17 May 2007

Search engines and the quavering wotsit of council powers

Litter wardens in Crawley issued an £80 fine to a woman whose toddler dropped two Quavers on the street. Creepy Crawley Council revoked the fine and apologised. Nevertheless Councillor Beryl Mecrow admonished: “People have a responsibility not to drop litter.” It follows the episode of the woman fined for throwing a Wotsit in Luton last year.

These gems should not be lost to future generations of ethnographers. But what happens when we search the trusted gold-standard, soon to be one and only e-goverment web site for the central search terms?

Search: “Quaver”

Search: “Wotsit”

The £multi-million site appears to deny that either such episode ever occurred!

But, if given the existence of Google, you prefer to search on the twopenny-halfpenny alternative government search engine the entire pattern of council behaviour is laid bare. Thus we prove the “Wotsit principle” (set out more elegantly below by Dr Paul Hodgkin): independent sites reflect better what people are interested in. They don’t give a fig about what government thinks is important. Thus they win.

Although Luton Council’s website carries a cheery defence of their cheesy shocker, Crawley’s own site also pretends that nothing untoward to do with crisps (here) or with Quavers (here) and the Council has ever taken place, even though this must have been the year’s hottest news story in Crawley. It is kinda creepy, isn’t it?

Aconyms: 2. Cheesy/crass brand names: 3

 
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