“NHS hospital websites lack customer focus”
The following press release has been published by Socitm this morning:
Mini survey of hospital websites highlights lack of customer focus
A survey of the websites of nine top hospitals in England has revealed a distinct lack of customer focus likely to leave patients and visitors struggling to find key information.
The survey, carried out by Socitm, publisher of Better connected, the annual survey of all local authority websites, was carried out in advance of a roundtable discussion to be held at the NHS Web Futures ’11 conference to be held in London on 14 July. Full results of the survey and the roundtable discussion will be published following the conference.
The survey was limited to an assessment of how easy it was to complete five common tasks likely to be high on the priority of every patient, ie
- Cancel an outpatient appointment
- Prepare for a stay in hospital
- Find out visiting hours
- Find out about car parking at the hospital
- Find out about infection prevention and control
The survey covered nine high profile, city-based hospitals in England: Addenbrooke’s Cambridge, St Bartholomew’s London, John Radcliffe Oxford, Manchester Royal Infirmary, Queen Elizabeth Birmingham, Leeds General Infirmary, Royal Victoria Infirmary Newcastle, St Thomas’s London, and Southampton General.
According to John Fox, an experienced public sector web manager and member of the Better connected survey team, most of the sites surveyed did not appear to recognise that the primary audience for a hospital website should always be the patient and/or hospital visitor. Most sites surveyed were trying to be all things to all parties and this causes major problems. Another issue is that while patients and visitors will be looking for information about an individual hospital, NHS hospital trusts tend to present several hospitals within one web domain, which poses significant challenges for website navigation and usability.
The survey results will be presented for discussion at a roundtable led by John Fox at the NHS Web Futures ’11 event, to be held at Olympia 2 on 14 July. Further information can be found at http://www.headstar-events.com/nhsweb11/
Socitm Insight will publish further information on the survey and the roundtable discussion before the end of July.
About ’Better connected’
An annual survey of all 433 local authority websites in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Better connected has been carried out since 1999. A lengthy (136 questions for 2011) survey is carried by a team of reviewers in November and December. Around half of the questions test the information content of websites. The remainder of the questions assessed performance around the criteria used by Better connected to assess website performance, including currency, links, transactions, location, navigation, A-Z, search, and accessibility.
Further information
Vicky Sargent, Socitm Press Office
Tel: 07726 601 139 email: vicky.sargent@socitm.netMartin Greenwood, Programme Manager, Socitm Insight
Tel: 01926 498703 or 07967 383755 e-mail: martin.greenwood@socitm.net
Monogramme your dibber
Hopefully if you went to the Chelsea Flower Show this week you made a point of visiting the Toff’s Garden that I had specially designed. It was inspired by the Labour campaign in the Oldham East by-election last January; I’m confident it provided lots of ideas for the keen amateur gardener.
As one passed through the entrance with the sign saying “Trespassers Will Be Horsewhipped”, elegantly inscribed in poker-work on the cross section of a sustainable tree trunk, you will have noticed the row of top hats I used as hanging baskets. I alternated grey and black toppers and I think they set off the blooms most effectively.
Riding boots also made amusing plant containers. Just drill a few holes in the sides for the plants to emerge. They were placed strategically round my garden. They are ideal for growing strawberries. In these times of austerity it’s a good idea to cultivate one’s own vegetables, so I included half a dozen very handsome Lobb boots in which I planted potatoes and tomatoes. These were at the far end of the garden, just beyond the rockery – which, incidentally, contained many chunks of stone that had been in my family for several generations.
All my bedding plants were privately educated. They were therefore much hardier, having been through a regime of daily cold baths and lots of Latin. I had the bright idea of planting my petunias in diagonal stripes of different colours to correspond to the ties of some of the smarter regiments. This is something anybody can do – provided you know your regimental ties – and it also works wonderfully well in a window box.
I was especially proud of the lawn in my Toff’s Garden. Hopefully you’ll have noticed the way I broke up the conventional rectangle shape by laying down Rolls-Royce tyre tracks across the far right-hand corner. It gave the impression of some careless toff guest having reversed his vehicle across the lawn at the end of a party for old school chums. Of course, you don’t have to own a Rolls-Royce to achieve this effect. Most decent garden centres now stock the Trakmasta, a neat device for printing the tyre tracks of your chosen car on any lawn. It costs £29.99, including VAT.
