There’s a document doing the rounds on the Internet now which gives directions to Amarillo – from London Heathrow airport, at least.

These songs were all recorded before the age of mass communication, I guess, but the telephone was in general use.

Why does sweet Marie not call Tony and give him directions to her town, instead of just waiting.

It reminds me of the song about the woman lost on her way to San Jose.

“Do you know the way to San Jose?” she sings, over and over. I don’t understand it, because she also says “I’ve got a lot of friends in San Jose” – OK then, why don’t you call one of them?

Or, buy a map. I recall (though I may be mistaken as I don’t have the lyrics in front of me) that she went to Los Angeles to seek stardom. LA can make you a star, but it can’t tell you the way back home, even though that’s where you came from in the first place…

All you need to do is turn round and retrace your steps.

But that wouldn’t make a song, I guess.

What about “Sesame Street”? Now, I can forgive little children for not knowing the way (though shouldn’t they be with a responsible adult?) – but I thought they met with the ‘friendly neighbours’ every day. You think they’d get used to the route after a week or so? Hey, don’t some of them live on Sesame Street?

Any other geographically-challenged songs? At least “24 Hours from Tulsa” didn’t mention getting lost – and that’s a long journey.

Guest Blogging

Hello to anyone who has clicked through from Problogger as a result of the announcement that I will be a guest author during June (heh, I’d better find out exactly when Darren is going away…)

To my other readers, why not take a look the other way, at Darren’s blog Problogger. Full of very interesting material whatever sort of blogger you might be. It also has links to some of Darren’s other blogs.

Introduction to Andy Merrett

If you are new to this blog, you may wonder what it’s about. It is really my personal blog, so it is not as tightly themed as either some of my other blogs, or the blogs of others who I am sharing the honours of guest-blogging with.

I don’t think I’ve ever really said much about me here, but you’d get a glimpse of what I think and feel from reading through the archives.

The “pastoral activist” title changed only a few days ago, and you can read a little about its conception here.

So, I can’t guarantee the contents of this blog from day to day – you might like my style all the time, some of the time, or none of the time. You can see from both my subject tree and my blogroll that I have a fairly wide interest, including technology, ethics, media, culture, comedy, blogging, the internet and life in general – pretty big remit eh?

Maybe (hint, hint) I’m just one of those blogs you add to your RSS feedreader and peruse from time to time – sometimes I say some useful stuff, sometimes controversial. I love getting and responding to comments.

In any case, thanks for visiting, and I hope you enjoy my guest authoring at Robotics.

PS: Hmm, I think I should maybe already have started – I think FredOnSomething is my co-author. I hate that ‘missed the bus’ feeling – but then there were probs with the intercontinental email so I have an excuse (and I left my PE kit at home)

It’s hard to be sociable with work colleagues out of hours when the popular pastime is going to the pub and getting blind drunk, possibly followed by staggering to a nightclub and getting paralytic.

That’s just not my style.

As a student, I did this from time to time – I wasn’t proud of it, I didn’t like it.

I like socialising, and I like going to pubs – I just don’t like living in them and losing all sense of mind, balance and constitution.

I like a few drinks – even that’s pushing it these days. Maybe a couple of pints or a couple of glasses of red wine.

I’ve had some unfortunate cocktail moments, and I won’t be touching those in large measure again.

I don’t understand the predominantly British culture of getting drunk as often as possible, then boasting about it as an achievement. All it achieves is losing a lot of money (and often, effectively, vomiting it down the drain). I’d rather save my time and money for things I’ll remember and enjoy.

Most of my friends aren’t into this sort of culture either – I suppose that’s not a surprise, as the groups are by nature quite different. Don’t get me wrong; I get on with my colleagues but I’m just not into the social attachments. Quite apart from anything else, it’s boring sitting in a pub all evening – the drink just makes it go quicker and be easily forgettable.

LordRich has written about an idea for green web hosting:

..starting a datacentre somewhere nearer the equator, running it all on solar power and selling green web hosting. California would be my personal choice of location, something tells me Bradford wouldn’t be the ideal location and there’s plenty of anarchogeeks in San Francisco

Cool. Now I just need to hook my computer up to an exercise bike and I’m green on computer use, too.

I’m really thrilled that spammers choose to share the details of their sex lives with me – no really I am.

Take Rachael Ludwig, for example. Her partner is quite a bit older than her; he took the first 50mg of “the blue pill” and nothing happened, so he took another one. Not surprisingly, the effects lasted all night.

However, Aliz Dowdy tells me that just 25mg is required for the same purpose, and at a very cheap rate, which is good to know.

Thanks for sharing guys!

Mike Richards writes a witty post about the new puzzle phenomenon:

It was when I discovered I already had two 4s in the square already was when I lost my temper with today’s Sudoku. I had struggled from Epsom to just outside Vauxhall, entertaining the other passengers with the overture to Wagner’s “Tannhauser� on my newly-acquired I-Pod, before discovering my numeric mistake. I have tried the Times’ “Sudokus� – tomorrow I shall be doing “The Sport’s�. This is like the “Times� but rather than have numbers they have porn stars from the 70s. Having failed maths O-level three times I applaud such methods. I might also subscribe to the Ipswich Evening Star, where numbers are replaced by nine different-shaped sugar beets.

