One of the nice features of my admin page for this site is something hobbit king Sedgebeer has chosen to call "Google Search Referrers". This means I can see how many people have accessed this site through a Google Search, and more interestingly, see what they typed in to Google to get here.
So obviously, at the top are the people who've specifically looked up my name, but further down the list are some weird and wonderful searches, that have nonetheless ended up with me.
Here's a few of my favourites, which often say more about the person who has typed them in than me.
"Lack of beard" turns up because of my recent entry about my decision to shave. But what was the person who wrote that looking for exactly. Given that it is a statement that probably applies to about 75% of the world population, what would you want to find out about the abscence of facial hair? And did they find a satisfactory answer to their query on my pages?
"Incester" is an unusual one. It turns up here, because this is an old Lee and Herring joke about a village in Somerset, but why would anyone type that in. Clicking on the link took me to an Asian version of Google which was all back to front. I presume some Chinese or Japanese (or similar) person had been trying to find a site dedicated to someone who performs incest. Which, if English wasn't your first language might be an "incester".
Due to the nature of my last stand up show I get quite a few entries along the lines of "horse cock", (in fact 8 people have looked that up in the last 3 days) and I'm sure whoever was looking for that wasn't satisified by a visit to richardherring.com. Though I don't find that person's sexual preferences as disturbing as the person who searched for "Boothby Graffoe nude". That's just sick. Is it as sick as the person who wanted to find information about a "hair ring", whatever that might be. I dread to think.
Someone had chosen to look up "www.richardherring.com" which seems like a rather roundabout way of doing things. You might as well just take a punt on that in your address window, rather than trying out a search engine one would think.
Then comes another unpleasant one, "wiping arse on curtains". This, I am pleased to say links to a page in the guest book which has nothing to do with me, but which contains all those words, though not in that order. Again one has to question why anyone wanted to look that up on Google. It's not something that you need advice about in terms of technique, one would think. If you want to wipe your arse on the curtains, and it's not for me to question why you would want to do that, then you'd think you'd be able to work out how to do that, without having to refer to the internet. I suppose someone might become sexually aroused by pictures of people wiping their arses on the curtains, or possibly curtains that have been used to wipe arses. Again unfortunately my site does not provide such a service. Why not try www.arsecurtain.com/wiping?
I think my favourite one of recent days comes from someone who has probably misunderstood the nature of Google. Their entry reads, "Start with 10 and name the next 4 even numbers. Explain how you know these nubers (sic) are even."
Given the fact they even have to ask that question possibly shows they aren't all that bright (though I don't know how you explain why a number is even, beyond saying it just is), but the hope that a website would include that exact question and then the answer is perhaps stretching the powers of the web. Though now at least one site does have that exact question, so I might as well give my answer which is "12,14,16,18. I know these numbers are even because they end in 2,4,6 and 8 which are even. Even and odd numbers alternate, so every second number is even if we accept the convention that 1 is odd and 2 is even. I mean how do we know anything for sure? We believe that 3 follows 2, but this is just what we've been told. Perhaps all the fundamental mathematical principles are wrong. But assuming that they aren't then I think it's fair to say that 12,14,16 and 18 are even. Though the fact that you even have to ask such a question makes me suspicious about everything that I have been told to accept as true."
Hope that helps with the homework assignment of a six year old child, or a very paranoid conspiracy theorist.
I am tempted to put lots of unusual questions and sentences into Warming Up to see what other weird and wonderful Google customers will be referred to me. I could really up my hit rate if I choose the right key words.
Pope John-Paul II nude.
Spider vaginas.
How far is the earth from the Sun?
Urine soaked matresses.
What is nineteen times seven?
How did the murder of Thomas a Beckett affect Anglo-Papal relations in the twelfth century?
Relieving constipation.
Nuns with guns.
Timothy Norman.
Everything you ever wanted to know about Sarcoptic Mange Mites but were afraid to ask.
The six wives of Jesus Christ.
Boothby Graffoe, fully clothed and wearing a balaclava, as God intended.
www.google.com
Dave Gorman's Google Referrers Adventure.
I am bored.
I'll let you know if any of them get hits (don't go putting them in yourselves, that would be cheating) and I also apologise to anyone who is, say, interested in spider vaginas and for whom this link has been a total waste of time (though I might save you some effort by pointing out that as an arachnid the spider does not actually have a vagina. You might want to look up chaffinch cloacas instead. Apologies if you just have. You should try www.nudechaffinch.co.uk instead. I haven't looked at it though. And anyone who says I have and that they've got my credit card details to prove it, is lying.)
