What’s In A Name?

Posted on September 26, 2008 by Somerset Bob

Got this one from Wendishness and thought I’d give it a go too!

Porn Star name (first pet, first street where you lived):
Kitty Lea Bridge

Rock star name (favourite pet, current car):
Jessie Matiz
Actually, mine’s a Hyundai i30 — my wife Marcy’s car sounded better!

Gangsta name (favourite ice cream flavour, favourite type of shoe):
Chocolate Boots

Native American name (hair colour, favourite animal, favourite hobby):
Grey Dolphin Sitting

Soap Opera Name (middle name, city where you were born):
Jayson Leyton

Star Wars name (first 3 letters of last name & first 2 of first name, last 3 letters of middle name):
Leyboson

Stripper Name (favourite perfume, favourite candy):
Paris Whispa

TV Newsreader name (grandparents first name, any town that starts with the same letter):
Frank Fordingbridge

Spy Name (favourite season, favourite flower):
Summer Pansy

Cartoon name (favourite fruit, article of clothing you’re wearing now):
Banana Bracelets

Hippie name (what you ate for breakfast, favourite tree):
Porridge Oaks

Play along if you like.

Purposeful Blogging Meme

Posted on October 29, 2007 by Somerset Bob

What’s blogging all about?

Why do we, who do it, do it?

What are the strange attractors involved?

Mel Kaye, the originator of this meme, came up with a number of reasons (and created a rather pleasing acronym in the process):

Therapeutic –- satisfies the need to share experiences
Improvement -– a channel by which change can be effected
Money –- a way to (possibly) make money
Enjoyment -– let’s face it, some find the process to be fun!
Communication -– engaging with family, friends and like-minded people
Altruism –- disseminating information the blogger considers valuable for the good of others
Validation -– feeling valued as a person: the blogger’s ideas, opinions or creativity are worthwhile
Enlightenment -– to grow, to learn, to become more knowledgable

Mel suggested bloggers might like to score themselves using TIMECAVE, rating each item from 0 to 10. I would score quite highly in each sector, I think — though at the moment Money rates only a “0″ for me! And frankly, it would rate low in any case because making money from blogging is very much a secondary, tertiary or even lower personal consideration. Virtually all the others would score a “10″.

**start copying here**

We have a voice;
We must be heard;
Therefore we blog;
Now spread the word!

This meme is based on a recent post that was conducted that asks the question “Why do you Blog?” and the rewrite “Why do you Blog? – Reworked.” The purpose of this meme is to tell our tales by spreading the reasons that we blog to as many sites as possible. We get to explain ourselves, direct traffic to our site and highlight our most important, most representative or most relevant post in an SEO favorable format. This will be a positive experience for everyone who wants to get involved. This will enable you to create a short advertisement for your site that will be spread across the blogesphere; a growing directory of blogs.

This is an open meme. You do not have to be tagged to join in. All you have to do is follow the rules.

Please let me know when you have added your site by leaving a comment on “Complete List” with a link to your post. This will ensure an up-to-date list, giving you even greater distribution. You then have the option of copying the growing list back to your site.

Rules:

1. Create an inventive post title
2. Write a brief introduction to the meme.
3. Copy from “**Start Copying Here**” through “**End Copying Here**”
4. Paste into your post
5. At the end of the “*list*”, before “**End copy here**”, please add your name, site name (with link), a very brief description (2-3 sentences) of why you blog, and your most important, most representative, or most relevant post (with link.)
6. Tag at least 5 others to participate.
7. Leave a comment and a link to your post on “Complete List”

*List*
My name is Mel and I am the Author of Attitude, the Ultimate Power, aka Monday Morning Power. I blog because I am passionate about happiness and living in the moment. I want to spread the concept that we are in control of our own lives and can choose how we act and react. My site is focused on the Pursuit, Capture, Care and Feeding of a Positive Mental Attitude. One of my most representative posts is “Happiness Vs. Human Nature.”

I am Max and I offer weekly articles on MAX. Why do I blog? I do it because I want to share my thoughts with you guys. I present a new and interesting way of transmitting philosophical thoughts: funny, engaging and intriguing! My funniest, yet intriguing, post is “Don’t you just love People?”

