Life is elsewhere

Hello, I’m not using this site at the moment – head on over to pauldalgarno.com if you’d like to keep up with things,

Cheers

Help me do something epic (even if they don’t let me ride)

[ARTICLE UPDATED ON OCTOBER 1, SEE END]

I’m being hassled by the Ride to Conquer Cancer people. Someone from Peter Mac phones me every other week, asking how my fundraising is going. “It’s going OK,” I say. “It’s not bad”. Can they do anything for me? “No, I’ll be fine,” I say. “Thanks for calling.”

I’ve raised $591 so far, and need to reach a total of $2,500 before the deadline on October 5 – nearly two grand. Gulp.

A couple of people have told me I won’t be allowed to take part in the event unless I raise the dough – and the ride website seems to back this up. That strikes me as unnecessarily punitive. What will happen to the money people have already donated if I don’t make it? Is a little cash not better than no cash?

I’m being pressured by the ride’s organisers in unsubtle ways. They want me to feel their pressure, and to act upon it, so that they can:

a) earn an honest wage

b) pump money into research that may or may not advance understanding and treatment of an illness that’s guaranteed to cast a shadow over most people’s lives.

The unrelenting – and unremittingly friendly – badgering from those Peter Mac callers is probably why I’m writing this now.

My fundraising effort to date has been modest.

I stopped letting Peter Mac post to my Facebook timeline on my behalf a couple of months ago because it felt like they were spamming my friends. And I haven’t acted on any of the emails from the organisation – like the one below – for much the same reason:

Paul,

Are you ready for The Ride? It’ll be here before you know it! Now is the time to kick your fundraising into high gear. Be sure to ask all potential donors for contributions. We’ve made it easy to ask, just forward them our template email below.

Here’s how it works:

1. Click FORWARD

2. In the subject line type “Help me do something epic!”

3. Delete everything above the ********** line

4. Enter in the email addresses of your friends and family in the TO: field.

5. Press SEND!

************Delete this line and everything above it!************

I’m doing something big about cancer, something epic. I’m cycling for two days in the inaugural Ride to Conquer Cancer benefiting the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre. AND I’m so committed to the cause that I’m fundraising at least $2,500! That’s why I am asking you for a donation to my fundraising account. Your contribution will play a role in the quest to conquer cancer.

Please visit my personal page and donate today:

http://ml12.conquercancer.org.au/site/R?i=2Y-TOEKrbYOi4t-DqKvcUw

Thank you in advance for your generosity!

Paul

I’d feel a bit weird sending that message to people I know – but, hey, it could be the cash cow I need.

Of course I have personal reasons for doing a ride to support cancer research. Most people, I’m sure, have charities picked for them by circumstance. I’ve yet to meet anyone with Escher Hirt syndrome but if I had, or if I’d been born with it, that would no doubt be my charity cause of choice.

I don’t expect the ride on October 27 and 28 to be physically demanding. I’ll be riding 200km over two days “out of majestic Melbourne as the urban landscape gradually gives way to the rolling hills and vineyard views of the world-class wine region of Yarra Valley”.

I’d be surprised if we leave the city at race pace. I predict both days will be far easier on my legs than the training rides I do with friends most weekends.

But I do expect it to be emotional. I imagine I’ll see and meet people who are going through all kinds of suffering, and not just on their bikes. I hope to talk to some of them, to ride beside them, to hear what they have to say. And even to act as their domestique if they’re finding the going difficult.

For that to happen, from what I understand, you need to donate whatever money you can spare to my personal fundraising page right away.

Thanks.

Update, October 1 2012:

So, I’m just off the phone with a guy from Peter Mac. Turns out the minimum I can raise and be “allowed” to do the ride this month is $2500. At present I’m sitting at $1000 (which I’m pretty happy with), and the deadline’s later this week.

I asked the guy whether people who have sponsored me so far would get their money back if I didn’t do the ride, given I’d be forfeiting the challenge; and, no, they won’t be – technically they have “donated” rather than “sponsored”, which is a clear distinction.

The guy said they’d be able to grant an extension on my deadline until post-ride, meaning I’d have until December to raise the dough. But this would involve me giving Peter Mac my credit card details and giving them permission to make up the difference – currently $1500 – if I fall short of the target.

