Not knowing anything about thyroid imbalance

My old friend, HitTail, has been taken over by a new group, and they're now planning on sending out either a daily or weekly email giving the weekly keyword suggestions which I'll then use in my blog.   I'm not sure what these are based on, but this week's email has as its suggestions:

the mousetrap study guide
sequoia cunningham dunedin
people wear ties

These are a slightly curious bunch: out of the three only the first brings up this blog on the first page of Google's search results.  The other two don't show the Random Notes up at all.   If I put in skinny ties, however, I come up number three on the results (as does the image on the right).   If I put in Sequoia Cunningham (without Dunedin), however, the first result brings up a video called A Severely Exhausting eXercise which was co-directed by a young man I worked with in the play, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, back in 2008.  Sequoia is also featured in it.   Thus the coincidences of the Internet.


I have written about all three items, (the Mousetrap one got its own post, almost entirely), but not to the extent that they'd seem to be items that would necessarily attract readers to my blog.  It's almost as if I wrote about thyroid imbalance and suddenly people started flocking here.  Don't think it's going to happen, but you never know. 


Talking of which (thyroid imbalance, I mean) I've only ever come across one person who had some issue in this area, although I think it's not uncommon.   I worked with this lady in the three years before I retired, and she'd had issues with it (alleviated by medication) for many years.   But that's about the sum total of my knowledge of TI. 

Still, if thyroid imbalance shows up next week in the HitTail stats, I'll be pleased...and surprised!

As anyone who's read this blog more than once will note, I'm always intrigued by the ways in which people discover the blog.  I've just been looking at the stats helpfully provided by Blogger/Google, and one site that's got me beat as to what it's got to do with me is something called pu.gg.  When you go to this you find it's called Torrent Tracker.   I have sort of an idea what a Torrent is in internet terms - something along the lines of being able to download very large files (movies, for instance) in tiny bits, so that the bandwidth doesn't get overloaded.  At least that's what I gather it is.   So I'm not sure why this particular site would be sending anyone my way, but apparently they did, 34 times, over the last week or so.

More interesting than that little mystery, for me, are the search words that bring people on board.   According to the Blogger/Google stats, this is the list of top ten word searches over the last week that have hooked people up with this blog:

skinny tie
james berardinelli
frederick buechner marriage
graveyard
athlete's hand pictures
chrissy popadics
edgar jepson
how to wear a skinny tie
steve jobs quote about not settling
tui advert

An odd mix, to be sure.   And it's interesting that the skinny tie thing comes up twice.   It may be that when you put skinny tie into Google, a picture of a bloke wearing such a tie comes up in the images; click on him and you'll come to me.  I don't even remember where I found the picture...!

The 'graveyard' post relates to Neil Gaiman's book, The Graveyard Book.   Curiously, I'm about tenth on Google's search list for this, so it's interesting that people find me.   The mysteries of search engines are wondrous to behold.    However, I'm first on the list (as of today) when you put in Frederick Buechner marriage which is something of a surprise.   The Buechner piece is great, and perhaps a lot of people are using it at their weddings these days.   Well, it's all there on my post!

Just remembered that in the script of The Mousetrap, the irritating old lady, Mrs Boyle, talks about the young architect's ties, calling them skinny...or narrow...or something that equally implies disdain for his lack of style.  Actually, now I think about it, I think she just says, 'And his ties' - Agatha Christie has already told us in the script directions that his tie needs to be skinny.