Confronting the Magnolia Whelk (at last)

Getting yourself noticed.

Oh my word! It seems, my fine questing yeomen, that I have left the parking brake off a juggernaut!

It seems that my musings over the workings of internet search engines has struck a harmonic chord amongst you – despite being that little bit flawed. I am now faced with the task of trying draw together all the different threads and draw some conclusions to our little experiment in cyberspace. But where do I start?

I suppose, the first step would be to draw together all of the different coloured whelks as there have been a number of additional requests since my last post. (Note 1)

Liss has decided that she is Magenta Whelk.
Lookwhatthecatdragged in is Periwinkle Whelk.
Mousepotato is Shocking Pink Whelk.
Kerry is Asparagus Green Whelk.
Sean is Burnt Umber Whelk.
Lee is Crimson Whelk.
Stu is Caspian Blue Whelk.
BJ is Vivacious Violet Whelk.
Eskimo is Ember Whelk.
Ali R is Turquoise Whelk.
Gypsy is Sage Green Whelk.
Chloe is Ocean Whelk.
Fuzzy Slippers is Aubergine Whelk.
Karma Chimera is Puce Whelk.
Still NoCouch is Sensual red Whelk.
Raenie is Buccinum undatum Whelk.
Irish Erin is Plaid Whelk.
Heather belle is Lavender Blue Whelk.
Padded Cell is Azure Blue Whelk.
Seedrum is Seedrum White Whelk.
Contrary Mary is Baby Poo Yellow Whelk.
Skorpio is Cadmium Yellow Whelk.
Meledesma is Titanium Whelk.

Now THAT is the final, last, definitive, unalterable etched in granite list of the different coloured whelks. My attention span just cannot cope with adding any more or any modifications. Sadly, those who requested duplicates got ignored, sorry.

The next step must be to explain what a whelk is. It seems that the term doesn’t travel 360 well. Quite simply it is a marine snail found in temperate waters and it makes a very tasty treat for Saturday tea. According to the Wikipedia entry, they can be confused with conches. I don’t actually believe that. Whelks are about an inch long and Conches are so big that their shells are blown as trumpets. That would be like confusing a garden shed with Buckingham Palace.

I suppose at this point, I should hold my hands up and say ‘Sorry, Dr. Marriott.’ (Note 2) This is what happens when you let yourself get all carried away with an idea, you forget all about the principles of scientific method. I got all carried away and didn’t really set up any controls which would make the results meaningful. Yes, I have been a very silly old Hector.

In saying that, there were a few observations that I feel I can make as a result of the experiment. For a start, the word ‘whelk’ has a strange effect on my yeomen. Since using the word in my blog, sales of dried frog pills have risen by 17% and sales of Nightswerve’s All Purpose Nerve Tonic by 23%.

The thing is though, you all want to know the impact on Google. Well, I was able to make some observations, even though I am unable to provide the proof that would satisfy the Royal Society. (Note 3)

The only things that I can say are these :-

The more unlikely your choice of words for your ‘Google Bomb’ (for example combining an exotic colour with a sea gastropod) the more likely it will succeed.

Just having the links to a page using the words is not enough – people have to follow the links to get a web page to move up the list on Google

I like to think, but have no way of proving, that not actually having the words for your chosen coloured gastropod on your web page is no bar to moving up the Google list.

All in all, I don’t think this was my most successful experiment EVAR (Note 4) It hardly ranks up there with the ‘using a paperclip as a fuse does cause electrical fires’ or ‘What happens when you release Amide chemicals in a chemistry lab?’.

For those of you who were expecting me to explain those two – you are out of luck. I have added them both to my prospect lists for future blogs, so you will just have to watch this space!

Now I better be off and have a dried frog pill and a hefty swig of Nightswerve’s All Purpose Nerve Tonic. The mere mention of Dr Marriott has brought on palpitations.

From 14th June 2006, the industry standard Crozzy Standard has been applied to footnotes. Perhaps I should start saying the Crozzy Memorial Standard as it appears that dear Crozzy has left us for interests new.

