Here's an interesting diversion, if you're sad, or bored, or both. As you're probably aware, almost everything on Wikipedia links to something else on Wikipedia. Just to see where it took me I decided to start from a random page - in this case Neil Armstrong - and follow the tenth link on each subsequent page to see where I ended up. The idea was that when I got to the tenth page I would read that one in its entirety. As well as gaining some new knowledge at the end, I figured I would pick up some interesting nuggets I didn't know before along the way, and I was right. Did you know that West Point Military Academy is in New York State, overlooking the Hudson River? That the Dutch East India Company was the first multinational company in the world, and the first to issue stock? What the Batavian Republic was? Unfortunately my plan to get into progressively more specialised areas somewhat backfired when the tenth link on the Patriot Party (political faction of the Dutch Republic) was United States... but I still ended up with something quite interesting:

Neil Armstrong
David Scott
West Point
Hudson River
Dutch East India Company
Batavian Republic
Patriot Party
United States
Canada
French colonisation of the Americas

Then I had another go, starting (as we approach the 60th anniversary of the health service) with arguably my least favourite institution, BUPA:

BUPA
Leeds
Historic counties of England
The Bishop of Durham
Family name
Mr
American English
German language
Linguistic geography of Switzerland
French language

Not bad. I'm not sure if ten links is enough to get you away from the ones which are very similar to the topic you're on. Then again, Neil Armstrong to French colonisation is quite a journey, as is BUPA to French language (anybody still doubting that Wikipedia is part of a French conspiracy?)

If I were Dave Gorman I'd have visited all these places by now and made a supposedly spontaneous but in reality meticulously planned documentary about them. And given that my weblog is now apparently a hotbed of media research, any journalists reading this please note that I thought of this first and if you stick it in your newspapers I want my cut! Likewise if it takes off as on online cult, I want everybody pointed back to my weblog. I like the idea of thousands and thousands of people ending up here thinking "this is drivel".

I've often wondered who the (according to the blog stats) regular 40-50 visitors to this weblog are in the long weeks when I don't get my act together to post anything on it. Now I know. They're researchers desperately looking for material with which to fill their radio programmes and magazines.

A couple of weeks back I got an e-mail from a woman at Radio 4 who wanted to speak to me about my dislike of mobile phones. She wondered whether she might be able to use me for a segment on one of their Saturday morning programmes in which, as far as I can gather, people with viewpoints which go against the grain get to say their piece. Then this week I got an e-mail from a woman at Time Out who is preparing a feature about different types of spotters and who wanted to talk to me about my number plate "hobby". Strange really - I go 40 years without the media having any interest in highlighting my saddest, most socially misfitting attributes, then two opportunities come along in a week. The Time Out one said "We would be interested to know why you're passionate about it, what got you into it and what it involves. Alternatively, it would be great if you could recommend somebody (who is London-based) who would be happy to talk." I love the idea that if I'm not willing to speak about it myself I have a phalanx of London-based number plate spotting cohorts upon whom I can call.

Sadly I must report that it doesn't look as if either of these will result in anything. Although I had a very pleasant conversation with the Radio 4 woman, I suspect she may have been looking for someone rather more strident and rabid than I am on the subject of mobile phones. Much though I loathe them, and moreover those people who claim that they couldn't live without them, I'm not on some sort of crusade against them. I find them an irritant, but I can appreciate their usefulness to many people. I don't own one simply because I have no need or desire for one, in much the same way as I don't own a fishing rod or a loom.

And as for the woman from Time Out, I imagine that my response to her that I see number plates as less of a hobby and more of an obsessive compulsive affliction I can't shake probably ruled me out of that one. And if that didn't, telling her I'm in Oxford probably did (I'm guessing that since she wondered if I had a London-based fellow spotter she must assume, like everybody else in London, that anybody who is in any way interesting or has anything to offer must also be in London). I'm not sure there's much to be gained from appearing in Time Out anyway, unless I could somehow ensure that they presented me with the same level of self-deprecating awareness of the innate stupidity of the number plates fixation as I maintain here - and I think there's a good chance they'd see more mileage in going down the conventional nerdy dork route. I don't imagine the fully rounded father of four part of my life (i.e. 98% of it) would feature too prominently.

However, these two incidents have made me wonder whether I shouldn't start shaping my weblog - since it seems to have become a source of material for media types - in anticipation of further examination, so that I might subsequently get offered other projects more apposite or generally appealing. So stand by for "I've always wondered what it would be like to meet Stevie Wonder backstage", "Retiring at 40 - can it be done?" and "Why I said no to a threesome with Tea Leoni and Roisin Murphy".