The Ultimate Ego Chart

On the UKMIX Forum is chart claiming to be the "Ultimate Chart of the Sixties". Plus The Definitive Chart Of The Fifties And Sixties" But over the period of time that it's been running it's revealed that it's more about someone's ego than record charts.

It started with the premise of correcting the faults associated with the BBC's own chart of the period. A little history is needed at this point. After the NME produce a chart (in 1952) based on what record shops were selling as opposed to one based on sheet music sales. A few years later several other music papers started to do the same. By the middle of the 50's there were several competing charts from all the papers. They all used the same method. They asked record shops to send or phone in a list of the best selling records for a particular week. They did not ask them to send in the actual sales of each record, just what was selling the most. Most sent in a top ten. Though years later the papers were asking for a top 50. Rather than print these top tens from the shops, though Record Mirror did for a time - naming the shops too! The papers assigned points to the positions so the number one would get the most points. And depending on the asking total, the lowest position would get the least points, or just one point! Each paper used different numbers of shops talking part. Judging by the Record Mirror these shops were mostly London area. But since none of the other papers listed the shops used, we can't tell the spread of shops over the UK. Although they all claimed to produce a national chart. So that's the background. Now the BBC needed to broadcast a chart and since they couldn't use a chart that was made by a private enterprise. And certainly didn't want to pay one of them for it. They devised their own chart. To get a top twenty, they took all the music press charts and then assigned points to them. I don't think they used 20 points for the top spot and one point for 20 on each chart, but reversed the figures. However which way they did it they were simply adding up the points to produce a top 20 of all the papers. The problem however was they didn't do a very good job of these charts. And under a points system you get records that end up with tied positions. In fact many of the component charts suffered from this same problem. Another obstacle was the fact the BBC saw each paper's chart as the same. Even though many had far more shops taking part than others. In the end the BBC had a real problem as by the end of the 60's many of the Papers started to stop compiling a chart due to the expense. Some just published another's paper chart. This cut down the number of charts used by the BBC. And in one week the BBC chart suffered a several way split for the number one record. With that the BBC had enough. The got all the chart papers together and said to them all we need a national chart based on counting the records purchased and not based on points. Unfortunately both the NME and Melody Maker could not agree to this, mostly because of the cost of making this chart. So carried on using the old system and making their own charts. The BBC got together with the Record Industry and asked a marketing company called The British Market Research Bureau to compile a Top 50 based on sales from record shops, sending in the figures rather than a list of best sellers. At first the BMRB chart was not very accurate at all and had loads of teething problems. The number of shops willing to do this system was small at first. But on average around 250 shops were sending in diaries to BMRB. When the first British Hit Singles book came out in 1977. The compilers of the book decided to use the Record Retailer chart for the chart of the 60's. Despite it being the least accurate and using the least amount of shops. The BBC at some point also adopted the Record Retailer chart and confined to the dustbin the averaged chart they had used at the time. The BBC doesn't even like talking about it. Of course the use of the Record Retailer chart as the "Official Chart" for the 60's upset a lot of people. And some thought that the BBC chart could be sorted out to produce a chart of the 60's.

Enter Mr Tibbs on UKMIX.  He had the idea of adding the points up of all the charts of the 60's and then factoring in how many record shops each chart used. He developed a spread sheet to do this and put in other factors to stop tied positions. 

Of course the original charts were flawed as they took no comparison to the size of each shop or to how many records they had sold. In one shop the number one might have sold 20 copies and in another 150 copies. Each shop got the same points for the number one record.  Mr Tibbs also selected the most shops they had on board for each paper. But during the period covered reports vary on the amount that each paper used. Plus of course stores such as Woolworth never took part. By 1964 some 8,000 shops were selling records. Melody Maker was sampling at the most 110. 

Since not all charts ran a top 50, and NME only did a 30, Mr Tibbs had to stick with a top 30 only. But his intention was only to make the BBC chart more accurate. 

So He began posting the top 30 on UKMIX and several posters started questioning things and adding other details.  So on the 106 post he had a meltdown and posted this:

   After a great deal of reassurance from people he continued to post the charts. But it was the first sign of future trouble with him. 

In post 190 he's now thinking his charts on the best thing since sliced bread! 

