What's in a name?

Regular readers of this blog will know that I recently moved from Blogger to Wordpress, assured that this was a much easier way to improve my rankings in the search engines. I am probably not using any of the tips and tricks of Wordpress yet to enable me to take full advantage, with the result that my Wordpress experience to date is one of endless spam. I guess that's indicative that my blog is easier to find than my last one, which never had a spammed comment. Now I get about five a day.

The whole Search Engine Optimisation thing, though, is tricky when you have a name like mine. This week's 'top of the Mark Davieses' is a chap in Manchester who thought he was the father of a child when he wasn't. Honest, if you searched, it wasn't me.

On a more regular basis, though, how I am ever meant to achieve that SEO pinnacle that people tell me about, when there's a Mark Davies who plays football for Bolton Wanderers, and another who plays cricket for Durham (one of the FIrst Class Bowlers to Watch in 2010, no less), is anybody's guess. Perhaps I should have stuck with blogger and just submitted myself to my fate.

Having a common name is clearly not something which is news to me. There were three Mark Davieses at Betfair at one point, if only briefly (there were two of us for a good couple of years, though); and when I was at the BBC, there were six of us: I was "Mark Davies - Sport". There was also a "Mark Davies - News", a "Mark Davies - Business", "politics", "admin", "post", and "transport". Whenever an e-mail from someone unrecognised came in to one us addressed just to "Mark Davies", we used to send it round to all the others and ask, "anyone's?"

When I started at Betfair, I always had great sympathy for the significantly more eminent Mark Davies who sits on the Board of Ascot. His name unblemished in racing over many years, he suddenly found himself regularly lambasted in the pages of the Racing Post for bringing this terrible and life-threatening product into the industry, driving that famous 'cart and horses' through legislation. He was particularly unfazed and kind about it when I first met him. Classy chap, of course. ;)

But to be honest, it all started early, and could only get better from my first brush with someone of the same name. It dates from a time when I was a nipper.

It happened that one weekend, a Mark Davies who was a former pupil at my boarding school was tragically killed when his horse fell on him (he was an eventer). For reasons that I now don't remember, I happened, that morning, to be at the doctor. So when the chaplain, at morning chapel, announced 'a prayer for Mark Davies, who died tragically at the weekend', a buzz went round: we all sat in fixed seats for roll-call purposes, and mine, of course, was empty.

I spent the morning oblivious to the fact that the entire school thought I was dead. When I got back to my boarding house mid-morning for elevenses coffee, I found people kicking their heels gloomily, asking each other if anyone knew what had happened.

I've often thought how my life would have turned out, had I returned to find they were all having a party.