The Tom Parnell Google Wars

Oh no you don't.

Yes, Tom Parnell, Intellectual Hooligan. The Real Tom Parnell. That's me.

(And, with an almighty and resounding pffft, the shrunken and flabby remainder of my online anonymity flaps around the room before collapsing, shriveled, to the ground like a burst balloon.)

... And the Tom Parnell Google Wars begin.

You see, a name like mine (Tom Parnell – got that?) is just about uncommon enough to be googlable. For those John Smiths and Jane Joneses amongst you, this is an unfamiliar sensation: you (and everyone else) realises that googling your name is not likely to return results that pertain to you.

At the other end of the spectrum, you Xavier Mountjoys and Barnabus Bantamwrestlers will rest sure in the knowledge that Google is yours and yours alone. No interlopers, pretenders or usurpers.

But spare a thought for the Tom Parnells.

(Or, in fact, specifically for this Tom Parnell.)

Tom Parnell is the kind of name you might expect to slot into Google and be met with a jackpot of relevant results. You might not be on your guard against faux-amis amongst the Tom Parnells that fill your screen.

ESPECIALLY if one of those Tom Parnells happened to be about the right age, in the right country, working in about the right industry and featured in about the right kind of newspaper.

In that situation, surely, you'd think: 'This is the Tom Parnell I'm lookin' for.'

Which is a pity. Because here is Google's number 7 result for the search 'tom parnell':

Blind date: Ursala Roy meets Tom Parnell

Ursula Roy, 28, outreach officer meets Tom Parnell, 28, web editor.

www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jul/.../blind-date-relationships

As if that weren't bad enough, click through and read the whole degrading article, why don't you? No photograph to disabuse the reader and (calamity indeed) a humiliating mismatch in 'ratings' very much to Tom Parnell's disadvantage.

So not only is this bastard bringing shame upon the Tom Parnell name by indulging in public, newspaper-publicised blind-dating; he's also GODDAMN RUBBISH AT IT.

Damn him!

As if it weren't bad enough that Thomas Parnell was a depressingly mediocre 17th-18th century poet. (Any poem that includes the phrase 'pants in your heart' is surely fit for a kicking.)

In conclusion and summary:

Tom Parnells of the world, would you please buck up your ideas? If you're going to do something, at least do it well. And preferably, even if you do, KEEP IT OFF GOOGLE.

How You Can Help

How would you feel (damn it) if people were potentially mistaking you for a scruffy, spark-free Guardian blind dater and 'insane babbler' every time they googled you? SPARE A THOUGHT.

You really can help me on this one. All you have to do? If you have a website or blog – however small, however infrequently frequented, link to this post. Link to it with link text 'tom parnell'.

Tell Google who's the Real Tom Parnell. For me.

Please.

Juicy flies on the Web (2)

Occasionally (very, very occasionally), the Intellectual Hooligan finds good things on the Ninternet.

(Because most of the time, let's be clear about this, the Ninternet is boring as hell.)

And when the Intellectual Hooligan finds good things, the Intellectual Hooligan shares those good things. So, without ado, here are some recently-uncovered gems, unified by a theme of thematic disunity.

• Human typography. This is a fantastic idea, rather beautifully executed. One of those 'from self-imposed limitations comes brilliant ingenuity' instances. Very clever indeed. (Thanks @ThinkingType)
• That's Why I Chose Yale. Absolutely inspired: I cannot praise this sufficiently highly. Deserving of viral epidemic status. One (smallish) facet of my own job is the shooting and editing of promotional video for my College, and I know exactly how hard it is to avoid a slight cheesiness. So this is the perfect solution to such a problem: embrace the cheese. Necessity is transmuted to virtue. A*
• How to categorise human beings. This is the kind of thing that fascinates me: an elaborate 'swatchbook for humanity'. (Thanks @Trison)

Near-death embarrassment (a belated Christmas present)

Go on, open it...

O my readers. O my sweet, sweet readers.

... How I have neglected you! If you were wondering (oh tell me you were wondering!) what I've been up to, why not peruse this slideshow, chronicling my recent frosty trip to Belfast.

But onward to the main feature.

