It's growing ...

Our Nigerian chum returns 12 Google results. Details in a day or so. ...

The great Google experiment #4

Six results. All Twitter-related. Hmmm ....

The great Google experiment #3

"Your tweet to Keith Chegwin has been sent".

Let's see if that brings anything!

The great Google experiment #2

Bingo! Our imaginary footballer has turned up as a Google search result. He was referrred to in a tweet by a follower of his co-parent ;-)

So, therefore: Google count to date = 1

The great Google experiment

I have today invented a completely fictitious footballer, whose name I shall not write here. It is my quest to see how long it takes for someone other than me to mention the name somewhere so it returns as a Google search result. It currently doesn't and the name is constructed in such a way so as to be plausible but not something you could end up at by mistyping something else.

Let the fun commence!

Qualifying Clause Deficiency

Have you ever noticed that people are losing the ability to find a second, qualifying clause for their sentences? It is not uncommon to read "the new operating system is awesome", as a statement of fact without any contextual information. Why does the new operating system provoke reverential fear and wonder*? We never find out. What is it about the new operating system that makes it better/different? I suppose that Qualifying Clause Deficiency exists in other areas of life and has become an accepted part of our new communications culture. I think our lives would be much richer if we insisted on a qualifying clause for every assertion. It would make us think a little bit about what we want to relate, instead of just spurting something out in order to make a noise along with everyone else. 'Rocks' is the epitome of this trend. 'My new phone rocks'. What precisely does that mean? Aside from superlative hyperinflation (everything is awesome, brilliant, superb, fantastic when it should be good, functional, attractive, pleasant), why does there have to be a new, hip way of saying 'rather good' every ten minutes?

So good people of the interwebs. Use your qualifying clauses and use them well. Here are some examples to get you going:

• The iPad is cool (because I can look at screen-based porn in the bathroom now).
• Stephen Fry is God (because he knows more words than me).
• The new Bang & Olufsen system is superb (it really brings out the warm analogue tones of my old Dooleys records).
• Robbie Williams is cool (because now I can bring my secret Take That CDs out).
• Mussolini was a git (but at least he got the trains running on time).

*Awe = n. reverential fear or wonder. Awesome = adj. 1. inspiring awe; dreaded. 2. slang marvellous, excellent. (Concise Oxford Dictionary)

Carlos has left the United Kingdom ...

... and gone to live in that strange mid-Atlantic place that many of our popular music artistes seem to inhabit. You see, I found myself recently in a small wooden box, nervously staring at an expensive recording microphone and tasked to add some backing vocals to our band's recordings. The words were very British English (I wrote some of them, so that's a given!) but as soon as the music started, all ability to pronounce words properly fled me. What happened, as I sweltered in the box, was that I was magically transported to that world where a 'thing' becomes a 'theee-yung' and 'this' becomes 'theeeee-us'.

And you know what? Mid-Atlantic English is the only acceptable one in which to perform popular music. Your Ray Davies, Pete Shelley and Noel Gallagher are all very well in a parochial British way but for maximum global acceptance you have to park yourself vocally 1500 miles off these shores.

Never mind auto-tune (and for the record - pun intended - everyone does it so stop pretending to be so shocked), there should be a software gadget for auto-mid-atlanticing any vocal performance. That would be an essential weapon in the arsenal of any music producer.

Now, where's my JLS CD?