I’m lost for words!Well . . . nearly lost for words!
The trouble is that I'm going to need words if ever I'm to explain this sense of incoherence.
If you hadn't suggested . . . if Shelagh hadn't thought . . . if I hadn't got a bit carried away . . .
What on earth am I babbling about? Well, yesterday evening I had a phone call from Shelagh - remember my friend in Cumbria, the friend with the wonderful medieval castles web-site? Ten days ago she used her expertise to arrange for the 'Letters' to be analysed on a daily basis. Google generously provides this free service, and now Shelagh has kindly made it available to me. Who it was that had been visiting the site prior to that we'll never know. But, from now on, each visitor will be analysed so closely as to be virtually named.
Yesterday evening, under Shelagh's guidance, I explored this fascinating facility. I was left totally bemused. I'm still feeling bemused this morning.
Not only are you told who has been visiting the site, you also know which precise 'Letter' they've been reading. Who on earth in the Philippines, I ask myself, would want to read about London orbs . . . ?! Who are these people in San Francisco . . . and Berkeley, Michigan . . .? Which Media Company, on Rhode Island has a member of staff with a sudden, inexplicable urge to read about my encounter with Rowan Williams?
Such scraps of information are highly intoxicating. The imagination gets over-excited and races off like a dog with a bone. Perhaps life in that Rhode Island company was very quiet on account of the recession . . . ? Perhaps a bored advertising executive, with time on his hands, was playing on his computer, instead of writing copy . . . ? Perhaps he chanced to come across my 'Letters' . . . ? Who knows. It's absolutely fascinating and quite mind-boggling!
What is also fascinating is the fact that, despite having been careful to tell no-one in this area about the site, the greatest number of hits have come from London. Who in London, I wonder . . . ? How did they hear about it . . . ? And who are these people in Nottingham who are reading my ramblings? I don't know anyone in Nottingham . . . ? Or, come to that, who are the visitors from Windsor . . . or Nuneaton . . .?
As I said at the beginning . . . If, all those months ago, you hadn't suggested putting these letters online . . . if kind Shelagh hadn't been so helpful . . . how much puzzlement and confusion could have been averted in the Philippines!
See what you started!