THIS BIT COMING UP IS THE MAIN FEATURE

(Although obviously you'd have realised that in any case, as a result of the searing rhetorical pitch to which I have built. Yes, you know, a searing pitch. If you think that's a mixed metaphor, you obviously haven't played rugby on hot coals.)

Now, I've written before about crushing embarrassment. You might've thought that was self-revelation enough. But, since I didn't give you a Christmas present, I thought I'd belatedly treat you to another horrifically wretched anecdote from the Intellectual Hooligan's past.

This one is a crippler, I promise you.

In order fully to appreciate the Wagnerian intensity of my humiliation at the blunder which I will proceed to describe, it is necessary that you exercise your powers of empathy.

That you put yourself into the position of a 12-year-old boy.

He's an introverted little mite, not one given to rambunctious attention-seeking. He sits in the second-to-back row in his classroom; studiously, conscientiously he works.

Seldom does the mini-hooligan raise his hand to answer a question in class. Seldom does his piping voice, merely beginning to quiver with the onset of adolescence, rise above the hubbub of the classroom.

This innocent young child, o reader – he is your protagonist.

'Who can write down the names of three states in America?'

Such was the gauntlet thrown down by our Form Tutor, Miss D—. Every week, y'see, we'd have a single 30-minute 'Form Period', during which we'd dwell upon social, pastoral or otherwise extracurricular topics. Class debates, quizzes, that kind of malarkey.

So we all set to work, scribbling down our three states.

'Okay – so mark your own answers. Call out your states, and I'll tell you if they're right or wrong.'

Predictably enough, lots of people were able to propose American states:

'Washington!' came the cry. 'California!' 'Texas!' 'Maine!' 'Florida!' ...

And so it went on. Mini-hooligan had notched up a total of two ticks so far. But one state remained on his list. One state that nobody had yet called out – birthplace though it be of no fewer than eight US presidents.

And so it was that Mini-hooligan – despite his quiet nature – raised his young voice to make his own contribution to the communal test-marking process; to cry out the name of this (thus-far unnamed) state:

'Virginia!'

Oh.

Oh.

Oh, Virginia!

If only that had been the word that had come sailing out – ringing through the suddenly quiet classroom air like the chime of finest crystal. If only it had been those exact syllables that had caused the students sitting in the rows in front to swivel in their chairs and turn their slow, unbelieving necks in my direction. If only it had been the name 'Virginia' that had caused my teacher's jaw to drop in perplexed dismay.

But it was not the name 'Virginia'.

Instead, o reader, it was a word superficially quite similar but – in crucial respects such as meaning – radically different. It, too, began with a 'v' and ended in an 'a'. Many of the intervening letters were also in common. BUT NOT ALL OF THEM.

The result: the normally softly-spoken, 12-year old Intellectual Hooligan proposed (not, I might add, tentatively, but rather with a certain air of triumphant confidence) the name of the 51st state of the USA:

'Vagina!'

They say that time slows down when one teeters on the brink of death. And they are not lying. Because during the seconds that followed my devastating exclamation I became piercingly attuned to continental drift.

The faces of my classmates – some grinning, some disgusted, all astonished – stood frozen in front of me.

And – most horrendous of all – the face of my goddamn teacher, her eyes wide with incredulity, lips twisted into a hideous, horrified snarl of dismay. The most sickening, terrifying thing I have ever seen.

This, friends, was my very own Vagina Monologue. And I present it to you in a spirit almost of atonement, of absolution.

Pass on my sorry tale, o reader. Pass it on! (Seriously, do. There's a bunch of links at the bottom of this page that allow you to do this very easily.) For it is only by the sharing of this heavy burden that I (like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner) may grasp – however vainly, desperately, hopelessly – at release, at relief —

— At atonement.

Texture Restaurant, London / The Renaissance of Cauliflower

So – what's your opinion of cauliflower?

How many marks would you give it out of 10?

How does it rate in a showdown with, for instance, broccoli?

In the league table of vegetables, is it a Cambridge or a Bolton?

The Intellectual Hooligan would never presume (you may well imagine) to anticipate your own feelings on the matter. For his own part, though, he must confess never to having considered the cauliflower to sit atop any kind of pedestal. Cauliflower, in the eyes of the unreformed Hooligan, was probably in the bottom quartile of vegetable accompaniments – unless it was pulling off a stunningly unexpected coup in the context of cauliflower cheese.

