THE AMAZING STUFF YOU CAN FIND ON GOOGLE

Google "alerts" are intriguing things. The other day, I got a message that my name had showed up all over the place - but most of the entries were way in the past, including a whole mass of e-mails that I had posted to MaplePost (that's the Canadian folk music "list") in September 2001!  I presume that a skillful computer whiz could easily go back and find out EVERYTHING I've sent to that list in the last half dozen years - just how many amazing mistakes in judgment and/or fact have I committed?

Google also came up with the obit I wrote for the Globe and Mail back in 1999 on my old friend Richard "Hock" Walsh (that's apparently still up on the Downchild website), a list of all the sleeve notes I've written for various CD projects (they listed 22, but I know I've written many more than that), and a notation on one music site that suggests if you like me, you'll also like Holger Petersen and Ian Tyson.  Sure thing!

And best of all I found a citation from Toronto radio DJ and excellent postie Steve Fruitman, who - a few years back - gave me the

Golden Porcupine Award on his Back to the Sugar Camp radio show on CIUT. You can share my blushes: Here's the citation.