"Chris Russell"

When I first started gaying it up round Newcastle every second person I bumped into was called Chris, and googling "Chris Russell" suggests the whole name is quite common too.

Recently I joined Facebook.. and it occurred to me today: how many Chris Russells can I find?

A general name search finds over 500, unsurprisingly, so I restricted the search to the Manchester group.

There are only 18 Chris Russells in Manchester, according to Facebook.

But now I was interested - with such a small group it would be quite fun to see what we did or didn't have in common. I suppose I was a little inspired by the scene from American Splendor (which is a great film anyway, you should watch it!).


So I restricted my search further: show me the gays!

Zero.

According to Facebook, I'm the only gay Chris Russell in Manchester. I always *knew* I was special!


So how else are these Chris Russells different from me? And how are they similar?

Well lets start with the basics: of the 18, 6 are girls. 9 of the profiles are private.
3 Chris Russells declined to specify their exact age. The rest are older than me - their ages range from 29 to 49.
Religion came as a surprise - 7 Chris Russells avoid the question by not answering or saying something very vague. 1 Chris Russell is Christian, which I can't help but think of as letting the side down. I am the only obvious atheist in the group.
When it comes to politics the Chris Russells are similarly coy - 6 don't specify a bias, 1 describes his political inclination as "moderate", 2 are "liberal".

Now obviously this has been a thoroughly scientific study so far, but I decided to depart slightly from my rigorous methods for the final "similarity metric" - of the profiles I could access, if Chris Russell listed an interest that I actively agreed with, I incremented their "score". Likewise, if something struck me as dreadful I decremented the score.

The otherwise perfectly valid statistics are somewhat wrecked by the fact 5 of the Chris Russells have completely empty interest sections. Anyway..

Name: Chris Russell
+ points: classic rock, blue planet, family guy, spaced, red dwarf, monty python, back to the future, indiana jones trilogy, lord of the rings, bill bryson
- points: the f word, tom clancy
Similarity score: 8

Name: Chris Russell
+ points: nintendo ds, scissor sisters, pavarotti
- points: house, corrie, scent of a woman, pretty woman, barbara taylor-bradford, catherine cookson
Similarity score: -3

Name: Chris Russell
+ points: steve vai, simpsons, my name is earl, the matrix, forrest gump, labyrinth
- points: lost, da vinci code
Similarity score: 4

So clearly this demonstrates I'd get on with Chris Russell, but that I should avoid Chris Russell at all costs.

I wonder if I can get a grant to pursue this..