Whacked!

Not a post on the current national campaign in the UK to ban the smacking of children, even by their parents. Nor am I complaining that I'm tired, though Sunday's the best day of the week for a lie in and another nap later- it's well named the day of rest.

My "whacking" came courtesy of that magnificent beast which is Google, who own the gigabytes of storage space you're now reading alongside the world's most popular search engine. I've been Googlewhacked!

Laud Google as we may, it's not a perfect search engine, if such a commodity can ever exist. I think it would be a sad day for mankind, really, if just by inputting a word or two into a computer you could find the sum of all knowledge on everything known to man. When I was a young lad of 9 or 10, I remember the dreams I had with my friend Michael over the road about putting together a book which would contain absolutely every bit of knowledge ever, ever, ever. Maybe at that tender age, we were just aspirant encyclopaedia salesmen both.

Algorithms and sophisticated computer code can do its best, but it can still be beaten. That's the fun and the challenge of the strange new pursuit of "Googlewhacking". The object? To find any two search terms which, when grouped together, produce only a single hit on Google.

Much to my amazement, that's what happened to me after a quick check on the sitemeter at the bottom of this page a week ago. Someone somewhere had keyed in a search in cyrillic for "Andry Moneyphilia": Anglicise that, and much to my amazement it brought up only a page in this blog which contained the words "Andrew" and "Moneyphilia" in close proximity.

Of course, it won't work now, because I've done the search myself- there should be at least two hits there. But maybe it shows the way to win the game- come up with a neologism or a contrived word like "moneyphilia" and link it with a common or garden male name! Try it and see- it's a great way to waste time on a chilly Sunday morning.

Yet there are still so many things I find you can't always track down on Google. My question to leave you with this morning is: whatever happened to Tivvy? Does anyone remember him? And can you Google me an answer? I'm not talking about Tiverton Town football club either!
But the truth is out there, or should it be out, where? It's been a week for a lot of revelations which some would say have no place in the public domain- nobody's business. Does it all really matter what politicians get up to in their private lives, or when closeted together with other wannabees and nobodies in an ersatz house on a studio lot in Elstree close by the faux square which masquerades as a part of Walford, E20.

What really matters is how we behave towards each other in this brief span of years we get given on this planet, in other words how we love, not who we bed. It's how we show Respect towards our fellow men and women and above all to God. It's turning the other cheek when we are whacked, literally, or going the extra mile when we are tired and whacked, figuratively. It's the most rewarding thing on earth, and that's why I must leave you now to go and learn a little bit more of the googol of things there are to know about Him which make Sunday morning the time for church. Thank Heavens that his search engine always hits the heart with delightful, life-changing results!