I also poshed up the garden shed by the simple means of digging a moat round it and adding a tradesmen’s entrance. Speaking of moats, I know we have all gone mad for water features these days, but why not try something a little more original? In a secluded area of my garden where people could go to stitch up deals with fellow members of the Establishment, fix a place at university for a son or daughter, or organise a peerage, I installed a Pimm’s feature, in which that delightful beverage trickled over cleverly arranged cubes of ice. It was nothing too ostentatious; just discreet, in keeping with the whole atmosphere of that spot.
It’s always a problem, with seedlings, to find a way of scaring off the birds and the lower orders. I find champagne corks are the answer. Ideally, you should pop them roughly every two minutes, but you can also just string half a dozen or so together and hang them over the plants so they swing in the breeze. I find Veuve Clicquot corks best for intimidating most types of garden bird.
The only way of dealing with slugs is to make them socially ill at ease. Just stick two or three copies of Tatler in the soil near your most delicate young plants and most slugs will just want to slink away and the rest will shrivel up with a sense of inferiority. On the other hand, it is time to accept that there is nothing you can do about greenfly. The only thing you can do is ensure that the greenfly on your roses are upper class. Breeders can now supply batches of greenfly from privileged backgrounds which you can place on your roses to drive out the more common aphids. This is the natural, class-war solution to the greenfly problem.
I am convinced that the Toff’s Garden is the future, so don’t delay a moment longer. Sprinkle cigar ash on your compost and get your dibber monogrammed.
By the way, I turned down a Gold Medal for my garden as I feel they are dished out to any old Tom, Dick or Harry entrant these days. There’s a certain cachet in NOT having one on display. Thus I was delighted to learn that it was subsequently bestowed upon my old favourite, Hardy’s Cottage Garden Plants, instead. I knew Rosy and Rob when they first started their business in the old walled garden at Laverstoke Park, Whitchurch, about 20 years ago. Lovely people, fabulous plants!
Nature’s timetable
I’ve been up to London on the train several times this week; well, someone’s got to keep South West Trains in business haven’t they?
Yesterday’s trip was enlivened with an unscheduled stop at Micheldever, next to the oil terminal siding. That, and the sight of a pheasant poking around the track edge, brought back memories by association of that great but sadly neglected naturalist Jim Sidings. Jim worked for South West Trains.
It was Sidings who discovered a new species of egret which was the result of interbreeding with the redshank. To his great pride, these hitherto unknown birds became officially recognised by ornithologists as South West regrets.
“One of my favourite creatures,” he once wrote, “is the dung beetle. The attractive thing about this little chap is that he keeps his personal belongings with him at all times. Then there is the sleeper beetle, so-called because it makes its home next to the sleepers on railway lines. The sleeper beetle has an amazing ability to disguise itself as a crushed Irn Bru can and thus deter predators.”
Sidings wrote a whole book about snails. “I don’t know why, but I’ve always been attracted by their slowness,” he once told me. “You feel pretty sure that they will get where they are going, but you couldn’t say when.”
The most remarkable native gastropod must be the giant wozere snail. It is often to be found near railway lines where its dark, slimy trail leaves most extraordinary elaborate swirling patterns on walls, sometimes almost resembling words. Some naturalists believe they can make out actual groups of letters saying “woz ere,” and this is how the snail got its name.
Grateley station
I remember the time many moons ago when Jim Sidings kindly took me on one of his quiet zone nature rambles. It was very early on a cold, drizzly day when we crouched with our binoculars under a dripping bush adjacent to Grateley station. Unfortunately, a selection of snacks and hot and cold beverages was not available, Jim whispered, due to staff shortages.
He then briefed me on what glories of nature we could expect to see. “The elaborate courtship ritual of the pied wagtail has been cancelled,” he said. “This is due to an earlier plumage failure. I regret any inconvenience this may have caused. You are advised to remain under this bush and await further announcements.”
After half an hour he said: “Due to essential engineering works in its sett, there will be no badger today. Customers wishing to see a badger should take the buzzard replacement service.”