Of course we do know the sales figures from that era, that's what's the Real Chart does! But he never acknowledge the Real Chart. The criticism of his methods would however come up again from several posters and at times the moderators of the site had to step in and control the situation. Resulting in posts being removed. Also several posters (including Mr Tibbs) altered or deleted posts. So what on UKMIX now is not a true reflection of the messages. But you can get an idea in post 267, which again resulted in a threat by him to stop posting the charts. At the time I thought he was acting like a spoilt child. But he's not a young man. In fact he's older than me and I'm 60! In Sheffield we would call him a mardy bum! 

 Nevertheless when challenged as to how made up his chart was, since in some cases record entered the top 30, from one chart having the largest number of shops, which were on the Real Chart at 70! He continued to defend his chart. But as far as he knew the chart, might have used only 60 shops not the 110 he said and even then only a small percentage might have that record at 70 in the Real Chart, in their best sellers list.  In post 457 he claims that his methods are open to all, which was a dig at the Real Chart. 

I pointed out to him on several occasions that any charts of the period would by definition copy each other as they were displayed in shops and the public who bought the records also looked at the charts in the music papers. One time I listed the Real Chart positions aside the top 30 he came up. This being done to show how often close the positions on the Ultimate Averaged Chart were to the Real Chart. With only about five records that were selling better than the papers and the odd Woolies record in the 1965 period when the store was only selling the Embassy Label records. Not included in any chart of course. But in didn't like it one bit, as of course it showed that his chart, excluded records. For example a record might be at say 7 in the Melody Maker chart, which had the most shops, and much lower on the other charts. His averaged chart, would probably give a position either halfway between the lowest places and the highest place. Sometimes even the lowest place. When if you looked at the Real Chart the Melody Maker was quite correct in the seven place and all the other charts were wrong. And then again it could be the chart with the fewest shops, which was always the Record Retailer that had the correct slot. But in post 464 he tells me not to post things to do with the Real Chart and gets all protective about his chart. 

 Later on things get into a heated debate and the moderators take action once again he pulls out and lots of the posters urge him not to do so. He also requires people to use the "like" button and clearly he needs it as an ego boost. In 635 he has another childish tantrum.

The next message has nothing to do with his charts at all really, but gives him a real ego boost. Many forums, like the film and music industry, have awards for the year and like them things get nominated that have no chance of winning. Largely because nearly all Forums are cliques and they have their own agendas with the same things winning each year. However due to the fact of the size of the Averaged Chart thread it got nominated in the UKMIX awards. So in post 1355 Mr Tibbs is pleased. 

 It doesn't win of course and Mr Tibbs ego suffers a real bashing. Even though nobody had been having a go at him for ages. He has another tantrum and threatens again to pull out of posting the charts. Post 1414 shows how much he wanted to be "famous" for posting these charts. At least on UKMIX.  He talks about "friends" and that he felt snubbed. 

He didn't of course, even the award organiser of UKMIX had to post a message assuring him that it wasn't meant to be the way he talked about in post 1414.  These days the chart has continued after completing the charts up to the point when BMRB stepped in and put and end to the BBC chart. He continued to do the earlier 60's. But these days he's well protected. He even changed the name to the "Ultimate Averaged Chart" . I pulled him up on that making out it was the best chart going. He also has developed a policy of indirectly attacking my comments on his charts. In one chart of the 60's I told him a certain record was top that week. It was outside the top ten on his chart. He told me in plain ways that it was impossible for the record to be number one that week and his Ultimate chart proves that. In the early 60's the papers used even less shops and I told him that his 300 shops do not account for all the shops in the UK at that time. He must have known that I was talking about it being top on the Real Chart, but he ignored that. My resulting post resulted in an infraction, this is what I put:

   The Definitive Chart Of The Fifties And Sixties" is pretentious to say the least. Not at least the ones done at the time! Some might object to that if the people that did them were around. And if you knew who I have been, you would know that sarcasm could have been my middle name. But there's more heaven than meets the eye my dear Mr Tibbs.    

Correcting the BBC chart of it's faults was one thing, but saying what he has done on the back of the objective shows a level of ego beyond belief and that the whole of the Ultimate Averaged Chart was just one giant ego boost for Mr Tibbs. 

