Whack my Google, and relate me an adventure (Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure (DVD))

Member Name: mattygroves10

Product:	Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure (DVD)
Date:	17/04/09 (332 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Laugh out loud funny. Intelligent. Entertaining.

Disadvantages: Not everyone will like the shouty, sweary style

Wisest counterintuitions. Twort reductivism. Snarky forefoots. What do all these somewhat bizarre phrases have in common? According to http://www.googlewhack.com/tally.pl they are googlewhacks. "What in god's merciful name," you may ask, "is a googlewhack when it's a home?" A googlewhack is a Google search of two real words (more on that in a minute) that, when plugged into Google without quotation marks, yields exactly one result. The result cannot be in a word list (i.e. a list of synonyms, hurricane names, stuff like that), and each word must appear in Google's dictionary of choice (which is, these days, Answers.com). You know if they appear there because if they do, the result bar at the top right hand side will have both words underlined, meaning you can click on them to get a definition. Easy, yes? Well, go try it. Go on. I'll wait...still waiting...and still waiting. It's hard, isn't it? In fact, it's harder now than it was when Dave Gorman became utterly obsessed with not only finding Googlewhacks, but visiting the people whose pages yielded these rare gems.

It went even further - he, in a drunken bet (well, bet-ish), vowed to meet ten Googlewhacks in a chain. Just to make life more challenging (as everyone loves a challenge), he invented some rather arbitrary rules. He found two Googlewhacks. He visits one (or both) results, and each of those results finds two more. He visits one of them (or both, but sticking with one at a time is easier to explain), and that person finds two, and so on. Ideally, it would work like this. Dave Gorman finds two Googlewhacks (call them A and B), and visits both. A finds him C and D, and B finds him E and F. He visits (say) C, who finds him G and H. He then visits G who finds him I and J. And so on. However, if the chain ends, (say both I and J turn out to be dead ends), he then has to backtrack down the chain - finding and visiting ten Googlewhacks isn't enough, it has to be in a chain. Follow? Oh, and this was all to be accomplished in the three months between New Year's Eve and his birthday in March. This, as you can imagine, resulted in quite the road trip, and some interesting (and sometimes drunken) antics. He met some interesting (and some frankly strange) people, most of whom were incredibly friendly and hospitable.

You or I probably wouldn't embark on such a crazy quest. You and I (well, at least I) struggle these days to find even one Googlewhack, much less actually visit the author. Even if you or I did any of these things, we would not be able (or necessarily inclined) to create a stage show, DVD and book around it. You and I are not, however Dave Gorman.

Following his adventures in Googlewhacking (which interfered with the novel he was meant to have been writing. As far as I'm aware, it never was written), he had a few debts to pay (not least the advance on aforementioned novel). The stage show was the result of this. Fortunately for me, he invited cameras in on the Cardiff leg of said stage show, and this fine DVD is available for purchase. And purchase it you should.

Dave Gorman is a very talented raconteur. He is an intellectual everyman. Yes, I realise that sounds contradictory, but it is accurate. Whilst he can swear like a trooper, and (apparently) drink like a fish, he is clearly very well read and very bright. He is also extremely articulate, and so you find yourself able to visualise and imagine his plight and adventures as he tells them. In addition to his facility with language, he also expresses (at times) extreme emotion (usually anger and/or frustration). You find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat rooting for him at each stage of his adventure (particularly when he finds himself in Texas with the oddest ever hangover...in his arm...).

You don't only, however, sympathise with Mr Gorman. You laugh. At least I laughed - loudly and frequently. He has impeccable comic timing. He also uses visual aids (mostly PowerPoint or similar) very, very well. No 'death by PowerPoint' here. He uses his slides to punctuate, illustrate and to, at times, raise laughs (again, the slides accompanying the description of his arm-ish hangover are never to be forgotten, not least by Dave Gorman himself). However, when he wants to make a serious point (as he did when relating his meeting with Duane Gish, a prominent American creationist, who is elderly, bewigged, and as mad as a sack of hammers, and either doesn't understand or wilfully misinterprets the second law of Thermodynamics) he is able to do so clearly, yet without talking down to his audience nor alienating them.

In addition to the broadcast of the stage show itself, the DVD does have some extras. You can watch the show with 'additional narrated inserts' - on this setting, every so often, a little cartoon Dave Gorman head will pop up. You can then press a button on your remote, and Dave will elaborate on some point just made. I watched the show this way (after having watched it 'straight'), and though it was interesting, there wasn't much there that wasn't in the accompanying book (which I have read - in fact, I read it before seeing the DVD). There are outtakes (very funny), audience Q&A (interesting), the Googlewhack song (irritating), a picture gallery (if you've got the book, you'll see nothing new here), and some PC extras.

You have probably already gathered I enjoyed this very, very much. The DVD and the book complement each other very nicely - you get more detail (and still tons of laughs) in the book, but you benefit from Dave Gorman's sometimes manic delivery, and the reactions of the audience in the DVD. I do wish they'd bring back the little booklets they used to include with DVDs, so that you can get some additional information without having to resort to the DVD extras, but that is only a minor quibble.

A friend of mine described Dave Gorman's style as 'ranty and shouty' - if that's not your cup of tea (George Carlin was another proponent of that style of delivery), and if you are offended by reasonably frequent 'bad' language, this may not be the DVD for you. If, however, you enjoy hearing a good (true) story well told, you will thoroughly enjoy Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure. I have rarely laughed so much.

You can buy this on Amazon for £14.98 and it's rated 15. There is also a book by the same name (which I also recommend). Dave Gorman maintains a website which can be found here http://www.davegorman.com/ - you can get to his often amusing blog from there. He also has a Twitter presence, and clearly enjoys using it.

Last words of advice: don't send Dave your Googlewhacks - he really doesn't want them. And should you ever meet Dave Gorman, never, ever mention the cause of the arm hangover. He won't thank you for it. Sorry, Dave.

Summary: Very funny, yet true tale of a foolish bet and outrageous fortune