Wednesday, February the 25th, 2009
back to: title, date or indexes
The other day I very belatedly installed a programme that provides statistics on this site, telling me how many visitors have alighted here, which posts they have looked at, and so on. The most amusing feature is of course the list of search terms, typed into Google or some other engine, which have brought the innocent and unwitting to the big iron gates of Hooting Yard. I am preparing a post on this topic, which should appear in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, however, I was startled by one item in today's list of “search terms people used to find your blog”. It is this:
is frank key will self? hooting yard
Well, to whomsoever typed that, the answer is a resounding: No, of course not.
Although I would like to add that towards the fag end of last year, I went to see an art installation called Seizure. It was located in a derelict and abandoned housing estate in southeast London and, because it had gained rather a lot of publicity, I thought it would be a good idea to arrive early to avoid being at the end of a long and straggly queue. On the morning of my visit, however, the rain was teeming down and Pansy Cradledew and I were only the second people to arrive. Ahead of us was a family group, and I recognised among them the tall lugubrious figure of Will Self. Shortly thereafter, I discovered that my cigarette lighter was kaput. So I asked Mr Self for a light. In the downpour, he twice tried unsuccessfully to light my cigarette, grumbled miserably about lighting his own cigarette first and, having done so, proceeded to light mine. I said thank you, and he carried on moaning to his family about the rain. So, although I am not Will Self, he did light my cigarette in a downpour.