Let’s start at the very beginning, because it’s a very good place to start.
Aardvarks are ugly little animals, in all honesty. Only an aardvark’s mother could really love an aardvark. However, despite their distinctive and off-putting features, they have served one important purpose in modern society, and that’s as a useful name for companies that want to appear at the front of telephone directories. So it is that you will often see Aardvark Minicabs, Aardvark Industrial Waste Operatives and Aardvark Dry Cleaners – although some less imaginative companies simply go for A1, AAA or AA. (The latter, in particular, causes all sorts of unfortunate mix-ups between getting your car fixed on the hard shoulder of the motorway and getting support to conquer your addiction to pouring Bombay Saphhire on your cornflakes instead of milk).
“But,” I hear you ask, in exasperation, “how is the humble aardvark connected to the world of blogging?”

As many of you will have noticed, because you’re so observant, blogrolls and lists of recently updated weblogs are frequently alphabetical in nature. Therefore, it’s important to make sure that you get pole position. It’s no good calling your blog something stupid like Wherever You Are because, although it may seem like a deep and meaningful title at the time you came up with it, it begins with a W, for heaven’s sake. You fool. It could only be worse if you named your blog Zebedee’s X-Rated Zebra Zone. Or something. (That’s actually quite a disturbing name, now I come to think about it, because it brings to mind the possibility of X-rated pictures of zebras. I think we’d better move on).
Undoubtedly then, the best name for a weblog would begin with the word aardvark. Indeed, it’s my belief that as blogging gets ever more cut-throat and competitive, over the coming months you will see many blogs hitching a ride on this bandwagon and subtly altering their names. There’ll be Aardvarkgenic, Aardvark in a Little Red Boat, Aardvark Geezer and Aardvarks for Destruction. Variants such as Speaking as an Aardvark and, of course, Troubled Aardvark will help push up the particular blog’s alphabetical placing a little, but to achieve the full effect you really need to begin your title with the word itself.
As part of my in-depth research, I have identified the ultimate name for a blog, which I shall take for myself if ever I relaunch my site. And it has nothing to do with aardvarks, either. Ladies and gentlemen, I present AAAAARRRGGGHHH! Yes, it may look like a cheap attempt to simply include as many letter A’s as possible at the start of the title, thereby ensuring my pole position in every blog listing, but it is in fact a profound statement of the inner psychological turmoil that I’m seeking to communicate to the world at large. And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.