 7 system always needed permission to access things like Word. So I was convinced it wouldn't work at all! But it did and it doesn't ask for permission either. Haven't tried to see if it crashes during operation though.  Page Plus X7 used to do the charts installed and works. The Video editing software that is most uptodate I have works with 10 anyway. Next operation was software from the net. Most of these were free versions so I had no problems with them. Except one - Freecad.  Looking at the blurb on it it was only suitable for Windows 7. No Windows 10 version has been issued. If you have installed the Windows 7 on 10 and it works OK. Let me know in the comments.  There's a number of Apps to still install. I like the Easy Audio Editor software. But you have to download it and they charge you every time you do so. Which is annoying. The main thing to transfer is the bookmarks and logins for the browsers. Which is explained as being simple to transfer, especially by the browser people, but is far from it. One thing you cannot do is link to computers to the same internet connector using a splitter. Either one will connect and the other will not. Some take longer to connect even if the other is shut down. It's like the signal is going to the other computer before getting to the one working first! Since I back up the the files on a portable hard drive(s). It should be easy to transfer them to the new computer. 

15 October update - Managed to transfer the bookmarks, but attempts to put them on the browser bar at the top, didn't work and I finished up with three sets of the same bookmarks in folders marked "imported". The passwords were easy to transfer, but you have to do it separately.  I have noticed a display problem too. Where the screen looks like you get on a TV when a 4:3 aspect is made to fit a wide setting.  The text also is not as sharp as the LG monitor too. Both of these problems were answered by the fact that the Samsung monitor has a lower resolution than my LG!  I tried the LG on the new computer. It did look a lot better, it was even possible to connect them both and switch between screens!  I discovered that the best way to transfer the bookmarks to the browser was to find the place they are located select them all and then copy them. Then open up the browser folder where they would sit and past them there. They then appear! There was an old set of bookmarks, but I couldn't copy them to the USB stick at all. I couldn't get Firefox to export that individual set of bookmarks, it simply transferred the lot! I am going to try copying the original bookmark file and see if that will work on the new system. There's is one more issue to solve. The number generator for the PayPal system.  These issues are stopping any complete transfer to the new computer. So work and even doing this blog is still on the old system. 

29 October update. The original bookmark file did copy to the browser. So that is set. And I did sort out the generator for PayPal.  The last thing now was to copy all the old files from the back up disc to the new computer. This take about five hours! 

5 November update - two problems happened. First on Thursday the Canon scanner was acting up. I eventually got the problem solved by going to the Canon website installing the software for Windows 10. The next issue was the Authy App, which produces a code for signing in to PayPal. It produced the code alright, but the site didn't recognise it! I contacted both PayPal and the Authy App sites, but that produced no results. So I started up the old computer, log on to PayPal and used the Authy App to sign in and then took 2 party authentication off. When I signed in it asked for a phone number added the landline and it produced numbers on the computer which I had to use on the phone. That solved the problem. I have deleted the app from my new computer. I reckon if I wanted it to work, that I would need to delete the Authy account. Then create a new one, adding all the devices again. I would need to delete it from the old computer of course!

Got this message also from Authy Support:

My name is Jairo and I'm a Support Engineer here at Twilio. We pride ourselves on delivering a great customer experience but I understand the app on the new desktop did not work, I want to ensure your questions/concerns have been addressed.
Please note that the reason why the new desktop the codes displayed there didn't work on your account, is because your old device it's unsynced from your Authy account, therefore any new device won't sync the token seen in your old device. I strongly recommend enabling backups in your old device and make sure the codes displayed in your old device is also seen in your new device, to make sure both are synced.  
 
Please take a look at the below article to understand how Backups works and enable this feature.
 
What if I Don't Backup my Authy Account?

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