I am the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius. My 100% factual blog The Thoughts and Sayings Of Baba Doodlius is intended to educate all of you curious readers about the Truth behind the Great Secrets of the Universe. I have the Truth! Can you handle the Truth? For a sample of my powers of enlightenment, read my Revelation of the terrible secret of Bigfoot, aka Don’t get stepped on.

My name is Amelia and I am the Author of Amel’s Realm. I blog because I need to voice everything in my world so that I won’t explode. My site is all about thoughts, experiences, fears, problems, misadventures, hopes, and dreams of an introverted tropical girl in a foreign land (Finland). One of my most representative posts is On Trust and Relationship.

I am Geoff of Geoffandcarley.com and I blog for reasons as diverse and as fickle as my moods. Mostly I blog because I’m firmly convinced I’ve figured a few things out and that the world will benefit from my experience the same way I’ve benefited from others’ experiences. One post that I feel captures my emotional involvement and my ire (but not my humor as much) is Decision time.

My name is Judy and I am the Author of ~~Sugar Queen’s Dream~~. I blog because it’s cheap therapy and I have something to say. I feel my most powerful post is called “The Myths of Smoking……”

My name is Sindi and I have written a blog entitled Life is a roller coaster!. My blog is based on the ups and downs of everyday life. I started blogging because I was going through some hard times and I wanted to meet new people to talk to. I like to write and was hoping people might enjoy reading what I have to say. I think the most inspiring post I have written to date is We Effect So Many.

People call me the Midgetmanofsteel (although I’m neither a midget, nor made of steel). I am the sole author the blog Mental Poo: a mostly true and humorous account of things that have happened to me, are happening to me, or are just filling my head and taking up valuable space where images of women should be. You can get a sneak peek into my mess of a brain by reading “Raisins are People” – a true account of my son’s first field trip.

My name is Sandee and I have a blog called Comedy Plus. My blog is just for fun, and I started it to poke fun about everyday life. My reason for blogging is to have fun and meet new friends. I have done both beyond my wildest dreams. I have posted lots of jokes, but when ask what my favorite joke is, I always pick Anger Management.

My name is Lynda. I blog to as a way to expose my writings and to spread my knowledge on the subject of love. My primary blog (I have 15) is lynda’s loft. My favorite piece would be I LOVE….. I have over 300 original poems and posts dealing with the wonderful and painful world of love. I love love!

My name Adrian, although most of you probably know me as the Mighty Genie King. I am the author First Time Dad. I started blogging as a way to document my growing up pains as my wife and I raise our daughter. I hope that one day my daughter will be able to look at this and get an idea what life was like “back then”. Now I blog about everything but the main focus is still the same! One of my favorite posts is Goodnight Sweetheart! Hello Basil! Eh…Who’s Basil…

Hello, my name is Ann and I’m the author of A Nice Place in the Sun. I blog because I care about people and want to make them happy. My site is focused on humorous, inspiring, and nostalgic posts about life, children, and memories. My most representative post, or the post where I’m most myself is “The Craziest Experience Of My Life.”

We are a team of writers, and everyone calls us NAFA, so that would be our name. We are the proud authors of NAFASG©™ – United And Dedicated Behind You™. Blogging, to us, is a form of spreading useful information and sharing our knowledge to every part of the world in order to contribute to the betterment of our global community. The post that we feel would be representative of our blog and the global community at large is The Sociological Interaction.

Hola! This is Mariuca and I blog because writing is what makes me whole. I write about anything under the sun from life, love, friends to cats and work. I tend to write best when under pressure and my personal favourite post from Mariuca is Love in Disarray.

My name is Susan and I am the Owner of ~~Wake up America ~~, which is a political, right leaning blog. I blog because I believe we need more voices out there to separate fact from fiction, to support our troops and to high light the lack of ethics from journalists today. I feel my most powerful post is called “Are You Proud to be an American……”

“Here I am My name is Mauro and I’m the author of 1 Million Love Messages … maybe the biggest love challenge in the blogosphere. Why I blog ??? Because I believe that bloggers can make a difference in the world. That’s my challenge! My favourite post it’s (for sure) Adam Donkus & Lizzie’s Love History.”