He asked me to email everyone I know three times this week to ask for money, which I’m not prepared to do – I reckon there are loads of good causes and loads of people doing things to raise money for them; I don’t want to hassle people beyond the emails, blogs and tweets I’ve written already.

In short, donate if you want – regardless of the tactics, cancer research is as important as ever, and something I’m still happy to donate to – but there’s a growing likelihood I won’t be doing the ride. Frankly, I can’t afford $1500 or anywhere near it.

To those of you who have donated money, thanks a million: I’ve been a bit blown away by your kindness and generosity.

Apologies if you believed – as no doubt thousands of people do – your donation was contingent on someone actually doing something. On the plus side, it’s going to a good cause, even if the strategy employed by the company is, at best, disingenuous.

I dream of Carmen Miranda, and waking up with an Aussie banana

Ooh, yeah, I'd be smiling too.

At the weekends, I sometimes stand with my kids and wife in the supermarket watching the bananas. There are fewer than there used to be, and they’re way more expensive.

Where bananas of old were yellow, many now have a silver tinge: they’ve been rubbed to a shine by the curious and the envious – even though store security guards are under strict orders to smack your fingers with a ruler if they see you stroking the merchandise.

My sallow-cheeked boys look up at me as the well-to-do barge past us, lift one of the few remaining bunches and sweep through the checkout.

I smile and say: Daddy’s sorry.

A bog-standard Cavendish these days sets you back $3.50, or $15 a kilo – nearly 20 times dearer than Britain, where they retail for 18c.

They’ve shot up 470% since my arrival in Oz. How I rue those banana–taken-for-granted days.

You rarely see the dainty Lady Fingers variety any more – only when you look through the window of a high-class restaurant, salivating and banging on the window, as some posho rams one into their gob.

You don’t have to peel back the layers very far to see the problem’s due to Cyclone Yasi in February, Cyclone Larry in 2006, flooding and mudding in the north.

Australia has gone from producing 550,000 trays a week to as few as 35,000.

Trade restrictions mean you can’t import them legally; but something of a black-spotted market may yet come to fruition … the country’s ripe for it.

We get a weekly fruit delivery at work with loads of oranges. But I don’t want an orange. I want a banana. And I want one now.

Thanks to a frosty winter, the nanas that have made it through are of poor quality.

The one time I did splurge, a few months ago, slicing the banana into four equal parts and serving these with water for a special weekend family meal, it didn’t taste the way I’d hoped it would. A bit dry, a bit stringy.

My boys are potassium-deprived – we all are. We gather together to watch Bananas in Pyjamas – it has become our favourite show.

I’ve found myself whistling songs by Bananarama.

We’ve talked as a family about bananas we have known in the past.

I read somewhere years ago that the world’s bananas, after 1,500 years of agressive inbreeding, now come almost exclusively from two wild species, musa acuminata and musa balbisiana, and as such are vulnerable to extinction.

I was concerned enough at the time to write a song about it. It seems I was way ahead of the curve.

Of course, it’s the hope that kills you. I dream at night of six-foot, seven-foot, eight-foot bunches … then wake to realise it’s all come to naught.. 

State news on the topic is infrequent and unreliable. They say it’s going to get better, that we’ll soon we swimming in peel … But maybe this is to quell the riots.

Meanwhile, I stroke my boys’ heads in their cots at night, tell them I love them.

It’s all I can do.

Some 99.9% of life forms that ever existed have gone extinct, including 29 other two-footed ape species. We’re hanging on in the last 0.1%, alongside bananas – but for how long?

Chiquita, you and I know, how the heartaches come and go.

Vipassana meditation: keep calm and carry gum

The concept of Noble Silence is fundamental to Vipassana meditation. You don’t talk to anyone for the duration of your stay; you don’t make eye contact; you refrain from singing show tunes in the shower.

By extension, no-one talks or makes eye contact with you. I’ve been to parties in Edinburgh like this, so have no objections in principle.

But this time was different. After being told about the facilities, and reminded we couldn’t leave the site for the next four days, Noble Silence descended. That was in the kitchen block at 7.50pm on Thursday, 10 minutes before the first sitting.