NOTE 1: There seems to have been a lot of interest in claiming various coloured whelks. Sadly there were a couple of duplicates and there are some which I appear to have lost in the jumble of paperwork on my desk at the moment (Yes, I am one of those old fashioned people who continues to use pen and paper to make notes!). If your particular favoured whelk doesn’t appear here, then all I can say is sorry.Click to return

NOTE 2: Now a lot of my more academic yeomen may be dashing off to discover just who is Dr. Marriott. I should point out that this phrase is a well worn one from my youth. Dr Marriott was my physics teacher. For some reason, he has become a bit of a caricature in my memory. That would make it very unfair to describe him here – I know I am getting on a bit, but I reckon that there is a good chance that the good doctor and his knobbly purple nose is still out there. Click to return

NOTE 3: I should have been more on the ball in the first instance. It seems that I could have got funding for my little experiment. It is comforting to know that there is always going to be funding available for good research. I wonder if anyone thought to mention to the scientists the slight flaws in their plan? Click to return

NOTE 4: For all of those of you who have expressed concern, Evar is alive and well, just rather busy at the moment trying to sort out other matters. Apparently, the monumental Yvette is suing Evar for breach of promise after a remark he made in a fit of passion. I believe that his defence goes along the lines of “Although he meant it when he said he was going to wrap his arms around her, it wasn’t his fault that they wouldn’t reach.” Click to return

TECHNORATI TAGS : experiment ; Google ; Science ; Bomb ;whimsy ; Magnolia ; Whelk.

Captured in Amber

Synaptic Tangents on Parallel Tracks.

It probably hasn’t escaped the notice of my loyal yeomen that I have neglected writing entries over the last month or so. Alas, circumstances have kept me busy with other, less pleasurable, matters. Today though, I should make a special effort. Today is a very special and important day.

Twenty one years ago today, I drove through my first red traffic light. (Note 1) Perhaps I should make it clear that I am not in the habit of jumping traffic lights. Generally one of the benefits of having a half decent imagination is that you can conjure up images of the consequences of such acts. The thing is that this was part of one of the most amazing days of my life.

It had all started the day before. I’d woken up on my birthday to find my wife had gone into labour. (Note 2) Being young, innocent and rather excited, I had this idea that I would pop along to the local maternity clinic, encourage a bit of breathing, indulge in a touch of gas and air and out would pop the most delightful birthday present.

Things don’t always go according to plan. For a start, in my day expectant fathers were kept away from the gas and air.

Displaying a trait that she has continued ever since, Becky decided to hang on a day before arriving in the world. Not only that she decided to make such a big thing about her arrival that her mother-to-be was whisked across the county to the district hospital in an ambulance with sirens blaring and lights flashing. I was left to keep up as best I could – and as I didn’t know where the hospital was, I ended up following the ambulance through the red lights.

It is difficult to explain the feeling of elation I felt at becoming a father. Or to explain the walking on air feeling I experienced for months afterwards – and remember all of this was without the aid of gas and air!

Today, I am just as proud of my little girl. She’s now turned twenty-one. By all of the accepted social standards she is now grown up. Yet she remains my little girl and I love her as much today as I did the moment she stuck her gunky head into the world and started bawling.

Congratulations Becky (yes, I know you prefer to be called Rebecca, but you will always be Becky to me). Welcome to adulthood. I am immensely proud of how you’ve turned out. You have an unconditional love that a father has for his children and not matter what; you will always be my little girl.

From 14th June 2006, the industry standard Crozzy Standard has been applied to footnotes.

NOTE 1: The UK doesn’t have a statute of limitations on heinous crimes. Not only do British criminals have to live with a guilty conscience for the rest of their lives, they also live in fear that the knock on the door isn’t the long arm of the law catching up on their paperwork. I guess I have just made it easy for them. I guess that I should get ready to say sorry and start working on a good mitigation speech. Click to return

NOTE 2: While I remember, I should thank everyone for their kind birthday wishes. I felt a touch low over the weekend and all you kind wishes lifted me. Thank you all. Special thanks to Kerry, Delectable Pet and NikkiD for publicising the event. Normally I wouldn’t want to be reminded I was entering my 50th year, but yesterday all of the goodwill messages were a real fillip. Click to return

TECHNORATI TAGS : Birthday ; Tribute ; Twenty-one ; Daughter.