I don’t know why the buzzard never showed up, but after another 40 minutes Jim said he had a “special” announcement which was obviously something exciting. It seemed that the sight of fox cubs playing, timed for 7.17 that morning, had been delayed and would now be combined with the 7.23 viewing of stoats mating to form the 10.48 glimpse of a rather tired off-peak rabbit.
“It’s a pity there is not a river near here or we might have been able to see some deer coming to the bank at dawn for a cold beverage,” Jim whispered knowledgeably. “Or perhaps a kingfisher rushing past without stopping.”
As we waited under the dripping bush Jim regaled me with his fund of stories about wildlife ways. He let me into the secret of the extraordinary mating habits of the corn bunting. In spring the male corn bunting starts to sing his special “mating announcement”. This is a confused and garbled song which bewilders the female corn bunting. Gradually, she edges closer to the source of the announcement, hoping to make sense of it. The song becomes more garbled and she moves even closer. And this is how the male corn bunting attracts his mate. A good place to hear this ritual unfold is at Waterloo.
He told me about the migratory birds that in winter take advantage of special offers on eight-month saver returns to warmer countries and how rabbits have white patches on their tails which they can use as a warning in case of emergency. Obviously, improper use of the tail is regarded as a serious offence.
It was a truly fascinating day out under that bush. I got home later than intended, but this was because of something really dramatic, an example of the cruel side of nature. Unfortunately I’ve no idea what it was, save for a typically vague announcement that “British Transport Police were in attendance at Andover”.
Life’s a lilo
Lilo Lil about to put this guidance into practice
It’s taken me more years than I care to reveal to master the art of getting on a lilo without falling straight off, but I believe I have now got to grips with the means of doing so successfully.
A pre-requisite for this accomplishment, however, is the convenient placement of a shallow spot in the water where one might place one’s feet on terra firma in order to perform the mounting.
- Place your feet firmly on the ground, and stand with your legs well apart.
- Pull the foot end of the inflated lilo forward through your parted legs (a degree of force will be required to complete this successfully).
- You need to pull through just over a quarter of the length of the lilo. Just ignore what the pillow end is doing (that’s not important right now).
- Now make sure the foot end of the lilo is aligned with a real or imaginary horizon. NB: Disaster will ensue if this is not effected at this point. Guaranteed.
- Once you are content with the foot alignment, sit down gently onto the lilo, releasing your feet from (ooh err!) terra firma.
- You should now be floating, complete with lilo, on the water. Next comes the tricky bit!
- Slowly raise one knee out of the water, extending the foot as required in order to get it onto the surface of the lilo. At this point you may need to provide counterbalance by extending the diametrically-opposed arm and waving it frantically.
- If you have not failed abysmally with the previous stage, it is now time to raise the second leg. Repeat the last process again, paying particular attention this time to balance. If you manage to get your second leg horizontal, you can proceed to the next stage.
- You’re almost there! Now gently lie back onto the lilo, using your pinioned feed to keep the lilo in the correct alignment, until your head rests on the lilo’s pillow.
- Mission accomplished!
Further tips for enhanced enjoyment of the lilo
If your head does not land on the pillow at stage 9, then considered calibration at stage 2 will achieve results eventually.
Once fully mounted, to get underway use your arms to perform a backstroke motion. Do not be tempted to use your feet for movement purposes, otherwise you’ll be in the drink.
If you wish to lie face down on the lilo, at stage 2 the pillow (rather than foot) end of the lilo should be pulled backwards through your parted legs until approximately 75% of the lilo’s length is ahead of you. Repeat the remainder of the process and you should be able to get underway as before. Use the front crawl to travel forward, and reverse doggy paddle under the lilo (if your arms can reach) to go astern.
Please lilo responsibly
- For best (and safest) results, operate your lilo in a swimming pool or an open water enclosure with booms.
- Do not attempt to operate your lilo in international waters. You do not have navigation lights and will likely be mown down by the Queen Mary 2 (which has a stronger claim to being a cruise line than you on your lilo will ever manage).
Sitting in the surf
Apologies, no marathon update for two days despite my best intentions and, at one point, endeavour. I’ve just been soooooooo busy!
But an email from a friend demanding an update has spurred me into action this morning. Truth be told I got a little sunburnt yesterday so I’m staying under cover this morning at least. I hope you enjoy this update plus picture gallery at the end. I do have an ulterior motive though.