At 7.53pm, in my dorm, I realised I’d left my toothbrush at home. I realised this with my hand, inside my backpack, groping frantically. I had the paste but not the brush.

I rummaged through the bag again. And again. Socks. Panties. But no brush. I drew the curtain across my cubicle and considered suicide. Then I bit my clenched fist, shook it at the gods and mouthed the word Scheiße several times.

My mute dorm-buddies made haste arranging their sleeping bags, toiletries, crack pipes … and there was I, Mr No Brush, twisting in the wind of Woori Yallock.

I sat on the slats of my rudimentary bed, looked at the bare plywood walls, feeling like a prisoner of war …

In the meditation hall, I crossed my legs, wrapped a woolly blanket round my shoulders, back and legs.

Sadly, we didn’t get to see Goenka on VHS, but I was happy to hear him on cassette after three and a half years.

He was the same old Goenka: equanimous as anything, enlightened as bits.

Learn to master your mind, one debilitating leg cramp at a time.

It takes a while to get into it, of course. You breathe in, breathe out, think about your toothbrush, your teeth, your frigging toothbrush …

I would survive the night, but would I make it to Sunday evening? My poor gnashers: I wouldn’t have blamed them if they jumped ship.

I tried controlling my faculties, reminding myself it’s all impermanent, annica, annica … that sensations arise, pass away …

It was Baltic outside the meditation hall – a full moon, clear sky. In the sleeping quarters, the warm smell of my dorm-buddies’ bodies was repulsive and weirdly welcoming.

I thought of the men in Stalag Luft III and other containment camps … my brothers.

In the bathroom unit, I claimed one of four sinks, then sooked a fat blob of Colgate from the tube and tried to swill with it.

This required considerable oral oomph. It was tart; my eyes streamed a beauty.

Passingly satisfied with the fluoride coating, I used my index and middle fingers as a brush.

It was rubbish.

The prisoners at the other sinks brushed as if they’re lives depended on it. One guy in particular thrashed his molars, working up a lather, purging the surface of his tongue.

I watched this in my peripheral vision, while pretending not to, which meant my fellow PoW’s could probably see me too. But as I gagged, I knew we were all gagged: I couldn’t ask for help and they couldn’t slag me off.

Someone banged a gong at 4am on Friday for the first meditation of the day.

It started well. I got some good Anapana in, some decent chill.

We had to focus exclusively on the breath lapping against our philtrums; but in time my gob started mouthing off in my mind’s eye.

Quit your chitter chatter.

I once asked my dentist, post scraping, how long it would take for new plaque to form.

“Hahahahahahahah,” he said, darting a glance at his female assistant, who in retrospect he was probably banging.

“Oh Paul,” he said. “Hahahaha. It’s started already.”

I replayed this scene against the back of my eyelids a few times. It was 18 hours since my last brush, 54 or so to the next one.

My philtrum twitched.

Day one’s objective was simply still the mind. Have you ever stilled the mind? It’s not simple.

You think you’re getting there, but no – off it goes, for a minute, an hour, a month …

As the cranium quietens, you start seeing how these distractions and reactions form. For me, one went something like this:

I felt my shoulders loosening …

… saw a thread getting caught on clothing, drawing the fabric together in tight, little waves …

… thought this was a good analogy for my relaxing shoulders …

… recalled how satisfying it is when you pull the fabric and it straightens out …

 … wondered how I’d put that feeling into words …

… convinced myself this thread-catching happens only in nylon …

… pondered the production and use of synthetic polymers …

… got a sudden mental image of my gran’s navy nylon trousers …

… remembered she had passed away …

… started crying.

It’s true what Moses said: the brain’s a mental organ.

By Friday evening my mouth was a festering moth. I could use a sock to clean my teeth, I thought, a T-shirt but, no …

Escape was an option, however remote. Had I not seen, just that morning, two burly laundry men picking up adult-sized bags of linen and throwing them with abandon into a laundry truck? No, I hadn’t.

Ultimately, you’re responsible for your own liberation.

There was plenty of plywood to shore up a tunnel. I could shake earth from my pajama bottoms before the next sitting.

After my last Vipassana course, I was told someone had tried escaping in the dead of night and was “persuaded” to stay – i.e. caught in the carpark and beaten to a meditative pulp by the volunteer management.