Hi there World I am Aussie, the author of Little Aussie Cynic and I want to Breathe among others. I was recently asked:”Why Do you Blog?” this takes me back to the beginning… I started blogging in an attempt to get people thinking, using my cynical humour as a tool to make people laugh, think and at times get the blood pumping…. Each of my Blogs takes in a little peice of my varied personality but the one which discribes me best would have to be There is Always a Natural Way the latest edition to the Aussie Cynic Family…

I am Zubli Zainordin, in Total Happiness, I organize the Book Project blog and co-author Santa’s Community Blog and Hall Of Fame Blog. I blog with the purpose of documenting about my self for my own reference, my future generations and friends who prefer to know me. I also share vital and valuable information entirely on total happiness. I believe in Santa Claus and I share the Spirit of Christmas within this Blog World. In addition I promote bloggers, their blogs, and invite them to share their blogging experiences, and together with Shinade, I review their blogs and award them with the Zubli and Shinade Recommended Read awards. Those who continuously show continuous blogging improvements shall be residence of the Hall Of Fame blog.

Hello my name is Deborah author of Climate of Our Future, I also co-author She Walks in Beauty. I blog with passion for our environment. I started this blog because I believe that we as bloggers have a very loud voice in this blogosphere. that By sharing what knowledge I find about our environment would not only benefit the blogger but also our environment. I also blog about Beauty, because no matter how harmed and polluted our world has become I can still see the beauty within. My favorite post would have to be the one about plastic in the Pacific twice the size of Texas.

I’m Nina Munteanu, ecologist, SF author, wife and mother and lover on a journey on this beloved planet Earth…your Alien Next Door. I blog for the same reason that I write my short stories and novels…because I have to. I blog to share my passion for the beauty and wonder of this planet Earth through science and art and to share the little wisdom and insight I’ve gained in my few years on the Earth…and certainly to gain some from you (I love your comments! Thank you!). My favorite post is about one of my heroes, Doctor Lynn Margulis, courageous scientist who would not be dissuaded from speaking the truth even when at the time it seemed like a lie: imagine saying we evolve through cooperation; not competition! What anti-Darwinian cheek!

My name’s Bob Kingsley, author of ‘Somerset’ Bob’s Place. I blog because I want to be a writer. I’ve wanted to be known as a writer all my life, and as I’ve now reached my early 50s I figured I ought to get started before it’s too late! I thought science fiction would be my forté (I wrote a number of short stories some years ago, available at my site’s Writing Archive), but since starting my blog in March 2007 I’ve discovered I have a passion for writing non-fiction pieces — principally about the environment and climate change, but also taking in the places I’ve visited, my online/computer experiences, the random thoughts I have, the music I love and the people I met during my time as a radio presenter. It’s a pretty eclectic collection of posts. I don’t think I’ve written my favourite post yet, but one that’s right up there is Tagged With Music, which was the subject of another meme that came my way — it really made me think, which is what I love about being tagged with memes.

**stop copying**

Time for me to tag five more people in a moment — and to make copying and pasting the above list with all the links in place, I’ve created a text file for you to download so you can simply copy and paste the contents into your own post, should you decide to participate — I found having to manually copy each site’s link and then paste them into my post quite time-consuming, so I thought this might make it easier for you. (It might look a compressed mess when you open it in Notepad — word wrap is off — but copying all of it as it is and pasting it into a WordPress post window works for me — so hopefully it’ll work for you too, even if you don’t use WordPress!)

After you’ve pasted the contents into your post, add your own addition between my entry and the **stop copying** line.

Here’s the link to the meme.txt — right-click and “Save target as …”.

My five selected bloggers are:

Dave at English Blogger — My Back Garden

Jill at Wordsmith Extraordinaire

Mama at Mama’s Bloggin’

Haddock at Greenhaddock

and … no, I tell you what: I’ll leave the fifth one open, for YOU, dear casual browser!

