Monday 29 November 2010

Google Me

We bloggers flatter ourselves that people visit our sites for one reason only; that is, to drink deep at the well of our wit, wisdom and learning. That , or (in the case of the more, um, self-revelatory blogs) to gawp at the pageant of our bleeding hearts, as Matthew Arnold said of Byron, probably the first celebrity blogger.

Google Analytics is there to prove us wrong. It is humbling, and sometimes alarming, to see some of the Google searches that have brought enquirers to my door. Here are a few from the last month:

bantam chickens in severe weather
"barn owl" ancestral star
being fine with something
benefits of corporal punishment in british schools
highly reflective glass walls
is me and my shadow public domain?
kd lang photos by raymond meeks
oxford chinese hat marquee
red light district mental space
what does the conversation of king edwin and the story of caedmon tell you about saint bede's spiritual views?
how to make black swan hat
jackson browne morocco explanation
why are songs like tattoos?

These range from "Uh Oh" (Edwin and Caedmon) through "Glad to be of service" (Jackson Browne) to "Well, I never" (Raymond Meeks and K.D. Lang -- must follow that one up).

The one thing I discover consistently from my statistics is that, by some margin, my most frequent source of visitors is a link to one post from one website dedicated to corporal punishment. I have been assured by the proprietor that this is in no way a forum for spankers. It is evident from the number of visitors that there is a healthy and entirely academic interest out there in tales of sound beatings at school.

Oh, and if you're reading this, David Gepp, someone out there is very interested in your Venice pinhole work at the moment. If that someone wants to get in touch with David, drop me an email and I can arrange something.

And if anyone knows how to make a black swan hat, I can pass that on, too. Glad to be of service. This is the nearest I can manage, perhaps the original Idiotic Hat:


"It shall be called Bottom's Dream,
because it hath no bottom"

3 comments:

Dave Leeke said...

As I was reading down I thought, "Ooh, I want a Black Swan Hat"!

Sounds like a starter activity before Gove et al stop creativity in classrooms and require all classes to be arranged in rows and have us "lecturing from the front."

Mike C. said...

I love the fact that they want a black swan hat, as if that were more tricky to make than a white one, or any other colour, come to that.

Mike

Dave Leeke said...

Hasn't it got something to do with probability theory about being blind to uncertainty or some such convoluted twaddle?

Anyway, it'd be good to have such a fine hat!