How many others have simply disappeared, “become enlightened”, “transcended”?

Naturally, I’d given the site a pretty good recce in my spare time.

A few acres, fenced in; trees around the perimeter; fields stretching to the horizon across the Yarra Valley. If they sent the rottweilers after me I’d be dead in no time.

Under cover of darkness, I kicked some stones about, edged closer to the site carpark.

There were no guntowers as such, but structures either side of the gate: one was disguised as a prefabricated hut, the other as a moss-laden caravan. If I could make it to the car, anything was possible.

I knew there was a Coles supermarket about three miles east, full of brushes – a hair brush would do, a broom, a lint remover.

When the pre-dawn gong went on Saturday, I squeezed more Colgate into my moosh.

Meditation halls the world over are dark and cold at this time of day, which makes it hard to see people sitting there. You knee them in the head as you pass, and can’t even apologise.

You have to get to your cushion, get your blanket on, your hoodie up, yawn, crack your knuckles, scratch your nuts.

My brain was still engaged with Goenka’s free-ranging discourse from the night before.

Goenka: Observe your sensations …

Brain: Gum disease, swollen tongue …

Goenka: Let go of attachments …

Brain: A brush, a brush, a brush …

Goenka: Focus on your breath …

Brain: Erm …

Goenka: Be happy …

Brain: I can’t …

Each time my tongue tapped furry enamel my desire to escape intensified. At several points my mutinous mind wandered out to the tea tree forest on the site’s western perimeter.

I’d sneaked into it the day before, and cut a path through the trees until seeing signs warning me not to go any further.

I’d stood there for an hour and a half singing Leonard Cohen songs.

The signs were alluding to the fact there was, just a few steps away, a sheer drop to near-certain death down a treacherous gully.

But if I survived I could be up to the supermarket and back in an hour, provided my ankles weren’t broken, the gashes in my bonce not too severe.

Was that Lili Marlene gleaming by the barrack gate?

I’m doing it, I thought, still sitting, knees blow-torch burning – I’m escaping.

No, yes, no, yes, no …

The clunk of the penny dropping, that I’d given the course manager my wallet and phone for “safe keeping”, wasn’t pleasant. It knocked the wind from my sails.

Even if I survived the fall, fought off rabid wallabies and made it into Coles in blood-stained pajama bottoms with bad hair and feral mouth, what was I going to do? Ask them to give me a toothbrush for free? Steal one?

You really miss sugar after a while.

I denied myself honey in my ginger tea for the third night in a row on Saturday … Mr McCavity said no in no uncertain terms.

This bugged me. This bugged me a lot. The drink was the only sustenance permitted between 11.30am and 8.30am the next morning.

That did it. I cracked.

I left the kitchen block and bumbled cautiously though the darkness, arms outstretched. I crossed some rough terrain en route to the course manager’s accomodation.

I climbed some steps. Faint light escaped through a gap in his curtains.

When he opened the door we made eye contact, and I laid the whole thing out straight/ slightly sheepishly:

“A problem … I’ve got a big problem … My teeth … haven’t brushed them … my gums hurt … I need a brush …”

The course manager nodded and bowed slightly. “We sell brushes here on site,” he said. “If you come with me, I’ll get you one.”

Part 2 of 2. Read part one, Vipassana meditation: before you go, here.

Vipassana meditation: before you go

I’m driving to a place called Woori Yallock in two hours to sit still, or slightly fidgety, for three whole days.

I call it “sitting still” because saying “going to meditate” unsettles me.

I fear it comes across as showing poor judgement or new-ageyness, both of which could be dangerous.

Article 26 in the Journalistic Code of Ethics, right below phone hacking, and lying about phone hacking, expressly forbids: “hippydom, white-boy dreadlocks, and using ‘vibe’ to describe atmosphere.”

Telling people you’re going to meditate feels a bit like telling them you’re a veggie … which I am … oh shit, it’s not looking good.

But hey!

I know what Vipassana meditation involves because I did a ten-day course in 2008.

It’s demanding.

You can’t speak to anyone, look at anyone, touch anyone, write anything, read anything, listen to music, play with your phone, receive messages, yank your chain or kill anything. (The last one’s a particular strain).

