Anal. Ytics.

As is the norm for someone who writes a blog and takes an interest in such things, I follow the action on these pages with Google Analytics. This tool allows me to see, for example, how many visitors I get, the city in which they live, how long they viewed a particular page and how they found my site. Many of my regular readers access the site directly, either through a bookmark or through typing the name into their address bar. But a fair few access LLFF through Google's search engine - and another of the things that Analytics allows me to monitor is which search terms people are using to find this site.

The most popular, fairly unsurprisingly, is 'lost looking for fish', closely followed by 'lostlookingforfish'. I must say, however, that I was disappointed by the number of my Faithful who are clearly unreliable spellers or inaccurate typists. Typing 'lost' and 'looking' don't seem to present too many problems, but in the last month alone there have been attempts to locate lost looking for 'fih', 'fiah' and 'fsih' so in future I will remember that our piscean friends represent a dexterity challenge. These Googlers, though, are at least on the right tracks and I am fairly confident that, when someone types those terms and then clicks through to this blog, they'll have come to the right place.

Sadly, however, there are a few people who search for issues with which I don't think I'll be much assistance. Unsurprisingly, I get a fair few (presumably disappointed) visits from people with fish-related queries. Someone simply searched for 'lost looking fish' which made me feel a bit sad. Someone else was interested 'how to tell what fish just had a baby' while a third clicker was simply 'looking for nice fish' which seems slightly vague but charming all the same.

Another search was more specific, asking for 'astrid "finsbury park" drunk', which sounds like it could be a story worth hearing, while someone else was clearly with me on the pedantry of the lower-case 'i' problem, as they searched for 'gmail inbox capitalisation lost'. I doubt that I was much help.

This one tugged at my heartstrings: 'how to shrink my massive bottom lip without makeup'. I simply couldn't imagine how these terms threw up my blog as a result, so I performed the same Google search myself - and sure enough, half way down page four, there was LLFF:

"I was reading a gripping article this morning about the massive figures that are ... I now have full sensation back on the right side of my chin and lip, .... over a week since my operation and I still can't feel my chin or my bottom lip. ... in The Guardian "Amazon could shrink by 85%" and panicked that my regular ..."

Clearly my wisdom teeth and my tendency to be hyperbolic were mostly to blame in that instance. I hope our swollen friend found more practical advice elsewhere. In a similar vein, a slighly paranoid Googler enquired 'is 5"10 small for a male?' and was directed to these pages for the answer. In the interests of generosity, I'll assume he meant 5' 10", in which case I'll say "No, it's about average in the UK, but personally I probably wouldn't date you." I suppose there's always the chance he (I'm assuming it was a man) was referring to another body part and meant 5 inches and 10/16ths, in which case I'm afraid I'd need more information to make a judgment call. There, ladies in gentlemen, is proof - should it be needed - of the importance of proper punctuation.

Right. I'm off to Get A Life. Well, for a few minutes, anyway.