He now intends to do the same like what he did to the 60's charts and 50's for the 1969 and 1970's charts. Even though the BMRB chart was using sales and the NME and Melody Maker used points. I have looked at both the NME Chart and The Melody Maker charts for the year 1970 and compared to the BMRB chart.  They both suffer from the lack of effect of Top of The Pops performance on the chart after the show. Whereas the BMRB does indeed at times respond to the TOTP effect, sometimes not as much as the Real Chart, but it's there. 

He did at one time say he wouldn't go there (posting charts after 1969) and recently I posted a message saying to Robin of Loxely (a user name of course) that it really shouldn't be done. Straight after Mr Tibbs posted a message saying he would do it. That was the last straw for me. I couldn't let him continue to belittle me and it's impossible to have any dialogue like this without getting a complete ban on UKMIX. So I decided it was best to make this special post to show that Mr Tibbs "Ultimate Averaged Chart was really only about his ego and not a chart of the 50's, 60's, or if he goes there, 70's. 

There are in fact many ways that such a chart could be made up from using the charts of the period, his being actually a poor way of doing it.   

Update 17 June.

A few weeks ago Mr Tibbs started were he left in 1969 doing the Ultimate Chart, even though the BBC had dropped that way of compiling the chart and started the British Market Research Bureau (BMRB) chart. He also made the extraordinary decision to use a sample number of 85 Shops. The same as what the Record Retailer chart used. For some reason he's got into his head that the new chart compilers simply couldn't get shops to take part. However from the few Record Retailers that are online, one a few weeks into the new chart clearly states compiled by BMRB from 300 retailers! Before I quit posting on the thread I argued with him and others that BMRB would have been contracted by the BBC and the others engaged in funding the chart and they wouldn't have stood for a chart compiled from the original 85 stores of Record Retailer. It's highly likely that BMRB had the 300 shops filling in diaries of sales to send to them. It's likely too not all 300 diaries were posted in time to produce a chart. But I doubt for one minute that it was as low as 85! Judging by known later reports the average might have been around 250. But Mr Tibbs doesn't intend to change to above 250 till well after 1970. 

Of course the real reason is that he doesn't like the BMRB chart at all. And giving it 300 shops would make it dominant. As the largest paper based one he uses he only puts on 250 shops. Of course the odd thing is that we do not know if the other charts had shortfalls in the number of shops supplying them with information. But Mr Tibbs on the other hand uses the BMRB honesty on shortfalls in shops against them. But the other charts tended to remain tight lipped about the levels of shops taking part. And though he has been told there was a drop off in the shops used by Melody Maker (currently 250) and the NME (200 shops) he doesn't know when these happen. Most of the archive of BMRB is however not accessible and the number of reports of low levels of shops are not commonly available. Few have been published too. 

I asked him to start another thread for these charts using BMRB, but he didn't and when I accused him of taking the "piss" - I censored the word on the forum to P*** - after he posted them with only 85 returns. I received another infraction notice from the forum for swearing. I suspect he reported me too.

So I said my goodbyes and haven't posted on that thread since.  But I ask you would the BMRB make a claim that the sampled 300 shops when they were only using 85?  It's a different kettle of fish when 300 diaries are sent out to the shops and thanks to either bad staff practices at the shops or the Post Office losing diaries in the post or delivering them after the day when the count has to be started. BMRB can't be blamed for that! But it would be ridiculous to think that three quarters of the 300 diaries were not sent back to BMRB. Though at one time I thought it was only 250 shops sampled, apparently it was always 300 shops. Though postal strikes caused them serious problems, there were plenty of shops willing to take part. BMRB just had a problem getting the really big stores to take part. And up to 1975 they had no Woolworths taking part. 

One last thing is that we can't be certain that many of the same stores were being sampled by the chart makers. Especially after the BMRB chart started. I think it's almost certain that some of the Melody Maker and NME stores were supplying sales information to BMRB, with 300 stores, there was bound to be an overlap.  

Update 15 July 2021.  