You eat what the course volunteers cook you, nothing else – which is bearable for me because I’m a veggie.

You get woken with a gong at 4.30am and do ten hour-long sessions a day.

You sit on square cushions with poor yield, close your eyes and feel searing pain in all your joints.

You learn things about boredom you’d never have imagined, but mainly that it’s incredibly boring.

On the plus side:

There’s no special breathing.

No demand for the lotus position.

No guru, unless you count SN Goenka, who delivers infrequent pep talks by rolling VHS.

No lighting of candles.

No chanting.

No totems.

No leap of faith.

What goes through the mind during the sittings? What doesn’t go through the mind? Lot’s of stuff goes through, then returns for more, the majority of it utter bollocks.

Last time I noticed the White Album playing on repeat in the outskirts of my head: I tuned in for the Lennon tracks but Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da grated pretty badly after, ooh, five seconds. As for Piggies … I still can’t go there.

Of course, the album was remastered in 2009 so I’ll be listening this time for any small changes – less static, more hand claps, burps …

By day three, your monkey has nothing left to hide.

So why am I going?

I need to take stock.

I’m 35.
I live in a living room.
I’ve emigrated.
I’ve lost a much-loved gran.
I’ve gained a son.
I’ve seen another son growing into a little man.
I’ve started a new job.
I’ve got lost driving/ on foot/ on trains/ in conversation many hundreds of times.

Insights? Yes, yes, fine. But I was already sold with the promise of sitting in a room, in silence, doing nothing for three days.

Part 1 of 2. For part 2, click here.

Related

Radiohead, Seventh Seal, Klingon Death Cry

Sons and daughters

Developmental milestones for parents: crawling

Getting somewhere slowly

Scottish Ps, Australian Ts

People have been calling me Plosive Paul lately, largely cos I be poppin ps perpetually.

My bilabial occlusives, I’m told, are particularly aspirated. In phonetic script they look like this: /pʰ/ – which means air shoots from my gob at top speed with words such as pup or pip, as if I’m trying to spit out a piece of peppery poppadom or crepe … it’s crap.

Since being prepped on it I can’t help noticing – I’m looking to wrap it up, to stop; I’ve even considered getting an op.

While the escaping pop isn’t quite enough to knock propped-up postcards from mantlepieces, I’ve thought about procuring a Popper Stopper, those circular, black things on the front of microphones – with the help of a bendy coat hanger, I could wear one like a harmonica holder, like Bob Dylan, except I’d look like a proper prick.

And it wouldn’t be practical – I’d be caught on the hop, given these stops with rapid pops crop up pretty frequently.

It’s got on top of me, not least because I usually lop off the ends of words. I deal with my ts in the Aberdeen way, the guiding principle being: let them drop, or use a glottal stop.

So I don’t have a computer but a compu–er; I’m not a commuter but a commu–er; I don’t think something’s shit, but shi–; this t-culling happens a lo–: it’s jus– par– of being Sco––ish.

In the past, I didn’t feel the leas– bi– self-conscious rabi––ing on abou– my penchan– for Pulp’s grea–es– hi–s. Now I just think: tha– sounds crap, ya plosive pap.

I rue my missing ts because – in a cruel twist of fate – some Australians rock ts that would fear you. They rattle brittly from the end of words but also at the start and middle. As with my ps, these plosive ts are airy – /tʰ/ – with killer aspiration.

I’ve tried to ignore it, sweep it under the carpet. Of course, I take it – what choice do I have? – but it makes me uptight. It’s tantamount to a clout in the snout – or worse.

In layman’s terms the /tʰ/ sounds like “tih”, so listening to the news on earphones can feel somewhat-ih like a baseball bat-ih being whacked-ih off your nut-ih; it-ih’s almost-ih like being knocked-ih out-ih, mate-ih – what-ih’s it-ih all about-ih?

It might be a posho thing, because you only hear it in some places, but it puts the t squarely in WTF?

From an evolutionary point of view, Scotland and Australia are better off at opposite ends of the planet: running such volatile ps and ts together could change things from plosive to explosive in no time: one minute you’re giving it Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers; the next it’s: kaboom, ya Tupperware poop-face twat.