For me, y'see, cauliflower was definitely sub-broccoli. Too often soggily school-dinnerish and bland – its sickeningly yielding, translucent-albino flesh oozing cabbagey juices; its flavour as desaturated as its appearance.

But I come to you, o reader, in the wake of a damascene conversion.

Ye! I have seen the light; I have tasted ambrosia. And I preach unto you a new gospel: that of the Ur-Cauliflower.

The cause of this extraordinary volte-face? The agent of this revelation?

Texture restaurant in Mayfair, London.

Now, Texture is a pretty top joint. But what'd you expect of a gastronome such as myself? I found myself there (as a gift, mark ye!) on the anniversary of my birth, consuming the contents of the restaurant's 'tasting menu' – a sensory odyssey of eight courses (or thereabouts … What? You want me to count as well as write?).

Now, you might be wondering how on earth a man (even one as inordinately podgy as myself) manages to chow his way through eight courses. It does, you're right, sound somewhat excessive. But each course, y'see, is very little. No big wodges of protein here; no steaming hillocks of vegetable; no polyfiller carbohydrate.

Instead, you're getting a few brilliant morsels. Every mouthful is an event. This is blink-and-you'll-miss-it cuisine.

So DON'T BLINK, YOU 'ORRIBLE LITTLE WORM.

Now, I don't for a moment propose to go through the meal course by course. That would be immeasurably tedious, wouldn't it? I hate restaurant reviewers who go on about the bloody food.

(No, but seriously: reviews that harp on about food are boring. Stolid, unappetising, unilluminating.)

But you want to know about the cauliflower, right?

It came in liquid form, within a vessel only somewhat larger than a thimble. And it was FUCKING AMAZING. Creamy but light and totally free of unctuousness, masterfully textured with tiny nutty fragments, and ... man ... the essence of all that is right about cauliflower. The Kobe Beef of the cauliflower world. This cauliflower had been grown in the composted remains of the Hanging Gardens of frigging Babylon. Massaged daily by nubile vegetable fetishists. Pruned and trimmed by award-winning topiarists. It was a bonsai cauliflower.

What else? Well, there was the tenderest, seeping eyelet of pedigree pigeon, offset (marvellously, imaginatively) by bacon popcorn (all the smoky intensity of the former; the light dryness and crunch of the latter). Precious crystals of rhubarb, served in a cauldron of liquid nitrogen. Paper-thin cod's skin, fried to a crisp ...

So. Texture Restaurant. If you're looking for mindless nosh or mountains of carbohydrate, best to avoid. Eating here is an aesthetic experience, and one that (like a visit to the Tate) demands concentration. It will make you think, make you savour. It will bewilder you with a catherine wheel of flavours and textures.

And it will revivify at least one common garden vegetable.

Penelope Trunk's Brazen Careerist stumbles

Okay. I've written before about Penelope Trunk (above), who writes an intelligent and interesting careers blog.

Relatively recently, the site of which she is founder and figurehead – Brazen Careerist –metamorphosed into a social networking site, a 'career management tool for next generation professionals'.

(So Penelope's popular, linkbaity blog – which mixes careers, sex, 9/11, sex, networking, sex and sociology (spiced up with a soupcon of sex) – has, in one respect, acted as a protracted 'warm-up' and advance marketing tool for Brazen Careerist's social networking dimension. And a very successful and engaging one. Even the bits that aren't about sex.)

This new Brazen Careerist social network is scrapping against Linkedin on the established, slightly older and more traditional right-hand flank, and Facebook on the less targeted, more indiscriminate left. Quite a pair of combatants. But there may well be a niche. Well observed.

I've created a profile on Brazen Careerist (following Penelope Trunk's superb clarion call thereto), but haven't really done much else. To be honest, I'm not madly into that stuff. I have difficulty enough responding to emails.

Anyhow, that's the background.

Today, though, I received an email from Ryan Paugh, right-hand man of Penelope and CEO of Brazen Careerist. Not a message to my Brazen Careerist inbox (or whatever); an actual email, to my personal account.

Here's the text of the email. You probably don't need to read it all – the first couple of paragraphs and the PS should be ample:

Hey Guys!