The nonsense continues. Several people put in a link to a website that has the information that following the introduction of the British Market Research Bureau Chart, in 1969 that by the end of 1969 both the New Musical Express and Melody Maker reduced the sample size down to 100. So when he started the 1970 charts, what does Mr Tibbs do? Nothing of course! He maintains the NME chart numbers to at 200 stores and Melody Maker at 250! Though he claims that the reduction wasn't done till 1971, when the BMRB chart he claims got more respect. Which I don't see any evidence for at all. The real reason of course it would mess up his system. For some completely unknown reason he has the shop returns for BMRB at 125. When of course they were using 300, with at least 250 returns on time for the chart. That aside if he knocked both NME and Melody Maker charts down to 100 each there would be no difference to the points system he uses and if two records were at say 10 on one chart and 11 on the other and the same record was vice-versa on the other chart he would have a tie as to where to put the two records. But again the main reason why he's not knocking the shop numbers down is that would give the BMRB, even on his lower shop system, the advantage over the other two. Which is why he didn't want to use the 300 shops in the first place. Even giving the 250 returns for BMRB, that would cancel out Melody Maker's control of the chart and give the same point system ties. 

At the end of the day Mr Tibbs chart therefore for 1970 is even more flawed, than the 1969 chart he's just completed. For one thing he's done no personal research on the charts published by NME, Melody Maker. He's simple gone on the hearsay or talk of various people. Some of these people did do some research talking to various people involved in the production of charts. However in many cases they were going on the general facts of the chart production, not the week to week running of the charts. So Mr Tibbs has never contacted anyone from the NME to find out if each week they did have 200 shops taking part, or if the numbers varied from week to week. Which by the sounds of things happened to the BMRB chart, but he refuses to give them a 300 shop count. Nor has he contacted anyone from either paper or look around to confirm that these papers were still using the figures he quotes after the end of 1969. He says he's going on what Dave Taylor said about them, that the change didn't happen till 1971. Dave was a chart fan and worked in radio. He contacted me about the Real Chart and thought it was very accurate. He even told me once that he found evidence that the Official Charts Company was fiddling the charts. That aside, Dave died a few years ago and so can't now confirm the information Mr Tibbs said. In looking into the compilation of the charts for the two papers, I have come across a book on the history of the New Musical Express and have ordered it. I should have it by next week. It might answer the question of the chart compilation. But I doubt it!! 

Although Mr Tibbs said the 1969 to 1971 charts are just for fun, the attacks by himself and other members of UKMIX on the BMRB chart in the thread are constant. Whereas nobody attacks the other charts for there many faults. He's just started the first 1970 chart. And one of his component charts - the NME - has a Jonathan King record at 30. It was only 62 on the Real Chart. The record therefore being hyped into the NME chart to get it that high. Hardly surprising with Jonathan King. He probably had people or himself buying up the record that week in the known NME stores which could be got for a fee. Indeed many writers of books have commented on the practice of getting hold of the lists for a fee. However I can't find any trace of anyone who has one of the lists. If anyone does have one let me know! 

I have tackled him on the issue, but he hasn't changed his mind. While he was doing the 1969 charts, I couldn't get any jibs in having not yet got around to them myself. But he's doing the 70's charts now so I can now get the digs in using the Real Charts, which as you can gather will annoy him. He doesn't quote me. He either responds by using someone else to respond with or just makes a statement. He thinks I am the only one that doesn't agree with him. But on that he's wrong, as I have private messages from UKMIX members saying the same thing as me.  The book about the NME doesn't answer the questions. But it does make it clear on some things. For instance each member of staff had to phone one of the shops on the chart list and get the results of sales. But later on one member of staff had a team of six to do it. But even by 1967 it was only 150 shops! Allowing the staff to phone up the shops could have resulted in chart fiddling. Since one staff member could have put greater numbers or a higher slot for the shop for a favourite artists. Plus if record companies got to know this was happening it would be easy to bribe staff to get higher slots for chart records. Wages on the music papers seemed to have been linked to the paper's sales. So it wouldn't have been too difficult to slip staff cash on the side. They could even bank it and due to the fact that weekly income could vary, the tax man wouldn't pick up on either! 

A new flaw                                          

Currently Mr Tibbs has gone back to doing the 1950's charts. Using NME, Record Mirror to do the 1956 charts. Using a the same method of shops. Later in 1956 Melody Maker started a chart. And he added that chart on the basis it was 20 shops. However the Melody Makers are available for that period on the American Music and Technology paper and book site. So I was looking at the papers and discovered that Melody Maker actually listed the amount of shops and who they were as this example shows:

I only looked at a few papers, but it shows that the amount of shops was between 30 and 33 shops each week that varied. I posted the same image on the site. But Mr Tibbs afterwards didn't say anything nor did anyone else. Instead he posted the next chart still with only 20 shops for the Melody Maker. The fact that he never bothered to check to see what was in-front of eyes or look at the Melody Maker shows that his calculations are wrong. 

