Mr Google goes gaga
Apr. 6th, 2026 10:36 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
baroque_mongooseI don't use Google for anything these days, with one legacy exception. Many years ago I set up a Google Alert on d'Artagnan because he's so bad at remembering to tell me when and where he is singing (although, to be fair to him, when he does remember, it's not at all uncommon for him to tell me which trains to get and where to change). And I still have it... though, given recent events, I'm becoming less and less certain that it's still any use.
So, the other day, I got an e-mail through this Google Alert. It linked me to a concert information page. It was a St Matthew Passion, he was (of course) singing the Evangelist, and I think it might have been in Cardiff, but I'm not certain because it just gave the name of the venue. The date given was 1 August. Excellent, thought I; if I can get all the transport and accessibility ducks lined up in a row, there is a possibility I might be able to get to that.
So I e-mailed the address given on that page for the concert organiser, asking the usual questions about accessibility, nearest railway station, and so on. To my surprise, it immediately bounced. Naturally I assumed I'd mistyped the e-mail address, so I went back to check, and... no. I'd got it right.
I was just starting to get faintly annoyed that they'd put up a dead address on a concert information page when I noticed the date. This concert took place on 1 August 2014. It only took Google twelve years to let me know about it.
Even allowing for d'Artagnan's famous chaos field (we are, after all, talking about the man who once showed up for a rehearsal precisely a year early), that is a little beyond the pale; and it's frustrating, at that. What normally happens with these alerts is they show up two or three days before he's singing somewhere in Canada, and then I post on Mastodon to alert any music-loving Canadians in the hope that the concert hasn't already sold out (they really love him over there, so it probably has, but you never know, after all). But this last one was about as much use as a chocolate teapot. You know, just maybe you could have told me that about this time in 2014, Mr Google, so I could have stood a decent chance of actually getting to it?
Anyway, I'll see if it happens again; and if it does, I may have to go and look up how you remove a Google Alert, because at the moment I have no idea. I posted about this incident on Discord, and someone said it was because they were so busy trying to do all the really fancy stuff with AI that they hadn't noticed they were no longer getting the basics right. I have no idea if that's true, but I do know I'm very glad I don't use Google for anything else.
It was reliable, once.
So, the other day, I got an e-mail through this Google Alert. It linked me to a concert information page. It was a St Matthew Passion, he was (of course) singing the Evangelist, and I think it might have been in Cardiff, but I'm not certain because it just gave the name of the venue. The date given was 1 August. Excellent, thought I; if I can get all the transport and accessibility ducks lined up in a row, there is a possibility I might be able to get to that.
So I e-mailed the address given on that page for the concert organiser, asking the usual questions about accessibility, nearest railway station, and so on. To my surprise, it immediately bounced. Naturally I assumed I'd mistyped the e-mail address, so I went back to check, and... no. I'd got it right.
I was just starting to get faintly annoyed that they'd put up a dead address on a concert information page when I noticed the date. This concert took place on 1 August 2014. It only took Google twelve years to let me know about it.
Even allowing for d'Artagnan's famous chaos field (we are, after all, talking about the man who once showed up for a rehearsal precisely a year early), that is a little beyond the pale; and it's frustrating, at that. What normally happens with these alerts is they show up two or three days before he's singing somewhere in Canada, and then I post on Mastodon to alert any music-loving Canadians in the hope that the concert hasn't already sold out (they really love him over there, so it probably has, but you never know, after all). But this last one was about as much use as a chocolate teapot. You know, just maybe you could have told me that about this time in 2014, Mr Google, so I could have stood a decent chance of actually getting to it?
Anyway, I'll see if it happens again; and if it does, I may have to go and look up how you remove a Google Alert, because at the moment I have no idea. I posted about this incident on Discord, and someone said it was because they were so busy trying to do all the really fancy stuff with AI that they hadn't noticed they were no longer getting the basics right. I have no idea if that's true, but I do know I'm very glad I don't use Google for anything else.
It was reliable, once.