I'm reaching out to you today because I wanted to share something our friend Ramit Sethi is offering for members of Brazen Careerist. You may know Ramit -- he writes about personal finance and entrepreneurship at iwillteachyoutoberich.com, became a 26-year-old New York Times bestseller earlier this year when he published "I Will Teach You To Be Rich," and has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, ABC News, etc. He's the only guy who's ever given me advice that I actually used for my OWN money.

He is THE personal-finance guy for young professionals, and he's offering an online Personal Finance Boot Camp that will help you automate your finances in 6 weeks. He'll be teaching...

Specific tactics to optimize your credit cards

Negotiate with banks (negotiation scripts included)

Set up high-interest accounts

Start investing in sensible investments

AUTOMATE your money so you can focus on the things you really care about.

Not just stuff from his book - he'll be doing weekly webcasts and inviting special guest speakers to cover entrepreneurship topics like marketing, pricing, branding, and more.

I know what you're thinking: "Why do I need to pay money for this? I could get all of this for free online."

Yeah, that's true. You can read How-To's until your eyes bleed. But taking action is whole different ballgame. (1) If you pay you're going to actually DO it, and (2) when you join the I Will Teach You To Be Rich Boot Camp you're making an investment to automate your own finances. I'm a fan because he never lectures people about spending money on lattes, but instead shows how we can spend EXTRAVAGANTLY on the things we love, if we cut costs mercilessly on the things we don't.

When Ramit came to us with his Boot Camp idea I knew it would be a success because (1) the man knows what he's talking about, and (2) he emphasized how the program was all about motivating each other to succeed. The point is not to just READ, but to take ACTION.

You guys know we don't think twice about spending money to go out, or see movies, or buy shoes or whatever. So I really encourage you to invest in yourself for 6 weeks and take action on your finances.

Registration closes in 72 hours, so sign up now to automate your money in 6 weeks and start 2010 off fresh.

Here's the link: http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/bootcamp

Cheers!

- Ryan Paugh, Director of Community

PS: In full disclosure Brazen Careerist has an affiliate deal with the I Will Teach You To Be Rich Boot Camp and will receive a portion of profit for every person we get to sign up. With that said, Ramit Sethi is the best of the best and you're going to get what you paid for!

... Mistake.

Brazen, you're a young social networking site, trying to carve out a difficult niche. Spamming affiliate sales messages to your early members only months after your launch is a VERY BAD IDEA.

Now, allow me to be clear: I'm not upset. I'm not offended or enraged. (I have better things to be offended and enraged by, honestly.) And I'm in no way implying that this iwillteachyoutoberich.com is a con or anything (even with a URL like that).

But when was the last time the CEO of Facebook sent something like this to my inbox? Or Linkedin?

This makes Brazen Careerist look cheapass and desperate for a quick buck. It looks insecure and unprofessional. It administers a whacking great blow to the careful brand-building of Penelope's blogging (which is so effectively personal).

And I reiterate: it doesn't matter if this Ramit Sethi is the best there is. The fact remains, you're spamming me with unsolicited sales messages. That's not a good signal. If you want to play with the big sites, Brazen, stop doing that shit.

Because the brand is a real fragile thing. Be gentle with it. O be gentle.

Grant Burge Benchmark Shiraz - dark fruit and shoe polish triumph

Any members of the Wine Society reading this blog o' mine? Statistically improbable, I guess.

Be that as it may, I'm nevertheless going to take a moment to recommend Grant Burge's 'Benchmark' Shiraz (2008, South Australia), which was one of the (numerous) bottles I received in my latest duo of cases from said Society.

Considering the fact that it's a smidge under £6, this is a damn good wine. Shove your snout into the glass and inhale a bracingly intense blend of blackcurrant and shoe polish (FUCKING LOVELY SHOE POLISH) … then grab a gobful of liquorice, coffee and dark fruits, before tailing off gradually (oh so delightfully gradually) to raspberry and lavender.

I reckon I'll be snapping up a fair few of these critters.

Ahh ... writing about wine. This used to be my frigging ambition, d'you realise? Right up until the stone-hearted bastards at Majestic Wine rejected my graduate trainee application on the (scandalously misguided) grounds that I am 'not a natural salesman'.