A Little Boost

Synaptic Tangents on Parallel Tracks.

I know my patient yeomen, it has been a while since I posted. Sadly, this is just a passing blog that will meander rather rapidly to a point.

I don’t know about you, but level crossings have a strange effect on me. When the lights begin to flash and the barriers come down, my first feeling is one of annoyance because of the delay.

Then there is this fleeting temptation. A little voice whispers, “go on – floor it!” – and I have to fight the urge to try and beat the falling red and white gates.

Next comes a feeling of expectation as I await the arrival of the train. I’m not sure why, but I always expect to be halted by an express being hauled by a steam locomotive. (Note 1) Every time I have this romantic notion that there will be a cloud of steam and smoke flash past hauling Pullman coaches. As I sit in my motorised tin can, I would see finely dressed passengers enjoying kippers in the restaurant or perhaps Hercule Poirot exercising his grey matter over a coffee.

As is the way with life, instead I am treated to a little local chug-along train with the passengers obscured by years of grime. Worse, like today it could be a slow, goods train hauling wagon after wagon ironically marked with ‘Roadstone’.

Despite this, I still give in to my little weakness. I sit and watch the train go by but make all of the little sound effects in my head. (Note 2) Suddenly I am a child again, with my head filled with all the “woo-woo” and “chuffer-chuffer” noises.

Today, I also thought of the ‘Little Engine Who Could’. That rather charming story of how positive thought (“I think I can… I think I can… I think I can… I know I can… I KNOW I can.”) can help us overcome challenges. I found myself thinking how important it is that sometimes we spend a little time out to help give our friends a bit of encouragement.

Come on; admit it, sometimes we all need a little lift and a little boost. When we get it, there is a lovely warm feeling and all of a sudden, we find that we have hauled our burden over the crest of the hill.

Today my fine yeomen, I ask you to give Delectable Pet a little boost. Pet is up for a Canadian Gold Star award. Winning this award will give her a much needed boost. So please, pop over to the awards site and vote for her. It will really brighten her day.

From 14th June 2006, the industry standard Crozzy Standard has been applied to footnotes.

NOTE 1: Which is strange as Steam locomotives disappeared from the British railway system before I was born. I have never actually travelled on a steam train that went anywhere except back to where we parked the car. Click to return

NOTE 2: Although as the barrier lifts, I always find my mind going to one of the few pieces of poetry I have ever been able to tolerate - Night Mail’ by WH Auden. Just try reading that poem without finding yourself sat in a railway carriage with the wheels going ‘clickety-clack’ over the tracks. Click to return

TECHNORATI TAGS : Train ; Crossing ; Pullman ; Auden.

Geek Quest for the Google Coloured Whelk

This is Kerry’s search result. Sadly my results don’t match this.

Friends! Yeomen! And errrm…. Whelk fanatics, lend me your ears!

I don’t want your ears really. Although I guess they would look on a nice mahogany mount hung over the fireplace in the billiard room. What I want is for you to make a blog entry for me as part of our Google Bomb experiment.

Simply copy and paste the part of this entry describing the different coloured whelks into your own (I’ve put a guide into the text), give it a heading, choose a photo if the whim takes you – just as long as you leave the list of the coloured whelks as is. This will help ensure that everyone’s coloured whelk makes it into Google without being eaten. You don’t even need to worry about the links because they will be maintained if you use the standard compose blog entry screen they will be copied over as well!

Thank you and HAPPY EASTER!

===COPY FROM HERE===

I am Magnolia Whelk.
Liss has decided that she is Magenta Whelk.
Lookwhatthecatdragged in is Periwinkle Whelk.
Mousepotato is Shocking Pink Whelk.
Blogiversarry girl, Kerry is Asparagus Green Whelk.
Sean is Burnt Umber Whelk.
Lee is Crimson Whelk.
Stu is Caspian Blue Whelk.
BJ is Vivacious Violet Whelk.
Eskimo is Ember Whelk.
Ali R is Turquoise Whelk.
Gypsy is Sage Green Whelk.
Chloe is Ocean Whelk.
Fuzzy Slippers is Aubergine Whelk.
Karma Chimera is Puce Whelk. More Power to Your Whelks!