Even on a good day you’d keel over – it’s way too much air for a single person to expel, your pulmonary pipework would collapse.

Or perhaps not.

Maybe I could practise, pioneer, if a pal or mate put me up to it …

I’ll shut up.

P

Blogging’s best kept secret: when you look at me, I look at you

So you’ve learnt some top SEO tips, whacked the words Britney Spears and sex into every second headline, gained your first million subscribers and hyperlinked loads of cool stuff. People are falling over themselves to visit your site, right?

Well … WordPress, as I’ve written about before (click here), gives you the search terms people use en route to reading you. When I see “Innocent in Australia” or my name I sigh with relief and then say: “Go on, son, well done, mate, she’ll be right, we can do this! We can!”

But I see many other terms, too. Every fifth or sixth term these days is Stanford Who’s Who thanks to the post: Oprah Winfrey and the Stanford Who’s Who (click here).

I receive comments and messages from people – usually tales of woe. They find me because, when they type in “Standford Who’s Who”, I’m right up there, in third spot.

Go on, son! Go on!

But the biggest revelation is this: the search terms people use, and subsequently find you by, don’t relate to your headlines.

If you load your headlines with top search terms – Google is typed in 618 million times a month; Lady Gaga averages 25 million; Oprah gets 5 million – you’re facing extreme competition: unless your piece gains immediate momentum it will be swept to page 199 on Google, the end of the internet.

Far better to use terms people are looking for, but not in huge numbers. On average, 3,600 people a month search for Stanford Who’s Who and, when they do, I pounce on them.

Cracking the Shits is even less popular. Only 14o people search for this expression each month, but when they do, I’m waiting.

=

Well, done, mate, she'll be right.

Blogs are a two-way process. What I write gives insight into me; and the search terms people use to find me give insight into them.

The terms below – all from the last quarter – have stuck in my mind, and not always for good reasons. For the sake of illustration, I’ve divided them into character types, and present them complete with original spelling and syntax.

Many, as you would imagine, deal with sex – depraved, disturbing sex. I actually worry some of these sick bastards have become subscribers (although, if you have, woo-hoo!).

If you get the boak easily, skip the next few lines: they’re gross.

 Sexy beasts/ beasts

* teen boys giving milk to other by his cock

* dad shits in boys mouth

* visible g-string above jeans edge youtube

* middle age nudewomen and younge rmen horse leg

* melbourne house party orgy when please

* spanking with pan

* massive piss flaps

Medico-curious

* sick people snot

* snot and sneeze in your face you

* why do they call snot crows

* ahh right on my coccyx

* drop dead in australia

V-J Day curious

All of these relate to the picture, reproduced below, by Alfred Eisenstaedt. Though merely mentioned in passing in a post about the SNP victory in Scottish elections (click here), it’s been a nice little traffic driver – certainly more than the SNP has been (ungrateful bastards).

The "broken-back" move is a clear winner.

That said, no-one has actually searched for “Alfred Eisenstaedt’s Times Square photo”, but rather things like:

* man woman snogging after war lovely

* kiss nurse wars over

* kissing nurse stops war

Scotland curious

* bawbag

* gaun yersel

* your a bawbag chimp

* deck him

* why im proud to be from scotland

Australia curious

* is life in australia like neighbours

* is better australia or scotland

* bogan as

Seeking instruction

* how to break into holden nova

* how to get out of going to your dad’s

Sartorial

* where can you buy rastafarian hat in sydney

* cat flap british haircut

* rasta hats melbourne

* grey fitted blazer adelaide

Miscellaneous

* getting married at 8pm

* saltwater combover

* middle age man melbourne

* psychiatrists christmas card

* maroon bedroom ideas for kids

There’s one I rate above all others, though. I like to imagine the person who wrote it on their back in a driveway, a monkey wrench in one hand, a can of oil in the other. Though sweating and dirty, this person feels pretty pumped.

He or she stands up from the driveway and walks into the house, stepping out of the filthy overalls. Those biceps look pretty good in the mirror, don’t they?

Now, what shall I type into Google? I know:

* working on my car feeling manly

Go champ!

Thanks for reading.

Part 5 of 5

Click here for part 1

Click here for part 2

Click here for part 3

Click here for part 4

Hyperlinks (and tits)

The way hyperlinks are anchored or seeded in copy causes consternation in certain circles.