BAH!

In defiance of Majestic, then, you may expect more of this kind of tosh. Indeed, this week's Intellectual Hooligan may have something of a gourmet theme, I fancy ...

Why Pope Benedict XVI is like Steve Jobs

Is it heretical to compare Pope Benedict XVI to Steve Jobs?

If I may, I'll leave you theologians to ponder that and dive right on into the pirana-infested waters of religio-technological commentary.

The current affairs bit

Yesterday, it seems, the Pope issued a decree to the effect that Anglicans wishing to join the Catholic Church will henceforth be provided with a 'legal framework' to assist their defection – whilst 'preserving distinctive elements of their Anglican identity, such as liturgy.' (quoted from The Times)

(What a blow for Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbish of Cant. Springing this announcement on him was like dropping a breeze-block on a gently snoozing barn owl.)

Pre-breeze-block

Anyhow. Onward to my thesis: Pope Benedict XVI has been taking a leaf out of Steve Jobs' book.

A Tale Of Two OSes

First, some background, in which I establish my credentials. I used to be a PC man, y'see. One who was given suck (you might say, were you drawn inexorably towards unnecessarily gratuitous figurative language) at the twin teats of MS DOS and Windows 2.0.

Solitaire and Minesweeper were my toddler playthings and, later, the MS Word paperclip was, to me, a kind of benevolent (yet embarrassingly senile) uncle. Oh the awkward silence around the Christmas table, when Daddy would propose a toast, only for Uncle Clip to jolt to his feet and exclaim: 'It looks like you're trying to write a letter!' Another Christmas ruined.

But I digress.

The Windows XP search dog was my first pet. I sent him off to find some MP3s a couple of years ago, and (sadly) he still hasn't come back. I think he might've been run over, crossing the road while reading that book of his. BUT I BET HE'S STILL SMILIN', BLESS 'IM.

RIP

So you may well believe that the notion of defecting to the Apple Mac – when first it was suggested to me – left in my mouth a taste more or less akin to the cud of vile incurable sores on innocent tongues.

But now I realise: Apple = Catholic; PC = Protestant.

Apple has always run a closed system. You want to buy Apple's music? You buy Apple's music player. You want to spruce up your desk with a shiny iMac? You'll be running Apple's operating system on it, then.

Now – PCs, by contrast (like Protestantism) are the DIYers' haven. The Frankenstein-friendly laboratory in which Anything Goes – so long as (to pursue the metaphor until it drops to its knees, panting and groaning for mercy, on the hard concrete floor) you're prepared to face the possibility that you'll create a vengeful entity whom you will ultimately battle to the death amidst the frozen Arctic wastes.

Catholicism is definitely in the Apple camp on this one. Because it's pretty much an all-or-nothing kind of deal. You Do It Our Way. Less of this 'personal relationship with God' stuff. Founded on the principle (surely correct) that most people don't actually want to engage with the workings of stuff, they just want it to work and look damn impressive.

... which it does. Because Catholicism – like Apple – has got the style, has got the rockstar glamour. The Mass in fucking Latin. The big, swinging incense things. The fabulously ornate iconography.

Protestants? Well, um, they do a mean pew.

Bootcamp for Prods

Now – back to me, and my technological volte-face: my defection to the ranks of Apple.

I can tell you exactly what was the turning point – the hairline crack in my resolutely anti-Macintosh facade. It was when I heard about Bootcamp.

Bootcamp, in case you don't know, is the facility (available on all Apple computers) whereby you may choose to start up your computer in Windows mode as an alternative to the Mac operating system.

… And, once you're in Windows mode, it's just as if you were on a PC. So you can do all those crazy things that PC kids do. Fire up Clock. Get in some Spider Solitaire action. Defrag your hard drive. YES, MY BABY. YES, MY SWEET, SWEET BABY.

Supplying Bootcamp – first as a free Beta, then automatically bundled with every Mac sold –was a Steve Jobsian work of genius.

It was the reassuring 'Your satisfaction or your money back in full' postscript coming at the end of the seductive sales letter. Because Bootcamp gave me the idea that I could somehow switch without switching.

… and that, my friends, that is what Pope Benedict XVI has just done.

He's invented Bootcamp for Prods.

Genius.