One thing you notice in the image above is that Brian Epstein's NEMS (North End Music Store) is listed. This is also listed in the shops from Record Mirror. Thus proving that some of the Record Stores supplied the same papers. Chart Researcher Alan Smith, who Mr Tibbs quotes the numbers of his stores calculations regular, stated that the papers did NOT use the same stores. I never did believe this as the case, so we now have evidence for this. Unfortunately the New Musical Express never listed the stores taking part, even in the days before hyping meant such things needed to be kept secret.  The one thing that Mr Tibbs chart needs to be accurate on is the number of shops taking part and they are NOT the same shops taking part in each chart. However I reckon Epstein at some point supplied them all. Indeed some say that Epstein's sales of the Beatles first single was the result of his shop alone. But since these were point based charts, Epstein's store alone could never a put a record into the top 20, even if the record sold thousands of copies. Though is Epstein's store was in 5 charts, when you combine them, his shop would have got four times the amount of points then any other store. 

As you can see also the spread of shops opens up some representation problems. With London accounting for many sales, while Yorkshire is represented by one Leeds shop! Wales and Scotland don't do so bad. While the small coastal town of Scarborough has a say!     

Apparently there is information that lists of the chart shops used by such as NME could be purchased on the "black market" when chart hyping became a thing in the late 50's. However I have never seen one of these lists, nor has any other chart researcher that I have known. So if you do have a list of them from that period, I would love to see it.   

How They Waste Money On The NHS

 

Covid 19 has shown that the NHS is not safe with the government controlling the purse strings. The need to control the infection by the use of vaccination has shown how spending can be wasted. Not because the vaccines don't work, because they probably do. It's the way they have done the vaccination program. It was clear from the start that resources were not going to stretch to everyone getting the ejections straight away. So it was necessary to target to those most vulnerable first. These days computer systems can soon knock out the list of who gets done first. So why did the employ lots of people in centres and invite them in one at a time to have the jabs? Vaccination centres only make sense if anyone can just walk in and get the jab done. The first thing to waste money was having to employ people and hire the places out in the first place. The second waste of money was sending letters out to people to invite them to make an appointment to go to one of these vaccination centres. Plus the need of a website and phone system and staff to man the appointment system. A third waste of money comes from GP practices who also have contacted patients to have the jab, often after, or before a letter to make an appointment is sent out. Most people in the most vulnerable category have transport problems or require the use of public transport to get to these centres. This seems silly to me when you asking people such as them to stay off public transport. Lastly due to the fact some of the people are housebound they still require a member of the health service to do a home visit, thus duplicating the systems and cost on the NHS. The same sick and vulnerable often do not use mobile phones or smart phones or understand computers to make appointments, so that was also a flaw in the logic.  

So what could they have done?

Developed a full list of all the patients needing a vaccination. And have the vaccination team equipped with this list. The team itself, fully equipped with PPE, would then visit everyone at home and give them the jab. As some people on the list would live together they would get the jab at the some time and are ticked off the computer list. Areas and streets of high Covid could have been done first and if someone is not in they move on to the next person and do the jab on them until the team need to return to get more vaccine. 

Side effects? Presumably they must have had a plan in place for someone doing home visits and the person reacting to the dose. Though people in the centres were told to wait around for 15 minutes before going home. As reported on TV anyway! I know this wasn't done with at the home visits. In fact the nurse who did my dad spent about less than 5 minutes in the house before getting in her car and driving off.  It turns out that I, as a carer, am on the list to. But the nurse did not inject me too! One of my relations went to the vaccination centre and his son drove him there. The doctor asked if his son was a carer, as he could have done at the same time. He wasn't, but if he had it would, if you think about it, mess up the appointment system the NHS is using. His son by the way doesn't live with the father, being married himself, thus breaking guidelines in transporting him. But since his father has MS it was the only way. 

I know from my own street that at least five people qualified for the jab and some have had the jab in a block of five houses. One nurse doing our block would have got them all done in less than one hour without the need for letters and travel and the need for any of the vulnerable people to leave the house. And having contact with only one member of NHS staff, fully protected, sent from a hospital or GP surgery. 

At the moment staff have to wait around for patients to turn up from the appointment system and often they don't come in. But if the government had consulted with GP surgeries they would have known that many patients do NOT turn up for doctors appointments anyway, even before the epidemic! 