Essentially, it boils down to whether it’s better to say “click here“, thereby giving readers clear direction (a bit like someone shouting “jump” really loudly when your at the edge of a cliff), or to embed your links subtly as you go.

For sure, the constant clamouring of blue or purple lettering in an otherwise monotone text can be off-putting.

But it depends what’s being linked to: if it’s amazing tits or a big red dong, people are more likely to click.

A passing link to Synthesis of lamellar niobic acid nanorods via proton-exchange and their conversion to T-Nb2O5 nanorods is way less appealing – especially in an article about tits.

Because so few people read them, links are a labour of love on the part of the writer.

Getting to links means cracking through the ice of a text, rescuing those pages and pictures bobbing helplessly under the surface? – it’s an inconvenience, and generally you can’t be arsed.

They’re simply footnotes, or those little numbers in modern editions of Dickens next to “cutting the throats of the Graces” and other obscure phraseology. Who actually flicks to page 487 to get the full explanation? Erm, I do … sometimes.

In their defence, hyperlinks do a few important things:

1) They show there’s a primary source, whether or not you choose to verify it, even just to make sure the author’s not having a laugh at your expense.

2) Well thought-out hyperlinks give you more than the link to some crappy Wikipedia page or a some gigantic, scholarly tome. Done well, they add real value.

3) As the writer, if you can’t be arsed, they give you an opt-out from explaining sexual selection or macropodidae, or even describing something as simple as two kangaroos shagging in front of stunned boy.

One less obtrusive approach is the Easter egg link – seemingly random gifts that take your most diligent readers in new directions. Whether a word or a single letter, they’re saying: you won’t see me, but I’m here, blue and waiting, like the undead …

Sometimes links can lead you down a dirty black hole or to a horrific dead end, and that’s frustrating …

By the way, did you see the previous three posts in this series?

Click here to read How I got my first million blog subscribers
Click here to read Sex gives SEO a spanking
Click here to read Gaga Lady Spears Britney Claiming: Charlie Bit My Finger

How valuable have the insights been so far? What are people really looking for online?

More of that later … maybe tomorrow.

Part 4 of 5

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Click here for part 5

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How I got my first million blog subscribers

Whenever you see this headline or its many variations be very wary – they get you when you’re least expecting it, when you’re feeling needy of 1,000,000 readers. And beyond … the headline promises not just a million subscribers but your first million. There will be more. More!

This headline comes from the same stable as Get 1 Billion Twitter Followers in 4 Easy Steps and the like – it’s a confidence trick that’s by no means new.

We all know that, to make a million dollars, you write a book called How to Make a Million Dollars, Get Rich Quick, or Anyone Can Do it.

Not one of these books features a section by the author/ghostwriter explaining how they made their million(s) from reading this kind of book.

There’s a technical name for this kind of headline: wank.

It plays to the shortcut gene, the same one activated by Become a Judo Black Belt in 10 Minutes and How to Learn French in Five Short Lessons.

Have you ever met anyone who did this?

It’s far better to get up early in the mornin’, tryna make a move, like my good friend Fiddy, who offers practical, everyday tips on getting rich (or dying in the process). I find I’ll Whip Ya Head Boy particularly instructive.

I speak Spanish as the result of six years formal study and year-long/months-long chunks in Spanish-speaking countries, enormous dedication, prolonged, you know, trabajo.

When it comes to writing, the implication is that having more readers is better. And I agree. Anyone who writes would agree.

But subscriptions are not a guide to readership figures, only to people who have clicked on “subscribe”. Inboxes around the world creak under the weight of subscription emails never opened and never deleted, that have become, in a sense, invisible.

My preferred rule of thumb is this: if people get past the first four words of your piece you’re doing well. Anything else is a bonus.

If you can go one better and encourage optional extras – if anyone clicks on those painfully-researched hyperlinks, say – you’re a frigging legend.

How do you get people to click on those? More of that later … maybe tomorrow.

Part 3 of 5

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Sex gives SEO a spanking

Writing about sex is like painting sound – not easy. Edvard Munch tried to paint sound in his student-bedroom favourite The Scream, but that doesn’t sound like anything …

And yet the idea persists that sex sells in a written format. Why? Because it’s true. Just the mention of the word can get people’s legs twitching, regardless of how incongruous the link.