Life continues to be a beach. Or rather, lots of beaches. Plus a fair old sprinkling of inland visual feasts. Here are edited highlights, roughly in chronological order
Monday saw me taking a drive up to the north of the island to the parish of St Lucy. Once you get north of Speightstown the landscape gets increasingly flat and windswept as the north point of the island nears. Trade winds from the east mean a fairly constant stiff (but warm) breeze that results in the verdant greenery being ever on the move.
The useful ‘Barbados in a Nutshell’ map (which seems to be the only road map for the island) indicates where beaches can be accessed on foot or by car, and I had decided to head for Archers Bay. It was certainly out on a limb.
The further north I got the more I thought how much the windswept landscape resembled the scattered crofting communities of the Western Isles in Scotland. The similarities end there though. Barbados is entirely coral not Lewisian Gneiss and there isn’t a peat bog to be seen!
Archers Bay beach turned out to be inaccessible, or at least I was unable to find the access path down the razor sharp coral cliff to a small beach. The access road was rather interesting though – I drove for about a quarter of a mile through a coconut grove, negotiating sticky up lumps of coral that could have ripped the tyres to shreds at a moment, and I had to negotiate a flock of Barbadian sheep too.
The Barbadian Blackbelly more closely resembles goats and breed all year round unlike most domestic sheep. Because they are larger and faster growing than most wooled sheep, they are a good choice for commercial production. There is a strong market locally for their lean and mild-flavored meat. They are ‘hair’ sheep which means that they do not grow wool and are therefore able to tolerate the tropical heat.
From Archers Bay I then headed east to Little Bay. I loved Little Bay. Correction, I love Little Bay.
The passing of time has eroded the east coast of Barbados, pounded as it is by the Atlantic Ocean (next stop The Gambia, 3000 miles east). The coral breaks down or simply washes away, leaving amazing rock formations and blowholes which the violent seas crash through very dramatically.
Little Bay is one such place. As its name suggests the bay itself is very little when the tide is in but there is considerable evidence that it would have been much bigger many moons ago. An easy walk down the eroded cliff on a easy gradient path leads you to a small semi-circular bay beyond which are two raised coral platforms with a channel between. Beyond the platforms the Atlantic Ocean crashes in with huge turquoise waves and flying spray. It is quite a sight – see pictures.
Whilst I was snapping away with my camera – shock, horror – someone else appeared on the beach and entered the water. He sat down in a natural bowl, another effect of the sea erosion.
From my vantage point I could see the crashing waves, which would often break over the coral platforms and suddenly whoosh into the little bay where my companion had sat himself down in the water. But as I later discovered when I joined him, when you’re sitting there you have no idea what’s happening up on that platform and therefore when or how big the next wave will be. It’s great fun!
Another place I’ve visited, on recommendation, is Harrison’s Cave.
The site has, apparently, undergone a massive transformation in the past four years with the development of lifts and an electric tramway. When I think ‘tramway’ I imagine trams running on rails. Well this is different – the tram is actually a glorified, articulated, golf buggy seating about thirty people. After watching the obligatory introductory film which described how Barbados was created 60,000 years ago (apparently) by the collision of the Atlantic plate and the Caribbean plate, I boarded the aforementioned tram for a journey one mile underground.
It was, actually, very good, and I’m pleased that I went. But I was annoyed that the tram didn’t stop in various places on the route where the caves were beautifully lit with coloured lights, for example a cascade running down the side of the tramway would have made a beautiful photograph. Here I must acknowledge with ever greatful thanks, my wonderful 50th birthday present from The Sainted Marion. My sooper dooper camera has a night portrait setting which enabled me to take some great pictures in between the camera flashes of the other tram passengers.
Good to my word, at the recommendation of Kyle Boyce, I have visited Foul Bay in the south of Barbados. As Kyle said, its right next door to the famous Crane Beach yet it is totally deserted. Shortly before I pulled up at the parking place the local radio station had broadcast a surge warning for the eastern Caribbean, warning all folk not to attempt to swim in the sea as the waves would be higher than usual and a strong current to boot.
