What brings them in

The software tools that Blogger supplies let me keep track of the search terms that bring people to this blog. That interests me because every day a quite few people come in and read old posts.

Some of this stuff is deeply flattering. Today, as every day, there are several people reading their way through my posts on Saint Agnes' Eve, Brideshead  Revisited, and the various Jane Austen novels.

Some other stuff is strange. As I write this there is someone reading a post I wrote back in October comparing Sir Walter Scott to Count Basie. They got their because they did a search for a proverb that says "every tub must sit on its own bottom", which was a favourite of Basie's. It makes sense that it would happen once.

It's when these things happen again and again that sometimes gets me. There is a post I wrote once saying only that I wouldn't be posting much that day and it gets a five or six page views every week. I have no idea why.

The following word strings have brought hundreds of people to this blog. They all make sense in a weird Googly sort of way.  But it is still weird to think that there is not just one but hundreds of people who type  "Northanger Abbey sex"into a search engine. What do they teach these kids in university these days?

studiously uncool

mad men 666

if personality is a series of unbroken gestures

we're flawed because we want so much more

that's not sexy

gaudete sunday

gaudete sunday 2010

the silent generation

"northanger abbey sex"

we are flawed because


"good girl sex"