A Milestone and a Conspiracy

Dave's Photo Blog is (or very soon will be, depending on when you are reading this) 5000 visitors old! Blimey.

Like many bloggers I pimp my site a little: pro-actively trying to reach a larger audience. Sites like Blog Explosion get me quite a few hits, as does commenting on other sites that I find interesting. However, the majority of visits to the blog come from Google, and its been quite interesting monitoring the statistics to see how people find my posts.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to see the search-term used when a hit comes through Google Images, but here are some examples of web searches that often find me:

• Dave Licence - before I started blogging, a search on my name would only have returned you with instructions on how to install a piece of software onto your Macintosh. The same search today will return my sites first, although this blog has actually dropped to third for some reason (see my conspiracy theory below). Unfortunately, a search for David Licence only returns my LinkedIn profile in third place.


• Delice de France (DdF) - ever since my piece on DdF's mediocre sandwiches a search on their name returned this site in second place, directly after the company homepage. This was a real hit-spinner, getting me at least one visitor a day. However, just before writing this post I noticed that I have completely disappeared from the results. Is this simply because the item is now too old, or (as I like to believe) an insidious conspiracy between DdF and Google to stop people thinking about where their food comes from? I'm secretly hoping that this post gets me back in the running.


• Donnington 2007 gp photo (plus many other combinations of MotoGP favourites) - another good source of hits is my series of photos from the Donnington MotoGP race at the end of June.


• Boat Jumble - an interesting one: I can't imagine what people are really looking for when entering this search, and my item only just makes the first page of results, but I still get several hits a week out of it.

If you are visitor 5000 (check the counter at the bottom of the page), if you know anything more about how much Delice de France paid Google to knock me out of the search results, or if you work for DdF and instead would like to pay me a large sum to say something nice about you be sure to leave a comment.

Eight Things About Dave

I have been 'tagged' by Livingsword. Normally I would ignore these things and move on, but this one I'm going to do - if only because I am off work with a cold and it has given me something to do.

First, there are some rules to this game:

• Each player must post these rules first.
  
• Each player then posts eight random facts/habits about themselves.
  
• At the end of your post, you should choose eight more people to tag - list their names.
  
• Leave the eight people a comment telling them they’re tagged.

So, here are eight things about me that you may not have known already.

1) I used to smoke. I don't think I was ever really addicted in the same way that many people are - I could go hours, days or weeks without thinking about a cigarette - I just liked a smoke. Some months I would smoke a lot, but I was never anywhere near a 20-a-day guy. All of a sudden a couple of years ago I just went off them - no idea why, but I haven't smoked since and have no desire to again. One thing I do know though is that if I was ever going to have a hangover in the morning, it would always be worse if drinking had been combined with smoking.

2) I'm going to be a father in less than a month! We don't know yet whether it will be a boy or a girl, but we have names chosen for each. I can't tell you what they are, but I can say that I wanted to give a boy the middle name Xavier (pronounced X-avier, like in X-Men, not like in Spanish), but was over-ruled.

3) I probably spend far too long sitting in front of a computer - at work, at home, anywhere.

4) I don't eat my five a day. In fact its probably a rare day when I eat three.

5) My favourite Italian restaurant, outside Italy, is in Tallinn, Estonia.

6) I've never been in trouble with the police. The closest I came was when I was probably ten years old ... walking home with my mum on a snowy day I was hanging back a bit and threw a hard snowball at a passing car, hitting the windscreen. The car slowed and I ran, telling my mum I wanted to get home quicker. The car followed me and caught up - the driver told me that the snowball could have broken his windscreen and caused an accident and he should have dialled the fuzz. That scared me senseless. I saw the car driver several times in the following couple of years, but have no idea if he ever recognised me again.

7) I have never given blood. Or had a blood test taken (to my knowledge).

8) This is my one hundred and second blog post. I wasn't sure I would keep this going for very long, but I'm still here.


So now I have to choose the people I am going to tag. I don't really expect all of them to reciprocate and play along, but they get tagged anyway:

• Neilly Done
  
• Ming
  
• The Jiffler
  
• Mrs. Jiffler
  
• Kiran
  
• Sara
  
• Ludivine
  
• SuffolkGirl

Delice de France - imported sarnies?

I found myself travelling home from London slightly late the other night after stopping for a couple of Guinnesses after work. As often happens in this situation I hadn't eaten so decided to grab something from the station. In the past I would have had a Burger King, but I'm going off them (the ones from Euston anyway, plus I had one for lunch!) and wanted something different. The kiosk closest to the appointed platform was Delice de France so I swung by and ordered a panini and a pastry.

As I stood on the train and ate, something on the packaging caught my eye:

This produce has been manufactured in France using only the finest grades of flour from specially selected wheats.

What? Are they blatantly lying or do they actually make sandwiches in France and drive them over to the UK - a big lorry full of rolls, stopping at every Delice kiosk from Dover northwards until demand outstrips supply? Either they're just being plain stupid and breaking the Trade Descriptions Act or they really are importing butties from the continent.

The packaging goes on to say:

We pride ourselves on the care and attention taken to ensure that our customers' requirements are fulfilled every time.

Now, given that Delice De France outlets are normally located in the sort of place where people just want a fast-food, slightly healthier alternative to BK and McD, the customers' requirement is for food that simply tastes OK - they're not expecting a cordon bleu experience consisting of imported delicacies. And to be honest the only bit of that sentence they seem to be getting is 'imported' - the food is as average as you would expect from a train station.

I'm not normally the type of person who spends time scouring the shops for 'local produce'. However, my carbon footprint is large enough already, thanks (twenty flights so far this year and I haven't been travelling much) - I don't think I'll be visiting Delice again.