IF Google had been around when I was at school I would have sailed through my exams. Instead I manage to scrape together O Level history and geography and escape to do something more interesting out in the big wide world.

Now we have the big wide world web and you don't have to move very far to find out anything and become a half-expert in everything.

Of course Google and the web wasn't around during my school days and indeed a computer in those days with the sort of clout delivered by today's machines would have been the size of London.

The point is that this universal encylopaedia is not only brilliant for tracking down information, but you can also have lots of fun. Just whack in random words and see what is thrown up.

More disconcerting, however, is how many Paul Mortimers there are out there. Even more upsetting is that mine doesn't come out on top of the pile! (I think it was on page three.) That honour goes to a wedding photographer in Cumbria. He is followed by Dr Paul Mortimer, chief executive of the governing body of Hollingworth High School and has been a head teacher for 16 years.

There's another who is something to do with films, but the website is so bad I can't work out whether he's a script writer, magazine editor or actor. I'm astonished to find a Cllr Paul Mortimer in Watford announcing he was standing down as a Lib Dem.

Then there is the Paul Mortimer Homepage which has an eye-watering rippling lavender effect. He appears to be a programmer for he writes: "I have used CTOS/ADS extensively in the past (Unisys mini's to you), now I use VB for front-ending FileNet software to develop document imaging and workflow client/server application."

No, I didn't understand a word of that either.

Then there is the Paul Mortimer in New Zealand who is lucky to still be alive after being hit by a bolt of lightning which entered his body through his back and exited through his left eye. There is a Paul Mortimer who was the youngest Brit to finish the Marathon des Sables, one who was first team coach at Brentford (I believe he use to play for Charlton), another who is a painter and decorator in Oxford and yet another who is a building inspector in the town of Delasfield in Wisconsin.

There's the technical architect who writes: "The only syntax I can find is something like .. " - doesn't he realise we're hopeless at maths? And there's one in Guildford who asks people on a tyre forum why his tandem tyres keep blowing out.

There is also the PM who plays in a Canadian grunge band and another who finished third in the World Mountain Bike Bog Snorkeling championship in Llanwrtyd Wells. I know I'm Welsh, but I can assure you it wasn't me.

At this point I was becoming seriously unnerved. After all I'm an individual - there's only one of me (aren't we glad, I hear you cry) but I start coming over all surreal when seeing all these people marching around with my name.

Suddenly I'm not just me, but one of a whole crowd of Paul Mortimers all thrown together by Google.

I think I need to go and lie down after all that.