Well the waves they were certainly a crashing! Heeding the advice I decided against an immersion so I didn’t change into my bathing shorts. Consequently when I went for a paddle (without camera I hasn’t to add), a larger than anticipated breaker soaked me from head to toe, covering me in fine sand in the process! It was rather a damp journey home after that … I mistakenly thought that I’d dry out nicely as I drove along (sitting on a large towel I hasten to add), silly me.
I was certainly able to comprehend how the bay got its somewhat unusual name. The running sea was indeed foul, and I suspect its like it was on my visit most of the time, even when there isn’t a surge warning in force.
This morning I was up with the lark and driving across the island at 6am in the hope of catching the sunrise on the east coast. Unfortunately it broke the horizon when I was halfway over so that came to nowt. However I made up for the bad timing with a return visit to Bathsheba where I had the beach entirely to myself at 7am and for a goodly while after that.
There are certainly better beaches in Barbados than Bathsheba, there can be no doubt about that. But there is is something rather special about the gargantuan lumps of coral rock in the surf and the shoreline punctuated with wildly waving palm trees.
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- Barbados Blackbelly sheep
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- Little Bay surge
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- Little Bay
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- Quick fire 1
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- Quick fire 2
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- Quick fire 3
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- Quick fire 4
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- Little Bay
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- Surprise surprise
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- Round House, Bathsheba
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- Bathsheba surf
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- Coral rock at Bathsheba
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- Harrison’s Cave
Gone sunbathing
If you’re sitting in front of your computer screen avidly awaiting my next bulletin from Barbados, please accept my apologies.
I’ve sat down to update it last night and this evening and I just can’t find the words I want to write. It would seem that inspiration has gone sunbathing. I’ll try to get my head together for a marathon update tomorrow.
In the meantime here’s a testcard to be going on with (draw your own conclusions!):
Life’s a beach
Bathsheba
Life’s a beach. I’ve walked on a few today. All of them clean white coral sand and deliciously warm surf.
Unfortunately these lovely beaches are nowhere in the UK. I’m back in Barbados, visiting the same friends with whom I stayed 50 weeks ago, P&D. I arrived from London yesterday (Gatwick was 3C, Bridgetown 30C).
No hassle with camouflage shorts this time around, so once I’d clear immigration and baggage reclaim I picked my rental car (a Suzuki Vitara) and headed to Bridgetown and Prospect where I’m staying. The sun was going down as I arrived in Prospect and I enjoyed a leisurely evening catching up with P&D.
We were in Bridgetown bright and early this morning to go on a special slavery heritage trail tour. Unfortunately we didn’t make it onto the coach as it was sold out (the advert P had seen for didn’t say that booking was either required or desirable, so he didn’t). The next tour will be on the 20th which is too late for me 
So, after returning P home and gathering up my bits and pieces, I set off on a ‘get my bearings’ day out. I headed east for St John’s Church, via Drax Hall, to see the grave of the country’s Prime Minister who died very recently. The attendant at the church told me that they’d had great difficulty locating a free plot in the historic graveyard (the oldest identified grave is from 1666!).
After St John’s I needed to put petrol in the tank which meant heading back to Bridgetown as that’s where most of the filling stations are located on the island. Certainly my tourist map didn’t indicate any where I was. Since I was in Bridgetown I decided to go to the Barbados Concorde Experience. I saw Concorde at Heathrow many times, and recall it flying overhead at some point in the past, but I’d never been ‘up close and personal’. That was fixed today.
And then I headed for the beaches. There are beaches everywhere. Along the east coast they are wide and wind-blown. Here the shore is pounded by the Atlantic (there’s nothing for 3,000 miles east to Banjul in The Gambia) and is consequently popular with surfers who come from all over the world.
On the calmer south and west coasts, you can walk for miles along unbroken white sand beaches, though the way is often barred by clusters of coral rocks jutting out to sea which create delightful hidden coves. These are often difficult to access, or form part of some fabulous resort or private development, but it is still possible to find a beach all to one’s self. All along the shore large and small beaches are broken by coral formations, the soft coral rocks weathered by the ocean surf, forming abstract sculptures pleasing to an artist’s eye.
In the north, coral and sandstone cliffs rise straight out of the sea reaching up to a hundred feet in height. But even here, you’ll find the occasional sheltered cove.
