Londoners Magazine

Have you ever Googled yourself? No? Me neither. Well, not until a few days ago, when I succumbed to midafternoon boredom and typed my name into everybody’s favourite search engine (oh come on, what else are you gonna use? Altavista? Ooh, how counter cultural of you…) I never thought so before, but I guess my ego is like the Tower of Pisa – huge, insecure and in constant need of reinforcement.

I don’t know what I expected to find. Maybe some links to this site, or some other bits and bobs I’ve written on the internet. In my head, I would then be convinced of my importance in the world and be able to go about my day with a big, smug smile on my face.

So you’ll imagine my surprise when one of the first search results I came across was a blog entitled “Chris Lo, the flaming homosexual”. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have an online alter ego. He likes walking along the beach, sipping champagne with his lover, and, apparently, “taking 12 inches of hard shaft up the old poop shute”. He goes on: “While you may consider this ‘gay’ or ‘faggy’, I just consider it a way of life.” Gets straight to the point, has a rough-and-tumble way with words – I like this guy already.

But that’s not all – here are three more reasons why flaming Chris’s blog is probably the best on the internet:

1. His posts (all five of them) are consistently awesome. Here’s an excerpt from my absolute favourite: “Hey guys! Just checking in to say that I’m feeling flamboyant and gay.”

2. He likes the movie 300. Probably for different reasons than I do, especially as he’s posted up a video of the trailer with “It’s Raining Men” dubbed over it. Still, I can’t deny it, that movie is stuffed with hot men. Or so I’m told.

3. Based on his first and last post, we discover that Chris started his blog on Friday, September 14 2007. There follows a flurry of activity, and his last post is uploaded the next day. So the blog has pretty much been dead for a year. This is especially brilliant as his intro pulled us in with the promise of learning “my story”. But, as his posts show, he’d had a heavy night in the club and gave up on all that blog bollocks. To his credit, he kept it going for nearly an hour.

Having taken a privileged peek into the life of one Chris Lo, I couldn’t stop. I needed to find more. And what a pack of cards we are. There’s the Chris Lo who lives in Hong Kong and has started a sweet blog to tell the world about his children. He loves spicy food and noodles. Favourite quote: “Sophia is a lovely girl when she is not naughty. But, it’s terrible when she cried. She is very sticky to mommy.” If you look at his profile, you’ll also find that he is the only man on earth capable of giving birth.

There’s Chris Lo Tha Sandman, aspiring hip hop producer and resident of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Listening to his sure-fire hit “Nutin’ U Can Handle”, I feel that his big break can’t be far away. He specialises in “keepin’ it tight as 50 virgins, learning tha only way to be free is to stay on tha top, keepin’ track of currency”. I particularly love him because he also likes UB40.

Then there’s the Chris Lo who felt the need to post footage of his wedding up on YouTube last year. Seriously, it’s the most depressing, least romantic wedding of all time. It’s basically three minutes of people signing documents in a small room and not smiling. Why would you post that up on YouTube? Still, I can’t stay mad at you, Chris. I love you too much to be mad at you for long.

So, there you have it. A small selection of my wonderful internet family. We’re a strange bunch, bound by our names and our abiding love of UB40. This is my new favourite hobby, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who’s unemployed enough to have a boring afternoon to spare. Give it a try – discover your own freakish inter-twins and tell me about them by leaving a comment below. Let’s face it, if I’m bored enough to Google my own name, I’m bored enough to read about you Googling yours.