Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Saucy Stories Etc.

Is this what you were after?
The technical masterminds behind Blogger at some point over the past few years added all kinds of tricks and buttons that allow you to see how many people actually read this nonsense, and where they’re from. For some reason, outside of the US and the UK, I have a lot of readers in Denmark, even though I don’t know a soul who lives there. Maybe they’ve heard that when I’m drunk, I’m prone to break into song and warble “Wonderful wonderful Copenhagen/Salty old dog of the sea.” Though of course that song’s about a boat, not about Copenhagen itself, which I visited once on a press trip. I’d love to tell you more, but the memory’s lost in a fog of hard Nordic liquor hastily downed to try and shut out the sound of British businessmen telling jokes as dull as their pre-tailored polyester suits.

There are also a few visitors from Germany, but that’s just the in-laws checking up to see if I’ve written something derogatory about Dresden again. Every time I visit them, any woman in the state of Saxony who does not have aubergine-coloured hair is pointedly pointed out to me. I would just like to say for the record that Dresden, in particular the suburb of Hainsberg, I love you.

The other thing Blogger lets you see are the search terms that lead people to your blog. It turns out that the lead search term is “saucy stories”, thanks to this rather meandering entry almost a year ago about a trip to Safeway to buy Worcestershire sauce.
I can barely begin to imagine the look of disappointment on the searchers’ faces when, in a mood for something perhaps more stimulating, they discover four paragraphs of verbose bollocks about the dilemma of buying Lea & Perrins or Safeway’s own-brand condiments. They might as well have taken an ice bath.

It has prompted me, however, to hatch a cunning plan to up my blog traffic. Did you not already notice the gratuitous headline? Of course you did. And I bet you were hoping for some filth and scandal, just like those sweating, saucy-story addicts. So let the seedy surfers flock to this small corner of indie-popdom, and you can bet they’ll want to stay once they get to reading all about the crazy stuff that stay-at-home dads get up to out here, grocery shopping and getting annoyed by really minor things and recording crap songs in their basement for an unsuspecting world that has 25 million other recordings to choose from instead.

Maybe I should tour Denmark. I think I could be big in Denmark. “Wonderful wonderful Copenhagen…” Except that beyond that first line, I don’t know any more. I’ll just sing something saucy instead. That’ll get their attention.    


[Edit: December 2011 - I have now altered the headline to delete the words "naughty nymphos, horny housewives" as this story was regularly and depressingly at the top of my viewing stats, no doubt due to well-intentioned google searches]

8 comments:

tom.ato said...

Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Merry old girl of a town.
Neath her harbour light
On this merry night
Let us clink and drink one down.
To wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen
Salty old queen of the sea
Once I sailed away
But I'm home today
Singing Copenhagen,
Wonderful Wonderful
Copenhagen for me.

Gorilla Bananas said...

Search engine traffic is crap. They won't return unless you give them a picture of nude-wrestling trannies.

Ian Plenderleith said...

Thanks, Tom - see, I didn't even know the one line I thought I knew. And it does appear to be about the city, not a boat. An illustration of how many ways you can be wrong about one small thing.

GB, you may be right, but two comments within an hour of posting speaks for itself - a new record for the SAHIP blog.

No Good Boyo said...

Disregard the diversionary tactic of Cousin Bananas, Pop, as you've stumbled on the Blogger's Eldorado that he and others have discreetly mined for years. Snoop over at Simply Jews ups his visits every month by sticking a headline like "Lindsey Lohan Prison Shower Candids" over a photo of a flower.

It's the online version of Alan Coren's "Golfing for Cats".

I wrote a post about accidentally spending the night in a Castillian cat house, and still get heavy traffic looking for "Madrid brothels". "Brithdir wife-swapping" brought in some blind masochists, and the chap from Dubai seeking a "Chalotte Churh bukkake" experience deserves to have his idea taken up by cable TV somewhere.

Ian Plenderleith said...

Thanks for the advice, Boyo. And I'd just like to take this opportunity to offer you camel toe wishes for an explicit MILF action New Year.

AMD said...

My Pissing Off The Taste Police series still produces visitirs who googled such charming things like "Old Man Pissing On Teens". I like to imagine that the pervs also like music, and perhaps put down their tissue and sampled the delights of early-'70s soul.

Somehiow I'm getting loads of hits on the seasrch term "lovers". Every day. So I googled the term to see what post attracts such prodigious traffic. After 14 pages of google I gave up. I suspect that my series of songs about love (and Google prioves there are many broken hearts out there) is responsible for that, but I'm surprised anyone puts so general term as "lovers" into Google, and then goes through dozens of pages of search resukts before landing up at my humble gaff.

Jackson Duin said...

Ian -

Very funny. I also wanted to let you know that Kristin Hersh is on the new Guardian books podcast.

Ian Plenderleith said...

Thanks Nathan, I'll give it a listen.