Sabriel and Sweetcorn

Aren't search engines strange?

Earlier, I happened to notice that a Google search for "sweetcorn" and "forks" returned Little Stitches as the third most useful website in the world. It's nice of search engines to consider my blog a key global authority on the subject of eating sweetcorn, don't you think? Pity that expectant visitors will find no more than a pile of nonsense when they get here.

Of course by mentioning sweetcorn and forks again (twice now), your average unintelligent search bot might think this blog has even more to say on matters relating to the cob and is therefore worthy of being classified as the foremost worldwide resource on the subject. I wonder if this will get me a mention at the next global food conference?

So perhaps this will explain why I am adding internet search engines to my list of, "funny things that can't be explained by any useful rationale known to mankind."

I've now finished reading Sabriel by Garth Nix, whizzing through it so fast in fact, that there wasn't even time to update my sidebar reading list. It's a relaxing and lightweight semi-romantic fantasy with necromancers and warriors, oh and a strange kind of cat. It seems to be aimed at a teenage audience and I assume it's similar to the Harry Potter books although I can't be sure; you see I haven't read any of those. I did try once, with Harry Potter and The Sorcerer's Stone but I do prefer my fantasies to be rooted in different ages or places, far from the monotony and insanity of modern life. Well otherwise how can they be fantasies? Anyway, it's a nice refreshing change from more serious fiction.

So I'm torn now over what to start next - either Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts or Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov. Ponder, ponder ... I'll probably leave Sarah Rayne's Roots of Evil for Christmas.

On the blog front, I've seen a dramatic reduction in comment spam this week - not a single link-ridden comment between the Friday before last and today. This did get me wondering whether 20Six had introduced some mysterious new anti-spam feature but that's probably wishful thinking. Much more likely is that Googles has reduced the ranking of some of my older pages, making them harder for spam bots to find. Unfortunately my moment of peace seems to be over - this morning the bots found one of my newer posts.

Listening to: Dead Can Dance, "Cantara"
Wondering: whether I'll now be the world's foremost authority on lightweight semi-romantic fantasies?