Eight Random Facts About Me

Posted on September 22, 2007 by Somerset Bob

Nina, The Alien Next Door, tagged me with an Eight Random Facts meme the other day (8th September). It’s had me thinking hard ever since! Why’s it so difficult to come up with just eight — hopefully interesting — facts about myself, considering I’ve been around for 52 years? Surely I must’ve achieved something noteworthy during that time? Hmmm. Well, let’s see …

I’ve driven an underground tube train. It was part of my training to be a guard on the London Underground in the early 1970s, when tube trains still had two-man crews (a motorman — that’s the driver — and a guard). For two weeks of my eight-week training course I had to learn to drive one of these behemoths, shadowed by a motorman. After years of travelling on the underground as a passenger, it was very exciting being able to see what was actually up ahead down in those dark, forbidding tunnels. The trains were equipped with responsive, electrically-controlled pneumatic brakes that were quite effective at stopping these lumbering beasts quickly, but they were also equipped with an older-style, slow-response Westinghouse braking device as a sort of fail-safe which had to be tested at the last station platform of each run. As the brake was applied, air could be heard rushing through the pipes, but nothing would happen for maybe ten seconds or more, so the trick was to apply it long before the point where the better brake would normally be used. I never got the hang of it and always either overshot the platform by half a train or more, or pulled up way too short, throwing the passengers all over the place as the train juddered to an ungainly halt. I wrote a poem inspired by riding on the back of these trains late one night in 1974 — The Nightmen is in my Writing Archive.

I taught myself to play guitar – upside-down. Not literally, I don’t mean I was playing it while hanging from the ceiling lights — but being left-handed, and with guitars generally being made for right-handed people, I didn’t bother to re-string it but learnt the finger positions for most of the basic chords upside-down. This worked for a while, but when I eventually bought a better quality guitar and started trying to learn more complex chords, the whole business fell down as my fingers became tied in impossible knots. So I had it properly re-strung for a left-handed player (which involved repositioning the bridge) and then went through the process of teaching myself the chords all over again, this time using the correct finger positions. Unfortunately my teenaged fingers took ages to unlearn the upside-down chords and my ability to develop into the next Paul McCartney (another left-hander) was hopelessly compromised.

I founded and edited a crop circle magazine. In 1989, I became fascinated by crop circles, having visited a number of them around Wiltshire and Hampshire. In July 1990 I stepped inside a pictogram that had appeared in a field at Alton Barnes, Wiltshire (pictured right) and spent the afternoon measuring every aspect of it. I wasn’t alone — there were several people wandering around with notebooks and measuring tapes all doing the same thing. I thought, “Why are we all duplicating this work? Surely it only needs to be done once.” It was from this visit that I had the idea of creating a crop circle magazine which I called The Circular. The first few home-spun editions featured most of my own articles and diagrams, but with the help of a friend I soon expanded it into a properly printed journal that included contributions from many other enthusiasts. It continued under my editorship for several quarterly issues until my obsession with the phenomenon waned in the wake of the Doug and Dave hoaxing fiasco and I handed it on to the Centre for Crop Circle Studies (CCCS), who continued to use it as their in-house journal. I’m not sure if the CCCS is still going. Amazingly, there’s a crop circle article of mine still available on the web — The Earliest Crop Circle was written in 1994, concerns a possible crop circle reference I found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and is the only thing I’ve ever written that’s earned me money: an abridged version of the article was used in a crop circle calendar published in the USA some years after it appeared in the CCCS’s version of The Circular. I received the princely sum of $50.

I’ve been the first on-air voice on three UK commercial radio stations. After beginning my professional radio career in the Commercial Production Department at Pennine Radio in Bradford, Yorkshire in 1979 and covering some weekend breakfast shows there, I was then offered a job as the breakfast DJ on a new station, DevonAir Radio (now Gemini FM) in Exeter, Devon, which I opened as the first on-air voice in 1980. In 1992 I was once again in the hotseat as the first DJ on air for Spire FM in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and then, in the early 1990s, I opened Gold Radio (now Vale FM) in Shaftesbury, Dorset.

