Guru Receives International Acclaim

Yes, my thanks to a (2CV-obsessed) visitor from the UK for the kudos. As well as the UK, Guru receives visitors from the US, Canada and, of course, Australia. But other recent visitors have surfed here from such diverse countries as China, Israel, Kuwait, Latvia, Mexico and Poland*.

So you will doubtless be excited to hear that Guru is now available in 20 languages! Well, not actually the whole site. But the word ‘curiosity’ is. (Well, Rome wasn’t built in a day!) Here are the translations:

thagmë {Albanian}, zvìdavost {Czech}, nysgerrighedsforskning {Danish}, nieuwsgierigheid {Dutch}, merkillisyys {Finnish}, curiosité {French}, merkwürdigkeit {German}, kíváncsiság {Hungarian}, curiosità {Italian}, peeikearagh {Manx**}, nyskjerrighet {Norwegian}, curiosidade {Portuguese}, ciudãţenie {Romanian}, znatiželja {Serbo-Croatian}, curiosidad {Spanish}, nyfikenhet {Swedish}, ilginç şey {Turkish}, tính hiếu kỳ vật kỳ lạ, tính ham biết sự tò mò, sự ham biết {Vietnamese}, cywreinrwydd {Welsh}


* Could my dream date be a step closer to fruition...?

** This form of ancient Gaelic formerly spoken on the Isle of Man is sadly seldom translated into, and devotees of the language are sure to be happy that it is represented here. However, note that there doesn’t appear to be an exact translation for ‘curiosity’ — ‘peeikearagh’ approximates to descrying or peeping. Alternatives would be ‘fysseragh’, meaning inquisitive or prescient, or ‘cooishagh’, which means artful or wily.

The 39 Steps

There are, of course, 39 Steps to enlightenment. However, what with meditating (in the form of watching the new Battlestar Galactica), chanting (lines by The Cat Empire) and accumulating wisdom (a secret process involving ants, rye bread and acetone) The Guru has little time for posting them.

Here you will find a regularly updated list of all Steps posted to date.

1. Visit The Guru’s Guru often


2. Massage your ulna

That’s it for now. But don’t worry — Step 38 is ‘Patience is a virtue’...

Ask The Guru

When The Guru isn’t dipping tortillas into fresh guacamole or watching 1990s episodes of The Simpsons he likes to impart his wisdom to gurus and would-be gurus.

You can contact The Guru 24 hours a day with your queries and quandaries – either via the email address at the top of this page or by leaving a comment – and he will work hard, 24 hours a year, to answer them.

If you email, let him know if you want to be referred to on the site by your email display name, Blogger screen name, or neither.

Comments are moderated, so won’t appear straight away. Think of The Guru’s Guru as a place of tranquillity*, where your karma won’t be subjected to the hate so prevalent on the web.

* and all-round weirdness

Chanting Et Al

As detailed in The 39 Steps, fruitiness is at the core of the Guru’s Guru philosophy. While movements such as Scientology and Freemasonry are taken very seriously by members but seem incredibly wacky to the world at large, The Guru’s Guru aims to be as unfathomably weird as possible.

You are therefore encouraged to chant “Et al et al; Al et al” to the tune of the chorus of Britney Spears’ Hit Me Baby One More Time whenever you arrive at this site.

You know it makes sense!

The 39 Steps (Part 1)

There are, of course, 39 Steps to enlightenment:

Step 1: Visit The Guru’s Guru often

Step 2: Massage your ulna

Here at The Guru’s Guru, we embrace a daily dose of fruitiness. Does it focus your alpha waves? Centre your ch’i? Cleanse your chakra? Well, new thinking requires new terminology. So, we say it “massages your ulna”.

Be sure to do one of the following every day:

• Stick a Post-It Note saying “Post-It Notes” on a Post-It pad


• Read a random paragraph from a Jackie Collins book out loud


• Peel an onion wearing only a snorkel mask


• Exclaim wistfully to a ticket inspector “My water was just a curiosity to you!”


• Hop zigzag down a corridor, grinning widely


• Visit a chiropractor and ask to see their back-catalogue


• Sway gently from side to side while your train is at stations


• Ask someone directions to 1952


• Laugh hysterically at a scene from Two And A Half Men


• Set your watch 1 hour and 23 minutes fast


• When the phone rings, answer it by saying “Hi, can I speak to Jerry Maguire?”

Or you can try going freestyle (taking care, of course, not to mess with anyone’s karma). Share your ideas with others by commenting to this post.

Other Steps to be, um, revealed over time.

Gurus & Guacamole

Not all gurus live on platforms atop wooden poles or in isolated caves. (The wi-fi tends to be icky.) But enlightenment in a world of fast food, traffic jams and spam is not an easy thing to achieve. Yes, finding nirvana isn’t as simple as a trip to the local Virgin Megastore.

But there are answers. And you’ll find them right here. Just below the tasteful lime.

So break out the guacamole and lets see what happens. After all, as someone (I think it was Neil Armstrong) famously said, “Every journey begins with a single step”...

Hyperopia test

The first person to tell me what’s pictured in the title graphic will win an exciting prize!*

* Competition open to residents of Atlantis only

Q: Why am I here?

A: You are searching for answers.

The internet can be a handy thing. Want to know the length of Alaska’s Yukon River? No problemo – Google will happily spew out the answer (2,897 km) in under a second. How many Rutherfords in a Curie? Too easy: 0.00027027. You might have more trouble finding out the name of that groove between the nose and mouth, but the word philtrum will out in the end.

But ask a question like “Is there a god, and, if so, is he pissed at me?” or “Where are my keys?” and all of a sudden the curtain gets drawn back, and we find that Google isn’t all-knowing after all, just a latter day Wizard of Oz.

Well, breathe easy, web-surfer, for you have finally found the site that can answer all of your questions...