Despite having perfectly balanced chips on both shoulders, I think it is fair to say I’ve had as easy a life as anyone can reasonably expect. But, amongst all my blessings, there’s one I’ve taken for granted, and have never hitherto thought of as an advantage, mainly because, for most of my life, it hasn’t been. But in this new golden digital age my name alone has significant value. Who’d have thunk that. That’s really something. Considering I’m called Gary. A name so redolent of a certain time and class that even now it’s the go-to name in gritty period drama about losers and simpletons.
But, the thing is, I just Googled my name. Don’t ask me why – we all know I’m solipsistic enough already, as this posting itself proves, but I promise you it’s not something I’m in the habit of doing, as indeed this post also proves, because what awaited me there was amazing. The thing is, there’s just me there. In the Google world I am unique. A one-off. Original.
(It is true there is a Gary Twynham – an ex professional footballer who sometimes clutters up my searches. An old schoolfriend emailed me a decade or so ago to say he had always assumed I had played for Darlington. I wrote back to say ‘wrong Gary’, but that I was flattered that he had imagined me as a professional footballer – my friend being so much better than me back in the day. He wrote back to say that, to be fair, it was only because it had just been Darlington. But enough about him.)
My Google search is magnificent. Seriously, try it. For on Google I am an author. Totally bona fide. Even though I really ain’t. I’m an established author with a whole series of books for sale and some of them even with pretty covers. Plus, some poems. What I wrote. The key thing is there is no competition. Just me. No need for refined searches or scrolling downwards. Just me (and Karin).
And that makes this an important lesson in life. Me, I just got lucky, long after I stopped rolling the dice or hoping for an inside draw to a straight. Having carried the name Gary around with me like a dark unfathomable class crime all these years. Having burdened my wife with an unspellable surname for nigh on thirty years. Having failed to come up with a plausible anagram for the best part of 56 years. I have stumbled upon a modern truth.
You can be anyone you wanna be. As long as no-one else has bagged it first.
But, the thing is, I just Googled my name. Don’t ask me why – we all know I’m solipsistic enough already, as this posting itself proves, but I promise you it’s not something I’m in the habit of doing, as indeed this post also proves, because what awaited me there was amazing. The thing is, there’s just me there. In the Google world I am unique. A one-off. Original.
(It is true there is a Gary Twynham – an ex professional footballer who sometimes clutters up my searches. An old schoolfriend emailed me a decade or so ago to say he had always assumed I had played for Darlington. I wrote back to say ‘wrong Gary’, but that I was flattered that he had imagined me as a professional footballer – my friend being so much better than me back in the day. He wrote back to say that, to be fair, it was only because it had just been Darlington. But enough about him.)
My Google search is magnificent. Seriously, try it. For on Google I am an author. Totally bona fide. Even though I really ain’t. I’m an established author with a whole series of books for sale and some of them even with pretty covers. Plus, some poems. What I wrote. The key thing is there is no competition. Just me. No need for refined searches or scrolling downwards. Just me (and Karin).
And that makes this an important lesson in life. Me, I just got lucky, long after I stopped rolling the dice or hoping for an inside draw to a straight. Having carried the name Gary around with me like a dark unfathomable class crime all these years. Having burdened my wife with an unspellable surname for nigh on thirty years. Having failed to come up with a plausible anagram for the best part of 56 years. I have stumbled upon a modern truth.
You can be anyone you wanna be. As long as no-one else has bagged it first.
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