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What's in a name? A lot of unintelligible HTML.

I only wanted to change my name. It shouldn't be that hard.

A little background: in 2003, when I started this weblog, you could count Australian weblogs on one hand. It made sense to use an internet handle at the time.

The blog was a place to store recipes, online being easier than having a drawer full of newspaper cuttings, pages torn out of cookbooks, hand-jotted notes stained with gravy, and split pea packets (etc) with recipes printed on their reverse side. At the start, the blog didn't even have a comments function. So I chose a name that simply represented what I do in the kitchen, which is mess about a lot without getting get too serious about food. I wanted to distinguish this blog from the rash of over-serious 'foodie' blogs that subsequently took over the world.

Now, of course, everyone has their own name on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and dozens of other online time-wasting functions, so I thought, after twelve years, I should drop the 'kitchen hand' handle and use my real name.

Easier said than done. I thought I could simply replace the two words 'kitchen hand' with 'Paul Kennedy' in the template. But the name 'kitchen hand' does not actually exist in the entrails of the blog. It is in a cloud somewhere, belonging to Google+, and is teleported by magic to the bottom of the page when I post an item or make a comment. So I was blundering around in the HTML, trying not to make an inadvertent error which would turn my blog pink, or lose all the posts, trying to find the code that represents the post name, having googled an answer to the problem. The code that several google solutions proposed wasn't there, for the simple reason that google solutions are so often wrong. Just any doctor.

It would have been easier to change my real name by deed poll. Maybe I'll do that. Any suggestions? I want to be different. At school in the 1960s, I was one of six Pauls in the classroom at St John Bosco's Niddrie and, of those six Pauls, four had surnames starting with 'K'. Further, there was another Paul Kennedy in a lower grade.

Comments

  1. Geez, why do they make the damn thing so hard? I always thought you could just go into your Blogger profile and change the name you want displayed at the end of a post...

    But to be fair, I wouldn't be able to refer to you as KH...rather PK
    I guess Google wants to oown everything about us. It wants to take over the world KH/PK

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  2. Yes, exactly. Now I'll test it by replying to your comment and see what name Google gives me.

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  3. Well, what a surprise. It has named the real me, yet with posts it still has me as Kitchen Hand. This could be the best of both worlds ...

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  4. PK. I did a test as well. I went into my profile and changed my name. I then OK'd it and noticed that all my posts reverted to the new me. (Indie Girl) I have since changed it back, but it is possible. I wonder why it isn't working for you?
    The wonders of the interweb

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  5. Apparently certain Blogger templates (i.e., customised ones) do not allow the name to change, for some mystical reason. Even they probably don't know why.

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