Hippocampi |
noun: plural of hippocampus, being |
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1. a sea horse; a marine teleost fish with a horselike head and a bony-plated body. |
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2. a mythological sea creature with the front legs of a horse and the tail of a fish. |
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3. part of the brain, that, in cross section resembles a sea horse. |
Wallpaper |
1. noun: paper designed for pasting on to walls or ceilings. |
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2. verb: to apply wallpaper (1). |
This is a list of the things I knew about Seattle before I went there. It is the home of:
I’m slightly embarrassed, however, to reveal that I didn’t know where Seattle was. It was (and indeed still is) in the North West of America in the State of Washington, which borders Canada to the North and the Pacific Ocean to the West, and which is completely different to the city of Washington, which isn’t really in a state at all; it’s in the District of Columbia. You probably knew that already.
Travelling to meet Hippocampi Wallpaper didn’t advance my chain of googlewhacks any further. It was another second place ’whack just like Bushranger Doublespeak but the words of Christa were ringing in my ear: ‘We need to attack on all fronts at all times, keep as many irons in the fire as we possibly can.’
She seemed to possess great wisdom, Christa, and I respected her opinion. Except when it came to beards. And Snoopy. But I’d already had one chain fall apart at five in a row, halfway to victory, so I knew how easy it was for it all to go wrong. I was confident that Ken – Bushranger Doublespeak – would find me two googlewhacks and if I could persuade Hippocampi Wallpaper to do the same I would end up with four potential third place ’whacks. If they all came good, I would have eight potential fourth place ’whacks, which could lead to 16 potential fifth place ’whacks and, who knows, 512 potential tenth place ’whacks. The more chains I could keep alive, the better my chances of getting to ten.
So, when I read Lisa’s email: ‘We (we being my husband, Tom, 15-year-old daughter Jonelle, and I) are very amused by your quest and would love to be a part of it. It sounds like fun!’ I’d headed straight for the airport.
*
I looked at the door. A sign said ‘No salesmen or peddlers.’ It didn’t say anything about googlewhackers so I rang the bell.
The door opened and Lisa, a big smile framed by frizzy black hair, was there to greet me: ‘Hey! You must be Dave; come in!’
The first thing to strike me when I stepped into their front room was Mickey Mouse. There were Mickey Mouses all over the place. Or should that be Mickey Mice? Every spare inch of wall had been given over to a framed Disney print, large glass cabinets contained frightening amounts of Mickey Mouse memorabilia and three, two-foot tall Mickey figurines stood guard over the sofa. This was a shrine to Mickey Mouse. I swear I’ve been in Disney shops with less stock.
Maybe I should have expected this kind of Mickeyphilia; after all, the website that had led me there had featured Lisa’s very thorough review of Tokyo Disneyland but no, it took my breath away. To be honest, even if someone had told me I was about to step into the living room of the world’s biggest Mickey Mouse fan, I would still have been surprised by the amount of Mickey paraphernalia that confronted me. As you read this, I hope you’re imagining a house full of the stuff. I promise you, there was more of it than you are currently imagining. Double it. You’re still not there. I was shocked.
‘You look shocked,’ said Lisa with a giggle; I clearly wasn’t the first person to react like this.
‘It’s just so … so … so … Disney!’ I said.
‘This?’ said Lisa, her arm sweeping around the room, passing approximately 3542 images of the cartoon rodent. ‘This is nothing. I’ve seen people’s houses with much more than this.’
‘Yeah,’ agreed Tom, a big, broad-shouldered man with a long blond surfer-dude’s ponytail. ‘I’ve seen places much worse than this.’
‘What do you mean “much worse”?’ asked Lisa.
‘I mean better,’ Tom corrected himself hurriedly. ‘Not worse. Better.’
I must have looked a little sceptical because Tom was quick to add more.
‘Some people make their house really plain and boring,’ he explained, ‘but we think: “Fill it with stuff we like. It’s just fun.”’
Bless him, I thought, how sweet of him to understand and accommodate his wife’s obsession.
‘Why don’t we head upstairs,’ said Tom leading us in a procession. ‘We can sit down and chat about this googlewhacking thing.’
‘OK,’ I said, filing in on the end of the line.
Every step up brought the eye to a new Mickey portrait.
‘The thing is,’ said Lisa, ‘if it wasn’t Disney it’d be something else.’
‘Like what?’ I asked.
‘Like Star Wars,’ said Tom standing aside at the top of the stairs to usher me into their upstairs room.
‘Oh my God!’
It just slipped out under my breath as I took in the more than liberal sprinkling of Star Wars paraphernalia.
‘Oh my God!’
It happened again when I saw the TV screen.
In front of a comfy array of sofas was the biggest flat-screen TV I’ve ever seen. It must have been six feet wide. I guess most Americans would call this room a ‘den’. Most Brits would call it a cinema.
‘Nice, isn’t it?’ said Tom beaming with pride.
‘Oh my God!’ I said because the needle in my head had stuck on the phrase. ‘That is an amazing telly!’
‘Like I say,’ said Tom, ‘we fill our house with stuff we like.’
‘So you like Disney,’ I said to Lisa and, turning to Tom, ‘you like Star Wars.’
‘Yeah,’ they said in unison.
‘So there are two obsessions fighting for control of the house?’
‘Well, Jonelle loves Beanie Babies,’ added Lisa, straight-faced.
‘Three obsessions?’
‘Yeah,’ said Tom.
‘But we all like each other’s obsessions too,’ said Lisa.
