My GP is still the one near my parent’s house. I’ve changed it a few times throughout University but went back there because it’s great. They are quick, they actually listen to you, and you don’t have to wait a month for an appointment. But now I live in central London and the idea of having to get a thirty-five-minute train every time I need to see the GP feels absurd to me. I was trying to find a new GP in my area and as I looked at the list of ‘GPs near me’ I was astounded by how terrible the reviews were. While this is a mortifying and tragic situation for the people in my area who need help, I couldn’t help scrolling through the one-star reviews out of intrigue. Rating something one star is seen as a social no-go; it’s not polite. I recently read an article in The Guardian about how star ratings online have been proven to be too positive. Despite online cynicism, people are too quick to give something four or five stars and rarely give a damning one or two. The article talks about how this creates a ‘positivity problem for consumers’ that also means that;

Star ratings don’t predict much when it comes to a product’s future success – for instance, how a movie will go on to perform at the box office.

Suggesting that the rating really has no bearing on the quality of the product or service at all. So why then does everyone rate things three stars and up? This seems to be a problem across multiple industries. I work in books and it’s rare that a novel I’m working on will get a two or one-star review. When I search for places to eat online, I can’t decide because everything is either ‘great’, ‘amazing’, or ‘fabulous’ with five stars gleaming overhead. But as I scanned the reviews for a new GP, this ‘positivity problem’ came crashing down. It’s a serious issue not having access to quality healthcare, and the distress comes through in the reviews. One review was marked one star and the title heading ‘No hope’ bolded at the top. Another read ‘Worst practice ever!!’ with one blot underneath looking more like a speck of dust than a star. Another GP was pronounced as ‘Not a caring place’, rated one star, and then continued to detail how the reviewer had left sobbing. I imagine these people would leave no stars or even negative stars if they could.

I usually love reading reviews, especially of places like strip clubs. Nothing makes me chuckle more than hearing David give four stars to a Bristol strip club because ‘the girls on poles actually strip!’ and then keep naming a ‘very talented woman’ named Georgina. God knows what Georgina did to him but I hope she got a good tip. I also love reading the one-star ratings left by people like Janice who had the ‘worst roast of her life, no gravy! NO GRAVY!’ at a pub in Bath or discovering how staff were ‘rude, preposterous, unbecoming, low-lifes’ when fifty-six-year-old Gregory went to his local Next in 2010. The thing I like about one-star reviews is how outraged they are. As you read them you can imagine the person spitting out the words in anger. I’m delighted by how they are littered with typos because they’ve been bashing it out on the keyboard with their thumbs, pressing send with vehemence before noticing that they pushed the ‘v’ instead of the ‘c’, titling their review ‘vatastrophic’. The more incorrect grammar the better because who gives something a copy check when they’re enraged? But when I read the GP reviews I just felt sad. Some of the reviews were angry in tone but most of them were more despairing. I once had a bad experience with Yodel who misdelivered and then lost my parcel. I was so frustrated with them that I went online to every review site I could find, gave them one star, and left a scathing review. I did that because they had lost it already and there was no getting it back; I knew the issue would never be resolved. When you read one-star reviews of GPs of people having genuine unresolved health problems I can’t help but imagine that they must have felt like that too; hopeless. Completely at the end of their tether, having tried and tried, and finally writing the review because it’s the last thing that they can do. They read like a final plea for something to change. I hope the GPs in my area improve, I’m not sure how this will happen and I doubt it will. For now, I will stick to my one at home because, thankfully for me, I have the option to. I know that many people don’t have this privilege.

I took a week off baking this week and instead had this pistachio and raspberry vegan swirl at Chestnut Bakery. It was a total catfish. It looked delicious but tasted like nothing more than an iced bun. No hate to iced buns, I do love them, but what I had ordered was not an iced bun. It was a show pastry, all for the look and to be shared on TikTok. Not to be eaten, tasted, and enjoyed. All in all a total waste of what could have been a great pastry. Shame, shame, shame on you pistachio and raspberry swirl. One star.

Goodbye for now.

Here’s the The Guardian article.