What the pluck? Television, turkeys and Google

I'm not going to pretend otherwise - occasionally, when I clearly have nothing better to do, I type my own name into Google and see what a search digs up.

With regard to me, there's precious little. Usually the most prominent 'Mark Gorton' is the American businessman and technologist who founded Limewire, a music sharing platform. He also owns Tower Research Capital, a financial services company, and has spent the last few years getting to grips with what America calls 'deep politics'. Mr Gorton expressed his belief that a secret organisation called The Cabal has actually dominated the American political landscape for decades, and regards the assassination of President Kennedy as a coup d'etat.

All of which sounds jolly interesting, but in a land of countless competing conspiracy theories it would take a lot of willpower on my part to read all the evidence Gorton has presented - and if I did I doubt I would feel enlightened.

So let's move on to another Mark Gorton who appears high up the search rankings.

During a long career as a television producer I've made a lot of things I'm proud of, and some I have airbrushed from my CV.

In the movie and television industries, a very poor film or TV show is often described as 'a turkey'. 

In 1986, George 'Star Wars' Lucas produced Howard the Duck. In a way, the title was a hostage to fortune. You can imagine critics praying for it to be terrible so they could write: HOWARD THE DUCK IS A TURKEY!

Which they did. Because it was. A television equivalent, also starring an animal (a bizarre robot), might be 2011's Don't Scare the Hare from BBC Entertainment. After three of nine episodes and an all-round panning, the Corporation announced that the show would not be coming back. 

I am reminded of a great line from Mel Brooks' The Producers. Looking for the worst musical of all time that is bound to be a flop, Max Bialystock and Leopold Bloom find the script for Springtime for Hitler. Says a delighted Max, "This show is so bad it will close on page eight!"

So it was with a sense of dread that I saw Google had quickly found many entries for 'Mark Gorton, Turkey Producer'. At first I thought, "How does the machine know? Artificial Intelligence must have made great strides." But then it occurred to me that whatever reputation I have has been dragged through the digital mud and that such a description is deeply unfair and potentially damaging (though not necessarily untrue…)

Mark Gorton, producer of turkeys - Picture: TNP

What a relief then, having probed deeper into the content, to discover that Mark Gorton is indeed a producer of turkeys, the founder of Traditional Norfolk Poultry or TNP for short, a leading UK producer of free range and organic birds.

Here at Heswall Nub News we would never seek some sort of morally wrong kickback by writing, 'TNP's turkeys are certainly not turkeys! They're great!' 

But if Mark Gorton Turkey Producer stumbles across this article online, here's my message: 

"Mark, spare a thought for your namesake in Wirral. There's a financial crisis on, and Christmas, a time for giving, is coming. Thank you."