Piggynap’s Blog

The other day I asked my Twitter followers for their favourite blogs. I wasn’t looking for ‘industry blogs’ - its the Xmas holiday after all and I’m sure we’re all enjoying a break from work. I wanted pure awesomeness and thankfully, the Tweeple came through. Here are some of the best recommendations for holiday reading:

Paul Daniels’ Ebay Transactions An in-depth look at the eBay trading of celebrity magician, Paul Daniels. Each auction is closely followed with deadpan commentary and we get an insight into the private online life of one of Britain’s best loved entertainers. Pure genius. Thanks @Carpsio

Clublife Follows the nightly experiences of a New York bouncer. Full of wit and an almost sympathetic look at the junkies and asshats who make his life difficult. Thanks @Stuartpturner

Fun With Opinions A blog about blogging, or ‘metablog’ if you will. It picks apart our everyday conceptions and asks the questions most people don’t even think about. Thanks @arickmann

LOL god Religion can get kinda dull, right? Here’s a whole load of religion fun, which reminds us that we shouldn’t take god too seriously. Thanks @onewild

Photoshop Disasters A collection of hilarious…you’ve guessed it, photoshop disasters from around the world. This one’s from me

I’ve never really been on the review site Ciao before, but some Googling related to my recent obsession brought it up as the third result. I can only surmise that Ciao don’t moderate contributions.

This is a review of ChuckleVision by the user, ShemalesWalkAmongUs. Enjoy…

Full Review

Two men, one destiny and one married man. This is the legend of the Chuckle brothers, the men who inspired Laurel and Hardy and, to a lesser extent, Queen.

Born in 1908 and 1912 respectively, Barry and Paul Chuckle are best known these days as TV’s premier entertainers, having appeared in such time honoured epics as ‘Chuckle Vision’, ‘The Matrix Reloaded’ and, more famously, the global sensation ‘The Male G-Spot’. We’re here today, however, to celebrate just one of these achievements. Chuckle Vision, a national instituiton and the longest running TV show of all time. It’s been translated into 48 languages and is said to be shown somewhere at any given time of day or night.

Chucklevision was the brainchild of Alfred Hitchcock and was originally written with Sydney Poitier in mind. After a successful 25 year run known as the ‘golden streak’, Sydney left the top spot to persue other projects and allow fresh talent to saunter in. After a successful audition in which Alfred was brought to tears, Paul and Barry were given the job. 1948 never looked so pretty. The show went from strength to strength and included such daring storylines such as the 1958 Oscar winning episode where Barry Chuckle had explicit (some might say unnecessarily hardcore) sex with a black man. This 98 minute live extravaganza managed to pull in an impressive 74 million viewers world wide.

Sadly the 1958 spectacular was the height of their success for now as their most controversial moment was a step too far. In 1968 the brothers went to Vietnam to entertain the troops. Unfortunately their career was stopped for the time when they not only entertained the wrong troops but they chose that moment to showcase their latest show ‘The human toilet’. In theory this was comedy gold but in practise having a 57 stone morbidly obese man sit on the frail face of Paul backfired spectaularly. After three months of extensive facial reconstructive surgery (which achieved mixed results), the Chuckle Brothers were spectularly charged with crimes against humanity and sentenced to 74 years in prison. Chucklevision, as we knew it was dead.

In 1985 they were released and made a Lazarus like come back, appearing on Michael Parkinson’s show. Unfortunately, the show was interrupted when Barry fell into an instant unexplainable coma. Allegations persisted of heroin and cocaine abuse and the Chucklevision project was haunted by repeated homosexual allegations.

With Barry critically ill in hospital, Paul headed for Hollywood where he starred in the cult classic ‘Son of deep throat’. Sadly, a stunt backfired and Paul’s windpipe was cruelly crushed and he was unable to speak for two years.

In 1992, a Jesus like resurrection from Barry saw the Chucklevision project given the kiss of life. This new incarnation was helped along by some familiar faces such a young Ghandi, William Shatner and the pope. Finally back in the lime light the brothers took the time to write their famous autobiography ‘A life in pictures’. It’s still a best seller, having shifted in excess of 700 million volumes.

Things were going well until, in 2001, allegations of Paul having an affair with a married man hit the newspapers. Cruel pictures and the nickname ‘the golden shower’ forced Paul to go into hiding for two years. Barry carried the torch, but Chucklevision felt the loss of the leading man during this period as audiences plummeted to all time lows of only 10 million. Something drastic had to be done…. and it was.
In 2004 a star studded cast, including Art Attack’s Niel Buchanan and Nelson Mandela, welcomed the brothers back out of the darkness. The show was an instant global success. The brothers continue today to continue to wow audiences the world over and the upcoming movie about their lives featuring Hugh Jackman and John Candy is tipped for the top. We wish Paul and Barry all the luck and thank them for putting Britain on the map.

Chucklevision has been with us since the beginning and we owe these men a huge debt of gratitude. Many years and many seasons have passed but the legend that is Chucklevision lives on. It is art, it is poetry, it is Chucklevision.