At the moment I have been sent a letter from the NHS and also had now two phone calls from the my own doctors to have an appointment for the jab. It's not that I refusing to have the Jab, I am just refusing to go to one of these places. I asked if they would do it at my home and they refused. 

Why won't I go? Well two reasons. I look after my father and he cannot be left alone. In normal times I could ask a relative to look after him, or a neighbour. But these are not normal times. Secondly I am refusing to wear any face masks. So I cannot go on public transport or even enter such a centre. As the masks are compulsory. Mind you I would be risking myself and thus my father by travelling to such a place. Since masks only prevent the spreading of the infection if a person has it. They do not stop you catching the bug. And even with one dose a person is not safe.  I have had no need to wear a face mask. I am at home, all shopping is done online, so I don't need them. Even before Covid I was never really going places. My local Co-Op for milk and bread was the highlight of my journeys! But thanks to Amazon Prime we can get those delivered. Home is sounding more like a luxury prison everyday!!    

I walked around our estate only a short distance the other day. And without really paying attention to the street spotted four of the standard blue face masks on the ground in hedges, or even on the pavements. God knows how far they have spread around Sheffield!! 

So that's my other reason for not using them. Such masks are not environmentally friendly and were not made to be so. Since they were largely made to be worn in clinical places where once done with they are disposed off in special bins. If you ask me the masks themselves being dropped in the street by people who are more concerned with their own health than where they live. Well life doesn't work that way and having a mask on means that people with bacteria and virus' a lot worse than Covid 19 could effect the country just by not burning or destroying that mask they dropped in the street. Some bugs can live on a discarded mask for ages! What's even worse is that the Government doesn't care. There's no TV advert telling people to put the mask in the bin after you have done with and NEVER drop it in the street! 

Perhaps if the government had used the above system then they could have paid the NHS staff more than 1%.

Update 26 March. Another letter from the NHS, plus two phone calls from the Doctor's in the last seven days. My doctor's surgery is now trying to work out if they can jab me at home. But the person on the phone doubted it! To be honest there's people more at risk than me that should have it! People who have to mix with people. 

19 November. Still no visit from the doctor for me. In fact the doctors are not even now interested in my health (nor I suspect anyone's else) now.  Apart from flu jabs notices, which they even send out after the patients have had them!  Doctors get a good income from doing flu jabs, they don't like you getting them from chemists. As they don't get paid if the patient has it there. 

We cocked up. So you have to pay. 

  The biggest wast of money on the NHS is the amount they pay out when things go wrong. It was recently reported that a great deal of the yearly finding of the NHS goes on payouts and fighting claims. Even if you are trying to suggest ways around a problem that you encountered dealing with the NHS then they jump on the defensive. It's highly likely that many medical problems or situations will lead to someone getting annoyed or pissed off with someone in the service. For example this happened in a true story. The patient a woman nearly 90 years of age was sent to hospital on a wasted journey. A transport ambulance was all that was required to pick her up from home.  However that day was a Friday which means the drunks are out in force keeping ambulance crews busy.  Waiting since three in the afternoon for this transport ambulance. At 9 pm about, a paramedic woman phoned up. Asking questions as though the people had just dialled  999. Not simply waiting for a transport ambulance! Sometime after that, a paramedic car pulled up with a paramedic. Again he started acting if she was an emergency case. When we explained to him she had NO PAIN at all, he agreed that she clearly had not broken anything. It was suggested to him that as the ambulance service were very busy and this was no urgent case, that transport could be arranged for another day. He agreed and said he would look into it. He then went to the bottom of the person's stairs, but could still be heard - every word he said - and he phoned Ambulance Control to book the job in. At no point did he mention her condition or delaying the job. Instead he was told that another paramedic was working on his own and that he could team up up with him and bring her to Northern General in an emergency ambulance. He said he would return in about 20 minutes with the ambulance to take her to hospital.  At 2 am Saturday mourning the person looking after her had opted to go to bed. Ten minutes later a phone call from Northern General Hospital saying if it was all right to send her home and they said yes. So they waited.  At 4 am she still wasn't home. So back on the phone. The Nurse in charge answered. She said she was waiting for an emergency ambulance to send her home. “Can you give me a time” the person enquired. “Could be anything up to four hours”. “What about a taxi?” “She would have to pay for it” she said. The person was pretty angry especially at that remark. “You pay for it ”  “No” she replied. “I can sense your not happy” she said. “No I'm not, what about a medi car?”  “No” she said. She also pointed out that the patient was under her care and that she needed 'trained people' to take her home and so she was not prepared to send her home in a taxi for that reason. Contradicting what she said about paying for one.  The conversation ended with her going on about the complaints procedure to me. And on about her patient care. But clearly thought nothing about possibly keeping an elderly person up all night or waking them up if they had gone to sleep, if she had found an ambulance to take her home at 5 am in the mourning! In the end it was 10 am the next day. She explained she had been kept waiting till about 1.45 am. A doctor came into see her and said the X-ray was fine and she could go home. He didn't ask her any other questions about her health. She was in the “blue wing”. And they took her to A&E waiting area for transport home. She was on hospital trolley bed no 36. The staff tried to lower it, but it was broke and would not go down. She requested the toilet. She was not taken to any toilets for disabled people. But instead a commode was brought for her. This she described as being more suitable for a young person, with a small water holding container. It had no arms to hold onto. As she had been waiting hours, her need was great and filled it. The nurse when taking it away spilled it on the patient's pants and since she had brought another pair, since she thought she was staying in, she had to change them.  They wanted her to get back onto trolley 36, but it was too high and she couldn't get on. The nurse actually said “jump on”.  So they got her a plastic “reception” chair to sit on ALL NIGHT!  They needed to get her blankets to keep her warm and a footstool. 