The UK’s 2002 Iraq Dossier, with it’s 45-minute claim, was racy; but the fact it was said to be “sexed up” gave it added frisson –  journalists everywhere had the horn for months, and any time “sexed up” could be used in a sentence or headline it was used.

Dr David Kelly, of course, who came forward as the source of the “sexed up claim”, committed suicide in woods near his Oxfordshire home shortly after the story broke – not hugely raunchy as an event, although people tried to sex even this up as a conspiracy involving MI5, oh, ah, ohhhh …

Why does sex play so well with readers? Because it’s way more alluring than famine, unless it’s a story about Teri Hatcher’s four year sex famine.

The keyword tool Google AdWords seems to back this up. The figures below chart the number of times words are entered into the company’s search engine. The numbers on the left are global monthly searches; those on the right are Australian monthly searches …

	fellatio		1,500,000	165,000
	sex		618,000,000	68,000,000
	spanking		5,000,000	1,500,000
	bum		7,480,000	673,000
	blowjob		9,140,000	3,350,000
	boobs		24,900,000	7,480,000
	knockers		201,000	90,500
	arse		1,500,000	201,000
	earthquake		11,100,000	5,000,000
	plague		1,220,000	550,000
	drought		550,000	246,000
	famine		1,220,000	550,000
	orgasm		7,480,000	2,740,000

You’ll notice “sex” trumps everything, with 618 million searches a month, roughly 606 million more than “earthquake”; and that nearly 7 million more people search for “bum” on a monthly basis than “drought”.

Of course, the internet’s about more than reading. One recent study found 85% of males and 15% of females view porn on the internet regularly. Other sources suggest the female porn-ogling figure may be closer to 60%, with 17% of women describing themselves as “addicted”.

Stuff you read about sex online tends to be biological (fine, if you like birds and mice), instructional (way too challenging physically) or “erotic” (usually rubbish).

Why rubbish? Because the text is loaded with voiceless velar plosives – the K sound mostly – “cock”, “suck” and “fuck” being the obvious ones; but also “silk”, “cape” and the almost-instantly-orgasmic “croquet” – go on, whack some balls … On the page, these words get boring really quickly.

Feathering and flirting with the issue at hand is key.

T.S Eliot called this the objective correlative: a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula for that particular emotion

Sex can be earnest; or surreal and earnest; or surreal and earnest and sinister. It can be meaningfully surreal, even if you can’t quite grasp the meaning; or excitingly earnest. But can sex be earnest and sinister without dirt? That’s virtually unimaginable … and undesirable. There’s no poetry without dirt.

The following passage is one of my favourites: a barmaid and land surveyor have sex on a grubby floor under the jovial gaze of two male “assistants” while the barmaid’s “master” moves about in the next room.

[…] they embraced each other, her little body burned in K.’s hands, in a state of unconsciousness which K. tried again and again but in vain to master as they rolled a little way, landing with a thud on Klamm’s door, where they lay among the small puddles of beer and other refuse gathered on the floor. There, hours went past, hours in which they breathed as one, in which their hearts beat as one, hours in which K. was haunted by the feeling that he was losing himself or wandering into strange country, farther than ever man had wandered before, a country so strange that not even the air had anything in common with his native air, where one might die of strangeness, and yet whose enchantment was such that one could only go on and lose oneself further.

And then: Where were his hopes? What could he expect from Frieda now that she had betrayed everything?

And then: He had spent a whole night wallowing in puddles of beer, the smell of which was nearly overpowering.

And then: There on the bar counter sat his two assistants, a little heavy-eyed for lack of sleep, but cheerful. It was a cheerfulness arising from a sense of duty well done.

A masterful piece of writing? Incontrovertibly! One to get your rocks off to? Probably not.

But if straight, Route-A sex vocabulary is the way to search-engine heaven, why are there not more articles with the headline Tits Tits Tits?

Because most writers are looking for your love, not a one-night stand? Even lowly bloggers such as this one.

How do you build loyalty and move towards your first million subscribers? More of that later … maybe tomorrow.

Part 2 of 5

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