Little Known Facts:
Paul is a devout Muslim.
Most expensive episode cost £50,000 in 1961 which, in today’s money, is about £13,000,000.
Barry famously filmed a season while afflicted with Malaria.
Paul was born without legs but has been in denial about it ever since.
Paul and Barry aren’t actually brothers, they are father and son.
For one season, Mr. T filled in for Barry Chuckle and nobody realised, not even Paul Chuckle.

List of special cameos:
Keanu Reeves, who made his TV debut in 1959 on this show.
Elton John
Joseph Stalin, in rare TV appearance
Steven Spielberg
‘Nasty’ Nick Bateman from Big Brother 1

Famous storylines:
Paul in space (1958)
Barry and the law suit (1960)
Paul and the accident with the chocolate log (1967)
The jail special (1983)
Sex education video #1 (1988)
Paul and Barry vs. AIDS (1992)
Chuckle your way to a better body (1997)
The disadvantages of being gay (1998)
X-Men (2000)

I love Google Insights. It tells me things like Barry Chuckle is more popular than Paul Chuckle, and that Strictly Come Dancing is more important to the Great British Public than the economic crisis.

Aside from the half hour I wasted today playing with it, what else is Insights good for?

The comparison feature obviously has its uses - X-Factor producers will be glad to know they get far more searches than Strictly for example. It’s the search trends over time that really fascinate me however…not just to learn what’s becoming popular, but to compare what was popular in the past and why.

Let’s take a look at London 2012. Back in 2005 Lord Coe and his friends were organising their bid and winning the contract and we can see a huge peak on the trends graph. In 2006 no-one cared, but the Olympics were a point of interest again in 2007, apparently when the horrendous logo was unveiled.

Insights really demonstrates how search behaviour follows offline events and I think search marketers should take note. Rising trends, the next big thing, the hot news story…it’s all reflected in the graph. If you keep an eye on current events you can probably guess what’s going to hit Google next - what you do with that information is up to you. Building a site all about the impending Olympics or deciding to fire Paul Chuckle…we’ve got all the justification we need.

The current housing slump has already seen lots of estate agents lose their jobs, and the Telegraph reports that there could be a lot more on the horizon. Now, at the risk of sounding heartless I’m not exactly disappointed at the disappearance of this particular breed and I’m sure a lot of people would feel the same. Estate agents stretch the truth about properties (or just downright lie), they pester you to raise your bid, they charge extortionate fees whether you’re buying, selling or renting and they don’t seem to do very much for the money. What I mean by that is that nowadays all their properties are advertised on websites - you don’t really need to go into the shop anymore to browse (and why would you anyway…then you’d have to talk to one of them!). Like traffic wardens, it would be great if we could just get rid of estate agents in one fell swoop.

Well, soon we can.

Already websites like Rightmove and Fish4homes offer platforms for property search. There are also sites aimed at private sellers that are tapping into this growing demand but all of them have downsides. You might still have to go through an estate agent once you’ve found a house you’re interested in. You might have to pay to advertise your property. The website might be, quite frankly, crap.

Bethemiddleman is different. It’s a site aimed at private sellers and anyone who doesn’t want to go through an estate agent. So if you’re looking to buy, rent, let or even find a roommate it’s for you. Due to launch in 2009 it will be free to use so not only could you save thousands by selling your house through it, you’ve got nothing whatsoever to lose by giving it a try.

At the moment you can sign up to be notified of launch and you can follow its progress on Twitter. The housing slump is the death knell for estate agents and from the ashes, Bethemiddleman will be born!

This email really made me laugh, so I thought I’d share it with you

The BBC reported recently that Oxford and Cambridge are going to make some of their lectures available on iTunes. My old university UCL have a good history of making their lectures accessible - their free-for-all Lunch Hour Lectures were on when I was a student there and they’ve already got a lot of content on iTunes U.

One of my favourite things about studying at UCL was the ‘intercollegiate’ nature of the lectures. In the Philosophy department we shared our lectures with Kings College and Birkbeck so had access their staff, could go along to Heythrop’s philosophy club and we had access to all the University of London’s libraries including Senate House. There was also the Aristotelian Society whose lectures were attended by my own lecturers - there’s literally no better place in the world to study Philosophy because London’s huge resources are shared.

In the same spirit, my favourite academic moment was attending a lecture given by Roger Penrose at Senate House. It wasn’t associated with any university and I think it was free - the auditorium was only 2/3 full though and I thought it a bit of a shame because Penrose was fantastic. He talked about black holes and pointed at cone-shaped diagrams and glossed over the maths behind it all and I came out feeling like I’d been let into a little corner of Physics - a discipline I’d never be able to study normally.

That’s why I’m so excited about Oxbridge finally putting their lectures online. A lot of us haven’t been to university, or if we have we never studied everything we’d have liked to. Books like Richard Dawkins’ God Delusion are best-sellers but that’s the only insight we ever get into the real Academia behind it all - the conversations and debates that give rise to the theories we’re all so familiar with. Until now!

We’ve now got access to the minds behind ‘common knowledge’ and we can join in with their debates. You don’t need thousands of pounds to go to university any more, and learning doesn’t stop just because you’ve left. Hooray for iTunes U!

Google are increasingly pushing their products and services to pretty much everyone and Google properties like books, knols and news are starting to dominate the search results. It doesn’t have to be that way - you can actually get:

A nifty application that filters out Google’s own results. Find it here and enjoy search again