There can be only one.......

I've got a challenge for all of you internet-savvie brain boxes.... Find me a Googlewhack. Just in case you're not a lifelong fan of Dave Gorman (and how could any self-respecting Brit NOT be??), a Googlewhack is a pair of words which, when searched for together in Google, produce only one single result. That's one single website in the entire 15 billion + webpages out there, which features those two words on the same page.

"Aha!" I hear you say, "But that's easy!" Really? Good luck! I've tried some pretty random couplets and found over a million responses for them!

I really struck gold on Friday - I have to point out in my defence here that I've spent maybe a half hour in total (ever) on this quest - when I searched for "amorphic tiswas". Quite why ANYONE would want to write about a brand of nonsense without physical shape, I really can't imagine, but apparently somebody out there felt the need.

Bitten by the bug, I then searched for a more nutritious option, typing in random fruits as they popped into my mind. Finally I settled upon "blackcurrant carburretor", which again scored me only one response. The fun didn't stop there, oh no, and I ended up finding three within minutes of each other, with "endomorphic bipolarism" finishing off the triumphant trio.

The tragedy of me telling you all of this is that once I hit that red "Publish" button, there's no going back: my prodigies will all die and become extinct. No more will there be only one entry on large-framed manic depression. There will be no more single source of data on fruity car-parts. Body has now been cruelly added to previously un-formed nonsense, and all proof of my half-hour's labour will be destroyed.

Still, there's comfort in knowing that they are not really 'dead' as such: they will live on in another form. They have now shaken off this mortal coil, and will be resurrected as "dis legomenonae", or words which only appear twice in a spoken language. (Scholars may argue that since the phrase 'blackcurrant carburetor' is not a regular feature in everyday spoken English, it cannot officially count as a dislego-whatsit; but frankly I'm inclined not to care about the opinion of anyone that would care to argue such pedantry as that).

You see, I try to educate the world with this blog. I don't know if there will peace in the Middle East tonight because of it, but one day, one day this blog will have a positive effect on humanity.

Incidentally, the deepest joy of a Googlewhack comes not after an hour's hard labour, leafing furiously through a dictionary trying to find ridiculous words that can't possibly be connected. Oh no. The greatest joy is when you find one, quite by accident, when you wander through the interweb as a serendipitous Indiana Jones. It all happened because of the pain I was having in my neck, sort of a "my whole head is going to explode from the neck up" kind of feeling. Since I've been on antibiotics for a couple of days, I started to Google for potential problems that might cause this kind of phenomena, but I found none. Now somewhat urgently looking for guidance, I typed in "amoxicillin contrainidications", not realising that I had added in a n extra "i". And there before my astounded eyes lay a bright, new shiny Googlewhack of my very own. You can't explain the desire that you get to just reach out and stroke it, like a tiny yellow chick that's hatched before your very eyes. It's something you have to experience for yourself.

All of which nonsense leads me to three clear conclusions:

1) Never under-estimate the power of the internet to rob you of half an hour of productive time at work

2) Always read the label first

and

3) Never trust a website written by a Doctor who can't spell "Contraindication"

Goodnight.