I’ve done several beaches today. Here are the highlights:
1. A walk on the beach at [the ridiculously expensive] Crane Resort. Yes its quite something but there are better beaches, almost within spitting distance, that remain unspoilt by such development. Not my kind of beach – by a country mile!
2. A walk on the fabulously unspoilt Bathsheba beach – a sharp contrast to Crane and much more to my liking.
3. Several rum punches and lunch at The Round House overlooking Bathsheba’s pools (see previous link for details). This was my favourite eatery on my last visit, and when it comes to location, only Applecross in Scotland beats it for sensory delight.
4. A walk on Brandons beach on the outskirts of Bridgetown. The cruise ship terminal is visible away to the south, and this afternoon I was able to see Queen Mary 2, Independence of the Seas and a ‘Celebrity Cruises’ liner that I did not recognise, plus a traditional four-masted schooner berthed near (and dwarfed by) QM2.
Then it was back home to check out all my photos and decide what to do tomorow (a walk along the beach before the sun gets too high, application of copious quantities of Piz Buin by the pool, and later a visit to a Barbados Horticultural Society open garden).
#TheArchers: a bunting tragedy
It’s been a fascinating couple of days. The Archers, that national institution which is broadcast twice a day, six days a week on BBC Radio 4, celebrated its 60th anniversary on Sunday 2 January.
The double-length, much trailed episode, broadcast just after 7pm was a ‘bunting tragedy’ to quote Twitter’s @AmbridgeView. Well I guess she ought to know, since @AmbridgeView is scribed by Charlotte Martin who plays that doyenne of the community shop, Susan Carter, in the radio soap.
For weeks leading up to the anniversary regular listeners were aware that something ‘shocking’ was going to happen on 2 January 2011. The programme’s editor, Vanessa Whitburn, had forecast some time ago that events in the anniversary episode would ‘shock Ambridge to the core’. The Archers and Twitter are now inextricably linked, with genuine BBC tweets intermingling with totally fictitious (unauthorised) impersonations of characters in the programme. There is a Twitter ID for virtually every cast character, including @HenryArcher2011, just two days old at the time of writing!
Perhaps I should come clean here. I tweet in the name of two well-loved characters (suffice to say I’m getting well acquainted with regional dialects), but unlike @AmbridgeView I very much regret to advise I have no official connection with The Archers!
As the big day approached the tweets became ever more speculative as regards what was going to shock Ambridge to the core, with the hashtag #sattc being usefully added so that avid fans could keep track of what the latest thinking was. And then the BBC itself, that august organisation we love and admire in equal part to often believing it is mammon, inflexible and unimaginative in large part, realised the power of Twitter as an excellent medium for channelling listeners’ interest in the anniversary events and plot.
The Archers 60th ‘tweetalong’
At the end of last week trailers started to be broadcast encouraging listeners to ‘join the conversation’ and to add the hashtag #thearchers to their tweets. They even told us that on 2 January there’d be a tweetalong to the broadcast of the landmark episode and an analysis conducted of the tweets made with that hashtag before, during and after the broadcast. Listeners were positively encouraged to listen to the broadcast AND tweet along or just follow the progress of the hashtag via the various search features in Twitter.
It was, indeed, absolutely riveting. Whether that’s from the perspective of the unfolding plot or simply the level of interest in the programme and its general storyline, or the sheer fascination of the speculation as to what would happen (or happen next). I listened to the radio programme and I tweeted along like so many others, but I was also wearing the hat of a digital communicator. Beyond the basic premise of an online conversation I was fascinated to see the way the conversation moved and the amount of traffic that was generated. It was, in short, a fascinating social media experiment run in real time.
The results are indeed fascinating to study, whether you have just a passing interest in what happened or something a little more specific in terms of social media development. The Archers‘ blog published a brilliant page yesterday which showed all the tweets from just before 7pm on Sunday until a little beyond the end of the broadcast. A ‘heartbeat monitor’ takes the pulse of the Twitter conversation throughout the playback, so that one can see the peaks and troughs. A tag cloud shows common words that people are tweeting, and mentions of characters’ names is shown in percentage terms in expanding/contracting bubbles.
If you’ve not already seen it, do take a look, (link opens in new window/tab), and be sure to run the tweets run through so that you can follow the conversation as the plot unfolded. To make that happen you need to click the solid right arrow (or ‘play’ button) at the top right corner of the page under the title (see image to right).