The family sent a letter complaining about the situation with ambulances, pointing out that many ambulances are uncomfortable and not suited for elderly patients to travel in (especially emergency ambulances).  However the hospital denied everything, wasn't interested in ambulances services. Then went on the attack with the person who phoned up being abusive to staff. 

I have to say it was very similar to the fictional incident in BBC's Doctor's recently were a member of hospital staff had abused the Practice Manager's mother. And when the Practice Manager went to see the staff. The staff, including the boss of the department accused him of being aggressive to the staff. They were so on the defensive that they failed to take into account that the person's life had been put in danger. Of course there was racist element to the situation. But I suspect that the staff would have defended the nurse, even if both patient and son had been white.  I myself came up against this type of prejudice while living in the working class estate of the Manor in Sheffield. There was of course a violent element of people on the estate.  But it was a case that if I lived there I was brother chip to them. It involved ambulance crews. Who were sent out several times to my mother who had shocking nose bleeds for no apparent reasons. The first time it happened the crew took her to Northern General and told her that they (the crew) would transfer her to Hallamshire for a procedure to seal the vessel. At Northern they didn't. Waited for it to stop and sent her home. This episode happened several more times. One doctor said the last time to have them send her to Hallamshire if it starts again. It did, the ambulance crew however would not take her there only back to Northern. So I played hell with them, that's when they started to use the abuse thing and even said "Manor".  They asked the Hallamshire, who would not accept her. So she went to NG and then to Hallamshire. Where they finally sealed the blood vessels.  But all that money wasted. 

General Practitioners are not much, better and in the UK there's a growing shortage of them. I remember being in the Urology Department under going tests myself and there was this old chap in that was told by the doctor (infront of me) telling the daughter (I think) that he was full of prostrate cancers. His own doctors had done nothing!  It's one of those strange things that sticks in your mind to this day. I had no idea who this guy was, but felt like that he was such a lovely man and while I was there he acted like one too. Of course some practices have only one or two doctors. But I suspect they are that tied up with rules and budgets they just don't have time. Others are just a complete waste of time. Prescribing pills that should only be short term, but patients are on for years. But even when there are lots of doctors and each time you go to the doctor you rarely see the same one again. It doesn't mean they are any better. With smoking a big problem for the NHS, anyone who smokes or did smoke automatically is filled in that category and the doctors look for signs of that in any diagnoses. But they can assuming that, get things wrong for years. Often at the patients expense. For example somebody coughing something up becomes part of the symptoms of COPD.  Symptoms of COPD · increasing breathlessness, particularly when you're active · a persistent chesty cough with phlegm. But if the patient says after eating something such as Yorkshire Pudding they cough up phlegm? Is that COPD? The answer should have been no. That is due to a gall bladder problem, where the body can't deal with fatty foods. But I can tell at a doctors surgery in Sheffield, where at least ten doctors work, not one spotted that. And when it became known that was the cause it was too late for the patient.  There was on TV recently a young girl who was seen by doctors. One of which said she was "playing it up".  The girl was diagnosed not by the doctor, but by an eye tester. Where she was found to have MS. 