===TO HERE===

TECHNORATI TAGS : Google ; Bomb ;whimsy ; Magnolia ; Whelk.

Magnolia Whelks and Miserable Failures

Getting yourself noticed.

My bipedal yeomen, the rather horrible truth is that I am stuck for a topic today. After following a set of instructions to make coloured egg bread, I appear to have decimated the kitchen and traumatised the cat. I almost wavered and gave you the link to enable you to have your own attempt, but there is enough suffering in the world already. Besides, I think that you have to be some kind of contortionist to make the stuff properly.

Yet again, I digress. In my search for a topic, I went to the BBC News website and started a leisurely surf. I wasn’t to be disappointed. I came across an article discussing “Google Bombs”. Now excuse me for the moment if I don’t give you any links, but I have my reasons. (Note 1)

Now hands up any curious yeomen who have entered their own names into Google to see what pops up? Quite a few of you, I would imagine. This could be because my imagination is impaired this morning and I am jumping to this conclusion based on the fact that I quite regularly indulge. Sadly, when I enter my name, the Senior Lecturer in organic chemistry at the University of Kent tops the list.

It could be a trick of the synapses, but I think I have known about the manipulation of search engines for some time. In the ‘olden days’ of the internet you could raise your site up the listings by repeating keywords on your page. I also knew that nowadays the search engines are more sophisticated and fooling them required more art.

I also knew that up until recently, if you entered “miserable failure” into Google and hit the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button it would take you here.

I just didn’t connect the two until I read this article on Google Bombs.

Once the connection was made though, I’m afraid my mischievous streak kicked in. (Note 2)

If it really is that simple to fool the search engines, why don’t we give it a try?

I have a cunning plan - a geeky quest if you will.

We all choose a colour – I’ve chosen magnolia because it goes with my slippers. Then we all add the word ‘whelk’ to that colour. Then we simply add a link to each other’s homepage under that title. So, a link to my page would be labelled Magnolia Whelk.

Before you know it we should be enter our coloured whelks into Google and see our names high up the search results! By that I mean entering ‘magnolia whelk’ into Google will see my 360 page in the results – who knows, maybe even top of the results!

So, leave a comment under this entry stating your chosen colour and I will add the links – just remember to return the favour and link to my 360 page with the label Magnolia Whelk.

Would you look at that, the colour nominations are coming in already!

Liss has decided that she is Magenta Whelk.
Lookwhatthecatdragged in is Periwinkle Whelk.
Mousepotato is Shocking Pink Whelk.
Blogiversarry girl, Kerry is Asparagus Green Whelk.
Sean is Burnt Umber Whelk.
Lee is Crimson Whelk.
Stu is Caspian Blue Whelk.
BJ is Vivacious Violet Whelk.
Eskimo is Ember Whelk.
Ali R is Turquoise Whelk.
Gypsy is Sage Green Whelk.
Chloe is Ocean Whelk.
Fuzzy Slippers is Aubergine Whelk.
Karma Chimera is Puce Whelk.
OK, that’s it – the list is closed for now!

Now I better be off and have a dried frog pill. I have this horrible feeling that this post made no sense at all.

From 14th June 2006, the industry standard Crozzy Standard has been applied to footnotes.

NOTE 1: Well, as I just wandered off to go do some little chore, I thought about this and decided that there isn’t any good reason why I don’t share with you a link to explain Google Bomb. There you go then, that was a link. Looking back at the text, I have totally forgotten what I was going to write. My brain is away on a different planet this morning. Perhaps I should wander off and dribble aimlessly in a cornerClick to return

NOTE 2: It is probably a shock for you to learn that I have a mischievous streak. Thankfully, I keep it very well hidden and hardly ever act upon it. If I did you would find me visiting your pages leaving strange or cryptic notes. On really bad days, when the haemorrhoids goblin is out and about tweaking the low hanging fruit, I have been known to deliberately grab at the wrong end of sticks or flirt outrageously. Click to return

TECHNORATI TAGS : potato ; Google ; Waffle ; Bomb ;whimsy ; Magnolia ; Whelk.