Other applications?
I believe there are lessons that can be learned here by all parties interested in the general development of social media and Twitter in particular. I applaud the BBC for embracing Twitter as a communications medium with a difference. As I see it they’ve harnessed the power of Twitter to directly involve their listeners with the unfolding storyline of the anniversary edition. Furthermore, by producing the post-broadcast timeline they have a wonderful source of material for seeing what the audience thought about the storyline, including countless totally wrong predictions of where the plot was leading. If the scriptwriters should be short of copy for future plotlines the listeners have given them a wealth of ideas to work on, and some strong signals about the affection or dislike of specific characters.
This excellent model could be used in a political context, either at local or national level. I’ve not reached a firm conclusion as yet but whilst the subject’s still ‘of the moment’ I thought I’d put down some initial thoughts.
There might be a council debate taking place. The council could promote the televising or webcasting of the event and encourage local people to tweet along and share their thoughts. Obviously the topic of the debate would need to be sufficiently engaging (or perhaps contentious) in order to generate a broad range of listeners, but the subsequent analysis of that conversation would doubtless provide a good indication of the public mood or buy-in to both the subject under discussion and/or the democratic process generally. Maybe someone has already tried this, but if they have I’m not aware of it. Oh, and yes, I’m the first to concede that a council debate is highly unlikely to have folk hooked quite as firmly as the BBC managed on Sunday evening, but hopefully you get my general drift.
So, there you have it, my thoughts on The Archers and Twitter. And now before I close, I’d like to share a selection of my favourite tweets from Sunday’s episode and its aftermath (still unfolding):
@potterwigham: Thanks Helen #thearchers for bring us back from our slough of despond by going on about expressing milk.
@jamspangle: At least hearing the news will mean Helen will talk about something other than babies for two minutes #thearchers
@Chainsaw_McGinn: If they’d only taken the time to write a good risk assessment and used correct ppe [personal protective equipment] #thearchers
@NickFitz: Nigel’s scream lasted about 3 seconds: given g=9.8m/s he fell c44m, or 144 feet. Buckingham Palace is 24m high. Big house 
#sattc
@jgmcintyre: #thearchers Advert for Thursday’s Borchester Echo: Vacancy for village idiot, Ambridge, following sudden change of circumnstance
@kmflett: Ambridge Socialist Update – questions about who will represent the Government at Nigel Pargetter’s funeral #sattc
@AmbridgeView: Who would have thought it? A bunting tragedy in #thearchers
@Stickings90: This was a dastardly plot by Queen of Capriciousness, Vanessa Whitburn, to instigate a 10yr family feud #sattc
@HistoryNeedsYou I think the banner was t ed with a spur lash. Nigel certainly landed with one … #thearchers
@Ecogray: “There was something of the Peter Pan in Nigel” http://bbc.in/edxl56. Shame it wasn’t the ability to fly. #thearchers
@PropertyJourn: So Nigel definitely dead. It seems to me, he lived his life like a banner in the wind. #sattc
@WorcsPaul: Health & Safety nannies visit Lower Loxley and insist “Beware falling Nigels” signs installed #sattc
@LyndaSnell: Nigel was the Peoples’ Dame
Please share your favourite #sattc tweets in comments in your feel so inclined. I hope you will!
2010 in review
The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:
The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.
Crunchy numbers
The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 23,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 5 fully loaded ships.
In 2010, there were 47 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 109 posts. There were 91 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 33mb. That’s about 2 pictures per week.
The busiest day of the year was December 5th with 272 views. The most popular post that day was 10 things you probably don’t know about Thomas the Tank Engine.
Where did they come from?
The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter.com, search.bt.com, facebook.com, communities.idea.gov.uk, and search.aol.com.
Some visitors came searching, mostly for thomas the tank engine, painted lady butterfly, thomas the train, canapes, and st kilda.
Attractions in 2010
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
10 things you probably don’t know about Thomas the Tank Engine March 2010
9 comments
Butterflies: FAQ July 2009
3 comments and 1 Like on WordPress.com,
Latha Hiort (St Kilda Day), 29.08.09 August 2009
1 comment
Canapé binges: health warning August 2009
11 comments
Where to get your kit off this summer July 2009
11 comments