Animation - famous people I've interviewed I’ve been lucky enough to have met some memorable people.
Sir Patrick Moore is the UK’s most beloved amateur astronomer who’s made his subject accessible to so many people during fifty years of passionately presenting The Sky At Night every month on BBC TV. (He’s missed only two programmes in all that time.) I went to his home in Selsey on the south coast in the 1990s and spent a few very happy hours there interviewing him. He showed me his refractor in the shed in his back garden, and then he entertained me by expertly playing his xylophone for me. Magical.
Sir Cliff Richard joined me on my breakfast show at County Sound Radio in Guildford, Surrey, again in the 1990s, to be present as we split the FM and AM transmissions for the first time (the first station in the country to do so) — the FM side became Premier FM, while AM continued with a separate schedule as County Sound Gold. We each played a different Cliff song on our respective transmitters.
Rolf Harris was another visitor to my breakfast show at County Sound during the 90s. He dashed off a number of caricatures of our staff with that amazing artistic talent of his and was a delight to interview. A wonderful man — polite, friendly and very funny.
Michael Bentine was in town to give a talk about crop circles, so we grabbed him for my County Sound breakfast show. He was most famous for being a member of The Goons, a sort of forerunner to Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and for inventing crazy television shows such as Potty Time and It’s A Square World. He was also very interested in paranormal phenomena and as such he was a fascinating person to chat with — read what happened when I ran him back to his house in my Writing Archive post Noises Off.

I clocked up 186,000 miles in my previous car, a Toyota Carina II, before it finally gave up the ghost. It took me fifteen years. Light covers the same distance in one second. 186,000 miles is about seven and three-quarters times around the Earth’s equator, or about three-quarters of the way to the Moon. It took the Apollo spacecraft about three days to travel to the Moon. If I’d attempted the same journey in my car (assuming a speed of 70 miles an hour), it would have taken about five months. Not including comfort breaks. At 40 miles to the gallon, I’d need about 12,000 gallons to make the round trip at a cost today of around £55,000. I think I’ll leave it to the NASA boys …

I’ve earned £732,838.74. It’s taken me nineteen years. I started keeping track of my income in November 1988 when I became a full-time voice-over man (with occasional forays back into radio presentation). That’s an average of about £38,570 a year — before expenses and taxes, mind you — and of course some years have been very good while others have been very poor. As I’m now 52, and with over £250k to go before I hit the million mark (and now bringing in a rather more modest 12k a year before stoppages), I think I can safely say I won’t make it before I either retire or drop dead.

I am not really who you think I am. Bob Kingsley is not my given name. I changed it by Deed Poll in 1990, though I adopted my BK moniker much earlier than that, while still a schoolboy. From the age of 12, I was determined to get a job as a radio DJ when I grew up. Fortunately, there was another boy at my school who felt as passionate about the subject as I did and we soon gravitated toward each other — particulary as he’d built a “radio studio” in his bedroom out of radiogram parts and old tape recorders. We worshipped the 60s pirate radio DJs and wanted to be like them. Since most of them had changed their names, either because their given names didn’t really sound very DJ-ish, or because having a different name from their DJ names on their passports meant they didn’t get stopped going through customs, we decided we had to change our names too. (It also helped that we both disliked the names with which our parents had saddled us.) So one day we picked up a Record Mirror, turned to the letters page and scanned the names of the contributors. We chose a couple — Bob Laine and Dave Kingsley — and swapped them around. From that point on, he became known as Dave Laine and I became Bob Kingsley. Dave never made it into the radio business, deciding instead that a life as a conductor on the London buses was for him — though he did change his name by Deed Poll, and much earlier than I did. I’ve no idea what he’s doing now, as we lost touch years ago. So what was my given name? Ahh, sorry — I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Just call me Somerset Bob and have done with it.

And that concludes my Eight Random Facts About Me. Thanks, Nina. That was a really brain-frying (though ultimately satisfying) experience!

Somerset Bob's Place

Where the true and the real are often confused

Tag Archives: Meme

What’s In A Name?

Purposeful Blogging Meme

Eight Random Facts About Me