Although Googlism is now defunct (in the sense of not updating when Google does), you can still manually replicate its effects. Just Google for "[phrase] is", and the effects are similar.

I used this today in an effort to determine the safest thing (someone suggested it might be tape, which struck me as possible but unlikely). According to Google, these are the safest things:

* "The safest thing is to not keep a gun at home"

* "The safest thing is not to have sex with someone else "

* "the safest thing is to talk about Jesus as ‘a man of colour’"

I’m sceptical of the truth of the third claim: after all, one might be talking to a white fundie from Alabama. The other two are more feasible, but at least one of them would make life rather boring. Not entirely sure whether this proves that Google isn’t really an oracle, or whether safety is just a bit rubbish.

As an additional test, I tried running the same query on "john b is". The results are conclusive:

* John B is ahead of his time

* John B is sincerely deluded

* John B is the only one of us who can do a handstand pushup

* John B is owned and operated by a fulltime professional Captain

All of these are, without the slightest doubt, true. Google is King. Hurrah!

Sidewaysly, this article is interesting: it points out, more or less, that as mobile phones become more like sophisticated pieces of electronics, it becomes less and less appropriate for them to be sold by smarmy school-leavers with ten minutes’ training. This is unfortunate, given the mobile phone industry’s current sales model.