Brilliant. Read the full article.

Following my post on what visitors to my site search for, Recidivist writes about some searches on The Recidivist Journals.

Comedian Alexei Sayle has been promoting “Volunteers Week 2005″ which starts on 1st June.

“It’s important to do something more than a casual gesture, like buying a charity record. That’s egotistical. For me, volunteering is a good way of putting something back and it’s practical.” Comedian Alexei Sayle volunteers at the Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Park

Alexei works nearby and often unwinds by helping out with whatever tasks are needed at the ecology park. He may do weeding, digging, helping with plants, or anything else that is needed.

Read the whole article here.

Quick Links: Kirstie Allsopp
Channel 4 Homes: Kirstie Allsopp
We Luv Kirstie – unofficial Kirstie Allsopp site
Kirstie Allsopp Bio

Quick Links: Sarah Beeny
Channel 4 Homes: Sarah Beeny
My Single Friend – Sarah Beeny’s dating site (no, really)
Sarah Beeny blog

Update: 12 October 2005:

Find out the results of the experiment so far. Is Sarah really more popular?

Update: 4 October 2005:

I’m starting to feel a bit guilty now. The hits kept on coming steadily, and then tonight there was quite a surge of people looking for Sarah Beeny.

Perhaps it’s because Property Ladder is on Channel 4 again?

I wish I could help you more with photos and stuff, but I haven’t got time. Honestly, this was just a bit of fun…

All I’ve managed to find out since last time is that Sarah has now started her own dating site.

Can you believe it?

Update: 10 August 2005:

Hello Motley Fool readers, and thanks to kebabshop for linking to me.

Here’s a statistical update, for anyone still reading who is either interested or hasn’t realised there are no decent pictures of either Sarah or Kirstie here:

In July, I had approx 404 searches for Sarah Beeny, and 73 for Kirstie Allsopp (including misspellings). This gives Sarah about 84% of the ‘vote’.

In August, so far, I had approx 125 searches for Sarah Beeny and 39 for Kirstie Allsopp (including people searching for ’sex pictures’ (hey, I’m not loading this page up with keywords, honest!)). This gives Sarah about 76% of the ‘vote’.

None of this includes direct links from other sites, as I can’t be bothered to work out who they were talking about, or who people are more likely to prefer (though it’s probably Sarah)

The first post at Motley Fool asks What do people fancy about her? – why not answer below (if you can’t be bothered to register at Fool, good though it is)

Update: 3 August 2005:

I’ve been re-linked from Mad Dog whose idea I originally stole. Fun eh?

Update: 14 July 2005:

My clinically-controlled trial (not), shows that Sarah is much more popular than Kirstie. Of 180 web searches that brought people to this page, Sarah took approximately 87% of the share, whilst Kirstie took the remaining 13%.

If I had to choose, I’d be in the 13%, but I guess more people prefer blondes.

Here’s a pie chart – just because I can…

Update: 13 July 2005:

Here’s a Google image search for Sarah Beeny and here’s one for Kirstie Allsopp.

Sean’s Kirstie site appears to be down at the moment – maybe too many of you are clicking on it.

I’m feeling guilty now as you’re all arriving here – particularly for Sarah – and I don’t even watch the programmes they’re in.

Some people coming from Google Canada – is Sarah an export?

Update: 12 July 2005: Well, as lots of you are arriving here looking for pics, and I was just experimenting, I thought I should at least help you out.

Kirstie fans: Sean runs a site (which I am not getting commission from!) so you might want to pop over there.

Any resources for Sarah?

Well I found this post about Kirstie Allsop (who I have heard of, and seen on various property shows) and Sarah Beeny (who I hadn’t heard of, but apparently also takes part in property shows).

So I thought I’d join in. The original post quotes:

First of all I must apologise for The Sun-esque title of this piece. It’s not my style to be gratuitously lewd but you’ll catch my drift in a bit. Last month (see post for April 15) I made mention of changes in UK popular culture since I left for the USA nearly 4 years ago and specifically how certain people had since risen to prominence. Two individuals I mentioned were Sarah Beeny and Kirstie Allsopp. I had absolutely no idea who these women were except that incorrigible blogger, Scaryduck, keeps referring to them in a way that involves improbable fantasies with large quantities of baby oil (and I think he mentioned a melon on one occasion). Now it seems I am not the only one in the dark as several readers appear to be equally clueless but all I can say is that I’m getting an awful lot of hits from Google searches for this pair. And all because I casually mentioned their names! So I thought that this post would serve two purposes: (1) It would enlighten readers who have somehow missed out on the ascendance of two Brit TV celebs and (2) It’s a cheap way to increase my site traffic!

Well we’ll see. It’s quite a sad way to increase traffic, particularly as there’s no useful information (or pictures) of said female presenters. Maybe you should try the Channel 4 site for real info on the people and programmes they present.

Will this article get loads of hits? Will I be flamed for wasting people’s time with irrelevant postings? Time will tell…