By the way a doctor can refuse to treat you. And strike you off the list for no real reason at all. So be careful what you say to these people.      

               

               

Did Shakespeare Rape Someone?

 In the section of Shakespeare's life I called "A Tale of Two Anne's" and under a sub-heading called "Not so sweet Ophelia". I mentioned the death of Katherine Hamlet, who drowned in the Avon. The story being that Katherine was in love with Shakespeare and had a fight with Shakespeare's first wife, which resulted in her death either by accident or by murder. The resulting guilt driving her to drown herself in the Avon and the source of the death of Ophelia in the play Hamlet, who floats down the river. However when you think about Ophelia (in the play) doesn't commit murder and if Shakespeare knew about her dealings with Anne, would have found some way to add that to the play. 

So what else would have caused Katherine to drown herself in the Avon? So I went back to the fact Shakespeare had quite an attraction to women, which I have established in other parts of his life as being true. And that Katherine did indeed pursue him. He could have of course rejected her, with unrequited love being the cause of her suicide. However unlike the character called Hamlet, Shakespeare never seems to rejected any female, from my research on him. So I do not buy into a rejected and broken heart theory. But that leads to another more appalling theory on her death. That of sexual violence. 

I don't believe that Shakespeare needed to find some female, grab her then rape her. Since basically he could pick and choose who he wanted sex with. Everything points to the fact that Katherine knew William and probably had feelings for him. Nevertheless having feelings doesn't give a person an open invitation to have sexual intercourse with someone. And Shakespeare could have forced himself on her. From what we know of Elizabethan times the saying of "no" by a woman to a man wasn't treated as seriously as it is today. This is because they viewed women as property. The first form being the property of the father. After marriage the property of the husband. Indeed even the word "rape" is derived from the Latin "raptus" meaning theft of property. And even though rape carried the death sentence it was really about the disgrace of the father or husband and not the woman that was considered the most important aspect. If there was no father the crime would not have taken as serious. And it was only taken serious in the husband's case if another man had raped his wife, had the husband forced himself on her the woman had little chance of getting a conviction, unless the husband had actually caused bodily harm to her. Indeed for many married women it was just the case of lie back and think of England, when having sex. Especially for the arranged marriages. 

That leaves us with the position of the woman in that time. For most women in order to have a decent life it required them to be a virgin on the marriage bed. This was an aspect of the marriage ceremony and rituals itself. With the sheets from the marriage bed showing the blood being used to say the marriage had been consummated. In the case where the deed had already been done by the couple before, then some animal blood would have been obtained and dually deposited on the sheets for those wanting to know how it went. However that applied to only those who had already had sex together before marriage. A woman that had already lost her virginity was soiled goods in the eyes of an Elizabethan man. Unless she had already been married of course and the husband was dead. Therefore a raped single woman was certainly not a price of any future husband. And the woman would have know that. Still that doesn't change how a woman would feel about being raped and that hasn't changed over time. The shame and guilt as well as her status in society then would have made any woman suicidal, just like it does today. And even if Katherine Hamlet had a family, telling one or more of them about it might not have most likely helped her. They would have had their own prejudices on the subject and they might well have been more favourable to Shakespeare than her. Especially if she had made it clear to them she had feelings for William. We have no idea of Kate's standing in her family. She could have been the black sheep of it. She could even have been an inspiration for Kate in the Taming of The Shrew. Kate the cursed. Though clearly not the inspiration of the "man hater" concept!

So to sum up an alternative reason of why Katherine Hamlet drowned in the Avon, was that Shakespeare had forced himself on her and she could not live with the shame of the act and so drowned herself. 

It must be pointed out that we do not know if she was raped, or was guilty of causing the death of Shakespeare's wife. We do know that drowning wasn't uncommon amongst women back then, due to the need to fetch water from rivers and ponds. Elizabethan clothing for women also made them less likely to float in the water, as the materials they were made of often took in the water making them very heavy. So somebody falling in on a slippy bank had much difficulty getting out of the water due to their clothes, than what a modern person would.