Tag Archives: mad hatter

Simon Wilson, Nottingham Poet

Another Senior Moment

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Today I got up, pottered and made my way down to the surgery for my 8.30 appointment. It turns out I should have been there at 7.30. I apologised and then asked for the blood testing letter they were preparing for me. I had checked with them in person, then on the phone, and had agreed to pick it up this morning. It was the third time I have done this and both the previous arrangements have gone wrong.

Surely nothing could go wrong today.

Ha!

There was no letter and nothing about a letter on the computer. Sometimes I get the feeling that, to the NHS, I simply don’t exist.

After ten minutes of phone calls it appears that the test is not necessary as they used the blood they took last week to do the test, even though it hadn’t been requested at that time. Yes, at the time of the test I had not yet had the letter telling me it was due. When I got the letter I spoke to the nurse (who had taken the blood on my previous visit) and we agreed that I should request a letter from reception to allow me to have the test when I had a regular Warfarin check. She seems not to have known that the blood she took, and the tests she requested, included one I didn’t even know I needed at the time.

Are you following this?

It is almost as if the NHS does things that none of its employees or clients knows about, but as a lot of the budget goes on administration and management this surely cannot be . . .

Of course, in a month’s time,  when I can’t get my arthritis medication because I haven’t had the blood test I will find that I have just been told a load of old rubbish, as usual.

Next, armed with the details of my latest prescription request (the one I have tried to collect twice already) I went to the pharmacy and gave them the details the surgery had given me. It took several attempts but they did eventually manage to find the details on their system, but only after I complained when they told me, again, that they had no details of it. Makes me wonder if I should have complained more the first time, and if they would have found it then.

If Alice and the Mad Hatter ran the NHS I wonder if it could be any more dreamlike.

The opening picture is of a confused old man, wondering where it all went wrong.

Mad as a Hatter

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Sorry, this should have been part of yesterday’s post.

I’ve always known that “mad as a hatter” was something to do with hatters, madness and chemicals but I wasn’t quite clear on the details. I’m currently reading The Elements of Murder (slowly, I admit, but it isn’t light reading) and the book has some interesting details.

I was going to stick a paragraph in about it, as it seemed appropriate and I had a suitably mad photograph. However, having the information and the need to write a post I thought I’d better find more information to fill it out.

This proved to be a mistake. “Mad as a Hatter”, according to some sources, has little to do with madness, and nothing at all to do with hatters.

This is a nuisance, to say the least. According to Wikipedia there are several possible sources for the expression, including the Anglo-Saxons who used the expression to mean venomous as a viper. There are other explanations too. I’m not happy with any of them, nor am I impressed by the references to early usage, without exact dates. However, this is a blog, I’m citing Wikipedia and I’m never going to be mistaken for an academic.  Can we just say “other explanations are available”, and I’ll talk about the one I want?

The Mad Hatter is supposed to be based on Theophilus Carter, an eccentric Oxford furniture dealer and reputed builder of an alarm clock bed exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851. When it was time to get up a clockwork motor engaged and tipped the sleeper into a tank of water. This seems a bit brutal even for stern Victorian early risers.

Unfortunately, though there were two alarm clock beds exhibited in 1851, neither of them was attributed to Carter in the catalogue. Nor, despite Carroll’s extensive diaries, is there any real evidence  that the Mad Hatter is based on Carter. It’s a shame, because it’s a good story.

There is, however, plenty of evidence for hatters exhibiting signs of madness.

The main material used in making hats was felt, which was made from the hair of rabbits and beavers, mixed with mercuric nitrate and repeatedly shaped, boiled and washed until it formed smooth cones of felt. This process released mercury vapour which, went inhaled, caused symptoms such as delirium, hallucinations, irritability, excitability, tremors and depression.

In many countries, including the UK, measures were taken to protect workers from exposure and by the end of the 20th century hatters were no longer suffering the effects of mercury poisoning. In the USA it persisted until 1941, being known as the “Danbury Shakes”, after the hat-making centre in Connecticut. Eventually the need for mercury in the war effort meant the use of alternative chemicals and the end of the Danbury Shakes.

Be that as it may, in the 1860s, when Carroll wrote about the Mad Hatter, mercury poisoning, was a major factor in the behaviour of hatters.

Llandudno – a brief visit

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On our way back from Wales we visited Llandudno. Since then, things have been a bit hectic and I forgot all about it.

Was it really only five weeks ago? I seem to have packed quite a lot into the time, though at the same time I also seem to have achieved nothing. The image of a hamster running in its wheel comes to mind, working hard to get nowhere. Even without the metaphor I often think of hamsters in wheels – they are just so funny.

Herring Gull on Llandudno Pier
Mad Hatter – Llandudno
Places to go – Llandudno
Herring Gulls on the beach at Llandudno

We parked by the Mad Hatter statue, as you can see. The Liddell family had a holiday home in Llandudno, though there is still argument about whether Lewis Carroll ever visited. There are other statues scattered round town, though we didn’t have time to view the others properly. By the time we’d tracked down toilets (this was pre-operation so I  wasn’t as self-sufficient in that department as I am now), chased gulls off the car and toured the pier (which included eating doughnuts) there wasn’t much time left, as we still had to get home.

Llandudno is a lovely place if you ever get a chance to visit. The resort was planned in the 1850s and developed by Lord Mostyn, which is why it was developed in such a controlled manner.

Llandudno – Pier entrance
Llandudno – hotels
Llandudno, including War Memorial
Llandudno

We’ve never really seen much of the town, and reading up on it, I’m amazed how much more there is to do. Looks like we’ll have to go back again one day.