‘When I die, I want all my Lego and Star Wars stuff to make a funeral pyre.’
‘And I want to be cremated and sprinkled in Disney theme parks.’
‘What does Jonelle want?’ I asked.
‘She thinks that’s all a bit morbid,’ dead-panned Lisa.
‘So, tell us more about your obsession?’ asked Tom.
‘Well, I did once get a bit obsessed with my namesakes,’ I confessed, ‘but that was a while ago now and I’m over it—’
I stopped. I could feel the confusion filling the room and I found myself looking at two very blank faces. I saw Tom and Lisa exchange a quick glance of uncertainty.
‘I think Tom was referring to your googlewhacking thing,’ said Lisa.
‘Oh that! I’m not obsessed with that,’ I said, chuckling at the very idea. ‘No. I just need you to find me a couple of googlewhacks, that’s all.’
‘Why don’t we go to the computer and you can show us what you mean?’ said Tom, standing.
Moments later we were at the computer and with R2D2 watching over us, I gave them a googlewhack demonstration.
‘So, if I type in, say, bushranger and doublespeak like … so,’ I said, ‘and then I hit search …’
I hit the button and 0.2 seconds later Google was showing us the ’whack.
‘Cool,’ said Tom.
‘Funny,’ said Lisa.
I think they were suitably impressed. I pointed out the important features, the dictionary.com underlining and so on and then explained the process once a googlewhack had been found.
‘So, if you visit this site, it takes you to a website belonging to ...’, I pressed the link and the site opened up, ‘… a certain Ken Fussichen, so as far as I’m concerned, Ken Fussichen is Bushranger Doublespeak.’
‘And so then you go and meet him? Right?’ asked Lisa, feeling her way round the facts.
‘Right,’ I nodded.
‘Cool,’ said Tom.
‘Funny,’ said Lisa.
‘Only I’ve already met him,’ I explained. ‘I’m just using Bushranger Doublespeak as an example. Obviously I’m hoping you two will find me two new googlewhacks.’
‘OK.’ Tom shrugged. He was obviously confident it wouldn’t be a problem.
‘When you find a ’whack all you need to do is email it to me,’ I said. ‘I check my email using mail2web.com, like … so,’ a few deft keystrokes and I was there, ‘… and…’
I paused. My inbox was looking really full, but in the list of senders, one name stood out above all others. It wasn’t Jake, although I could see his name a few times.
‘What’s up?’ asked Tom.
‘This might be a better example than I originally thought,’ I said.
My heart started to beat a little faster as I clicked open the email from Ken Fussichen. Tom and Lisa leaned in to read over my shoulder.
From: Ken Fussichen
To: Dave Gorman
Hello Dave,
Well… I did it. I have two googlewhacks for you. I’m not sure how useful they’re going to be, but here they are. Reticulated Soymilk and Bibliophilic Sandwiched.
Keep smilin’
Ken
I typed back a hasty ‘thank you’ and then went to work, checking out the two new prospects. Reticulated Soymilk was intriguing. It led to a very long address that began with www.rdi.ku.ac.th. The ‘ac’ told me that it was an academic site while the ‘th’ told me it was based in Thailand.
Further investigation revealed that it was The Official Journal of Kasetsart University (Natural Sciences Dept.) and that it was based in Bangkok. Intriguing.
I whizzed through the pages and discovered it was full of dense scientific facts. For example, there were several pages concerning ‘histochemical detection of glycoconjugates in colonic epithelium of the goat’, which is a scary sentence given that I don’t understand many of the words involved and even more so because two of the words I do recognise are ‘colonic’ and ‘goat’. There wasn’t much in the pages of this journal that I understood and more annoyingly, there was no sign of an email address.
I sighed anxiously. I heard Tom and Lisa do the same. Reluctantly, I gave up and shifted my attention to Bibliophilic Sandwiched instead.
In bright red letters against a black background I found the following warning:
THE MATERIAL ON THIS PAGE IS NOT SUITABLE FOR EASILY OFFENDED PEOPLE OF ANY AGE, OR MINORS. ALL CONTAIN REFERENCES TO, OR EXPLICIT, MALE/MALE ROMANTIC SEXUAL INTERACTIONS. DO NOT READ FURTHER IF YOU ARE LIKELY TO BE OFFENDED BY SUCH MATERIAL OR IT IS ILLEGAL FOR YOU TO VIEW IT.
‘This is legal in Seattle, right?’
‘Uh huh,’ came the reply.
Tom turned R2D2 round; there was no need for him to see this. I ploughed on. Seconds later I found an email address. I didn’t bother looking further into the site. I hadn’t seen any romantic interactions of any kind but I didn’t need to; I’d found what I was looking for. A few seconds more and an email was winging its way to someone called Tritorella.
‘You’ve got a lot of emails in your inbox,’ said Tom. ‘Feel free to spend some time online if you like.’
‘I might delete a few from a guy called Jake,’ I said.
I was about to do just that but, as I returned to my inbox, I was distracted by the presence of a freshly arrived email.
‘Oh my God!’
It came from Tritorella. I clicked on the mail.
‘Oh my gosh!’ said Tom and Lisa together, leaning over my shoulder and witnessing, for the first time, the immediate results of a successful googlewhack.
Tritorella was ‘happy to meet me.’
‘Oh my good God!’
Tritorella lived in London.
Tom chuckled, ‘I’ll give you a lift to the airport if you like.’
‘OK,’ I said, beaming at him. He’d got the hang of it. ‘Let’s go!’